Korean War Lessons: Mike Gallagher

On July 27, the somber notes of a bugle call commemorated a milestone that often goes ignored on the home front: the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. This date, marking the impermanent end of hostilities that resulted in more than 40,000 American dead and 100,000 wounded, rarely echoes loudly in our collective memory. But it resounds clearly elsewhere. In China, Mao Zedong’s decision to send “volunteers” to Korea is celebrated, while here in America, the “forgotten” conflict’s legacy languishes.

Congressman Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) is trying to change that. As the chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, he thinks the Korean War offers many lessons for America as it enters an era of revived great-power competition with China. In collaboration with Aaron MacLean, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former senior foreign-policy adviser and legislative director to Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Gallagher is doing his utmost to share the essential insights that can be drawn from the Korean War. At the end of last month, together with MacLean, the congressman authored a piece in Foreign Affairs about the war and taught a weeklong seminar on the conflict to college and graduate students through the Hertog Foundation’s Security Studies program.

About the Author

Bobby Miller

Bobby Miller is an ISI Fellow at National Review and a graduate student at Georgetown University.

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On July 27, the somber notes of a bugle call commemorated a milestone that often goes ignored on the home front: the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. This date, marking the impermanent end of hostilities that resulted in more than 40,000 American dead and 100,000 wounded, rarely echoes loudly in our collective memory. But it resounds clearly elsewhere. In China, Mao Zedong’s decision to send “volunteers” to Korea is celebrated, while here in America, the “forgotten” conflict’s legacy languishes.

Congressman Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) is trying to change that. As the chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, he thinks the Korean War offers many lessons for America as it enters an era of revived great-power competition with China. In collaboration with Aaron MacLean, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former senior foreign-policy adviser and legislative director to Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Gallagher is doing his utmost to share the essential insights that can be drawn from the Korean War. At the end of last month, together with MacLean, the congressman authored a piece in Foreign Affairs about the war and taught a weeklong seminar on the conflict to college and graduate students through the Hertog Foundation’s Security Studies program.