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Korea: No Substitute For Victory

General MacArthur stated that "There is no substitute for victory in war." Regarding the Korean War, is this statement correct? If so, why? If not, why not?

Argument
There is no substitute for victory in war. Going to war with any expectation less than victory fails to effectively leverage a nations' war machine to achieve its political goals. Additionally, failure to achieve victory conflicts with any prior cost-benefit analysis in the weighting of the expected outcome (victory) against costs borne (death, debt, etc). All of these prior statements are a gross simplification of the issue. They over-simplify the situation by casting a static view of war. War is by no means static. As Clausewitz said, "war consists of a continuous interaction of opposites." It is a process which requires sophisticated gaming strategy and the availability of quality intelligence.
If confined to select whether MacArthur's quote is true or false, I must say false. This selection is based principally on the fact that war is a dynamic situation where objectives may change between the time of onset and conclusion. At times, politicians will be forced to make a decision between "two evils" that may not have been within the initial purview of planning. Politicians may also underestimate foreign superpowers thereby increasing the likelihood of being painted into a corner where an exit strategy is more important than accomplishment of initial objectives (victory). In the case of the Korean War, politicians changed the objectives between the onset and conclusion of the war thereby making it difficult to answer the question: What was victory in the Korean War?
In the context of MacArthur's statement "there is no substitute for victory," he was frustrated with the increasing likelihood that the war may evolve into a stalemate. Such a war would result in avoidable American deaths according to General MacArthur. Executing MacArthur's plans for a quick decisive...