Should we have fought harder in the Korean War?

[abaris]

Okay, so it has two aspects, although I'm mostly talking about for the Korean people.

Who knows? They might have vanished entirely, since Mc Arthur wanted to drop the bomb. If Truman hadn't stopped and removed him, he would have gone through with it.

It all depends on what you mean by tried harder and even then it's too many of unknowns to form an opinion. The country was already in ruins and both sides only negotiated because they were exhausted. The South recovered, the North never did. It's also worth considering that the North has become a pseudo religious feudal system since then. Which it hadn't been in the early 50ies. With China as their only supporter and no enemy left, since (what if), the South had been defeated, it might have taken the same course as China. Stalin had already lost interest and died before the war was finally over. His main interest had been to bind as many western troops as possible anyway. Kind of like the West and Afghanistan, some 25 years later.