When the Truman Administration announced to the world that it was all in for the containment of Soviet expansion, the seldom fertile minds in Moscow realized that they could bleed the U.S. dry by instigating small brush-fire wars where 'ere they pleased (Korea, Vietnam) and never lose a man.
"Then came June 24 [1950]. Her skirts legally clean, Russia hit upon a way to fight the U.S. without technically using a single bullet or soldier of her own. It mattered little if Korean mercenaries, not identifiable nationally with the USSR, were doing the fighting. A satellite war was just as good a way to weaken the U.S. as a direct war - if not better."