(Mis)interpreting threats: A case study of the Korean war

During the fall of 1950, many American national security officials concluded that the Chinese Communists would refrain from undertaking full-scale intervention in the Korean War. Contrary to most secondary accounts, however, officials who doubted that Communist China would intervene nonetheless drew increasingly worrisome signs from incoming verbal threats and intelligence signals. A small minority of officials in the State Department expressed considerable concern over the dangers of having United Nations forces cross into North Korea and approach the Yalu River This growing concern and the minority of opposing voices, however, did not override the prevailing judgment-held by hawkish members of the State Department and the CIA as a whole-that China would more likely increase covert involvement in the Korean War, but would not undertake full-scale military intervention. Theories of biased assimilation and risk-taking practices have divergent success in predicting American reactions to the threat. Only further archival research can shed light on bow this case of American strategic surprise comports with these theories.