Was Macarthur a genius or a moron?

And his defense of the philippines was extremely reckless and lazy.

>his mother got him into west point then got an apartment with a view into his room to basically spy on him and make sure he was studying

jesus christ

Name one leader who didn't err.
That isnt to mention the fact that almost nobody in the world expected such a strong Japanese invasion at the time.

That doesnt mean the blame isnt on him, it is, but like i said before, every one makes mistakes.

>That doesnt mean the blame isnt on him, it is, but like i said before, every one makes mistakes.

it's not that he made mistakes.

it's that the magnitude of his fuck ups are are huge. when he fucked up, his soldiers were the one left with their asses hanging out.

>planes left on the runways 9 hours after pearl harbor
>basically left his men and took his ass-kissing officers with him to escape the philippines

>korea
>only ever spent one night there in the whole war
>had to be told by state dept of the gravity of the invasion
>famously said he'd only need 2 divisions to defeat the norh koreans
>pushing to the yalu without proper winter gear
>ignored and suppressed intelligence of 30 fucking divisions of vet PRC units crossing the border
>putting almond in charge

calling him egotistical is an understatement. he looked down on eisenhower for allowing subordinate offcers to be credited with victories. he threatened to demote one battalion or regimental commander because the guy was mentioned in an article.

and let's not even get into insubordination. his hand in the bonus army riots is amazing. he literally cost the president he was serving under re-election. i'm pretty sure if FDR has survived to post-VJ Day, he wouldve had mcarthur assassinated.

>Was Macarthur a genius or a moron?
a lot of the former and a little of the latter.

Historians hate him because he was anti-communist. He was a genius.

Morons are guys like Joseph Stilwell and George Marshall, who let China go red. MacArthur prevented the commies from taking over Japan and South Korea, and he is still hated for this.

youtube.com/watch?v=RrkzIN2eP0U

>Historians hate him because he was anti-communist. He was a genius.
He was a fuck up and played politics in wartime.

>lost the pacific in early 1942

He specifically warned FDR that the Philippines were vulnerable to a Japanese attack prior to Pearl Harbor. FDR didn't believe him and wrote him off, then drastically reduced the garrison there.

Can you provide a source for the claim that he was warned about the Chinese massing forces?

Everyone will put his disasters in Philippines and Korea but just so you can hate MacArthur more: get learned what he did to American Guerillas in the Philippines.

Basically: not everyone was caught in Bataan when it surrendered. Shitloads of Filipino and American soldiers and officers managed to escape to the jungles and lead guerilla wars across the Philippines. One of them was a civilian volunteer who ended up leading one of the most successful guerilla groups in the Philippines, and later on helped establishing America's first special forces units: Wendell Fertig.

This is how MacArthur treated American guerillas.
>Some scholars question why Fertig did not receive the Medal of Honor, despite his considerable military achievements at great risk of his life. Others question why, when Fertig commanded so large an army of irregular guerrillas, he was not promoted to brigadier general when other men, who were never in combat, received that rank as the U.S. Army grew in size. William Manchester, in his 1978 biography of MacArthur, American Caesar, offers the opinion that MacArthur and his staff may have had their own agenda in minimizing the efforts of Fertig, other resistance leaders and the guerrillas themselves in liberating the Philippines. For example, The American Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized General MacArthur to liberate the island of Luzon, but none of the other Philippine islands. After capturing Luzon, MacArthur invaded numerous other islands without authorization, and his actions were followed by a retroactive endorsement from the Joint Chiefs. Manchester stated, "He [MacArthur] wanted to become the liberator of the Philippines."[92] The Japanese Army's practice of referring to Fertig as "Major General Fertig, Commander in Chief in the Philippines" throughout the occupation period and its use of Japanese military notation in referring to the 10th Military District as the "10 Army Group" did not endear Fertig to MacArthur's headquarters.[93]

david halberstam's the coldest winter.

