When North Korea's army suddenly launched a full-scale invasion of the South in June 1950, throwing an already tense international situation into outright crisis, American policymakers reacted with understandable alarm, scrambling to organize an immediate military response. At the same time, however, several top figures in the Truman administration saw the Korean crisis not only as a threat but also as an opportunity—or perhaps even an unlikely kind of salvation. The Korean War also inaugurated what became the U.S. policy of containment – the idea that communism could not be allowed to spread beyond a certain geographical point. Because the war was fought for political rather than military objectives, it quickly degenerated into a stalemate as both sides used the battlefield to jockey for political advantage at the negotiating table. Despite heavy casualties, probably two million deaths for the Chinese and North Koreans and 450,360 for the U.S.-led United Nations coalition, the war resolved nothing. The political stalemate led to a military stalemate. While the politicians debated, the two opposing armies engaged in a series of firefights designed to give one side political leverage over the other.