"MacArthur articulated his most famous dictum—“never get involved in a land war in Asia”—after the Japanese surrender, because he believed that Japan’s simultaneous war in China made his Philippines victory possible. Japan had annexed Manchuria in 1931, then invaded China in 1937"
[ http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/rethinking-do...]
We acheived our goals of stopping the Communists from conquering a friendly nation; so it's a victory.
No, we intervened in a civil war between two groups, one that we decided was more in our interests to support. And we opened 2 markets for arms to be sold to, that would be healthy vibrant markets (for arms) for the next seventy years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War