>He specifically warned FDR that the Philippines were vulnerable to a Japanese attack prior to Pearl Harbor. FDR didn't believe him and wrote him off, then drastically reduced the garrison there.
And then proceeds to destroy the original war plans in favor of using said limited resources to defend the Philippines' shoreline.

Which, you know, given the geographic nature of the Philippines, simply stretched logistics and vital resources to cover a wide area instead of concentrating them in a single hardpoint as the original plan intended.

So hes just a piece of shit in general?

also this
MacArthur's War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero by Stanley Weintraub

absolutely not, quit the contrary.
the man was flawed, just like we all are.

Thanks to both of you.

So did Stilwell and Eisenhower, with disastrous results in China and Eastern Europe.

If MacArthur played politics to the benefit of communism, like everyone else, he wouldn't be so hated.

Oh shut the fuck up with that, will you?

This, defense in depth. Even the Japs figured it out eventually

Not him, but WPO was a steaming pile of crap, and among other things, only hoped to hold the Japanese for 6 months, which was how quickly they thought they could get relief there.

As we know from the war in the Pacific on the water, that was an absurd assumption and sticking to the plan would just involve delaying inevitable defeat. Sticking to Bataan would just have the Japanese leisurely landing where they wanted, setting up their heavy guns (which yes, they did have), and then blasting a concentrated enemy until they fell apart.

Moron on the battlefield, good in garrison.

He lots most of planes in the phillipines on the ground. Despite being warned and told DC he was ready.

Gets caught with his pants down in korea. Despite being told about Chinks north of the river.

*Ahem*

>We could totally have kept the Nationalists in power guys
Do you know how many Americans ended up supporting operations in Southeast Asia? 3.4 million spread over a twenty year period. All in a failed attempt to prop up a country of 19.6 million people. 1 American for every six citizens. China had 552 million inhabitants at the end of the civil war. We would have needed about 92 million American in the effort to pacify China simply to achieve the same result as Vietnam, ie a country that can't last 3 years without American ground forces. That would be almost two fucking thirds of the entire American population at this time.

There was absolutely no way we could have secured a Nationalist China full stop.

The fact that MacArthur was stopped proves that that the American system is much better than the Roman one.

...

i'm actually surprised macarthur got as far as he did through the american civilian-dominated political system. the power he was able to exercise independent of washington is amazing in the 20th century.

this. The very fact that we're making comparison to Rome shows just how seriously crazy it was. I think it's something you really have to be versed in American political culture to understand the gravity of, too. I know that many countries have separation of military and civilian power and civilian control of the military on paper, but this level of insubordination was and is almost literally unthinkable for many Americans, without precedent in 200 years. The US has had a remarkably politically stable military for the most part. Just goes to show what an absolute madman he was though.

Wait really?
Dam

>who let China go red.
yes, because america could have ended a massive civil war without supplying heavily supplying the nationalists and possibly putting troops on the ground trying to occupy as giant a country as China!

The natioanisits were run by a bunch of dirty money grubbing elitists that littertally sat in the palace and gave orders. And saved their own skins when the time came to fight. Taiwan should be razed to the ground.

>then drastically reduced the garrison there
When did this happen? In fact reinforcements were waiting in San Francisco to be transported to the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

He wanted to fuck the Chinks sideways before they could become a problem. I wish Truman had listened to him.
In all seriousness: The failure of the US to support the Chinese nationalists properly was the worst foreign policy blunder in US history. Vietnam and Korea would have been totally different if we had the Chinese on our side. The Cold War as a whole would have been very different as well.

>In all seriousness: The failure of the US to support the Chinese nationalists properly

so when do you start posting seriously?

America being able to supress the Chinese revolution is a meme, nothing short of an effort similar to the ones in europe and the pacific combined could've changed the outcome of that civil war. America was is no position politically or moral wise to pull such an effort at the time.

There was mediation by the US to end the civil war between Mao and Chiang but Chiang didn't want peace, he was totally convinced he would wipe the floor with commies. US didn't force its hand into Chinese affairs and nationalists themselves fucked up the civil war.

Most likely a washed up moron.

Kuomintang was a corrupt mess in mainland china