What was the impact of the Korean War on international relations and the Cold War?

The war, though long, bloody and costly, also seemed to prove and justify that a policy of containment - stopping the spread of communism to other countries - worked and was justified.  This would be part of the reason why we would get involved in Vietnam a short time later.  The war was mostly between the US and China, so there were tense relations between our two countries for more than 20 years following the Korean conflict.

It accelerated the Cold War between us and the Soviet Union, as the North relied on Soviet weapons to fight the war, and some Soviet pilots even flew missions against American jets during that time, and we knew it.  We accelerated the arms race, and the public became overwhelmingly convinced that the Soviets were bent on world domination, and social hatred of them and communists grew rapidly in the early 1950s.