What did the Korean War show?

Answer 1

The Korean War, the first major conflict after World War II, made it clear that the governments that had nuclear weapons were not going to use them in tactical combat. The removal of MacArthur after his posturing toward China indicated restraint, although it was the Russian atomic intervention that Truman feared : the Chinese did not yet have the bomb.

For the US, the re-mobilization of forces to the Pacific indicated the difficulty of conducting even limited warfare at that distance. For the UN, it was the first test of multilateral force projection and showed that coordinating the various military units was no easier than it had been in Europe six years earlier.

The war also showed how a single determined small nation could involve the superpowers (US, China) in regional conflicts near their territorial borders. Ten years later, it was the Russians provoking the US with missiles in Cuba.