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I'm not so sure about that. Mao had hardly consolidated his rule. Mao could have been told in no uncertain terms to stay out of NK or face nuclear attack. Remember the U.S. had the monopoly at that point.
Nukes wouldn't have been a solution and there weren't enough in the US arsenal. There were strategic plans within the Chinese govt to send a million Chinese soldiers thru the Bering Sea, through Canada and to the border.. also through the Pacific in an all out onslaught onto the US mainland. This wasn't something Truman was willing to risk.
Japan had a fraction of the resources and manpower as did China. That we ended the war with two bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki wouldn't have worked with China.
We have dropped thousands of JDAM and 37,000lb Massive Ordinance Penetrator bombs in the middle east, basically bombed it to shreds, and we can't even win there.
We had been producing at least one a month since 1945. That's ... many ... by 1950.
so were the soviets. they weren't going to just sit there and watch their backyard in china get nuked. hence, the stalemate. and that the million man Chinese army was set on attacking the west coast and northern border thru canada.
Shortly after the Chinese Communists entered the Korean War, MacArthur asked for permission to bomb communist China and to employ Nationalist Chinese forces against the People’s Republic of China. Truman refused, and MacArthur disagreed with him publicly. Truman, not wanting to extend the war, replaced him with General Matthew Ridgeway.
Nukes wouldn't have been a solution and there weren't enough in the US arsenal. There were strategic plans within the Chinese govt to send a million Chinese soldiers thru the Bering Sea, through Canada and to the border.. also through the Pacific in an all out onslaught onto the US mainland. This wasn't something Truman was willing to risk.
All right, look. Understand that I am not in any way suggesting that the United States should have used nuclear weapons during the Korean War.
However, the idea that China could have invaded the United States across the Bering Strait is laughable. How would they even get to the Strait? They had no navy of any significance, and there was/is no road infrastructure in the USSR/Russia leading up to the Strait. No roads, no rail connecting the area with the rest of Asia. And even once across the Strait - a person is 400 miles from the Alaskan road system, between them and which lies boreal forest, countless braided rivers, and the occasional mountain range. And crossing the Pacific at lower latitudes? Stop embarrassing yourself.
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Japan had a fraction of the resources and manpower as did China. That we ended the war with two bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki wouldn't have worked with China.
Adolf Hitler had all the manpower needed to invade Britain - but he lacked the specialized hardware and the ability to fight his way there. Yet on both counts he was far, far better off than Mao in the 1950s. China had no capacity whatsoever to invade Alaska or cross the Pacific and invade the Lower 48. To call the notion preposterous is to insult preposterous ideas.
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Originally Posted by ControlJohnsons
Nukes wouldn't have been a solution and there weren't enough in the US arsenal.
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Originally Posted by OpanaPointer
We had been producing at least one a month since 1945. That's ... many ... by 1950.
More than that - by the end of 1950 the U.S. had stockpiled more than 300 nuclear devices.
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Originally Posted by ControlJohnsons
so were the soviets. they weren't going to just sit there and watch their backyard in china get nuked. hence, the stalemate. and that the million man Chinese army was set on attacking the west coast and northern border thru canada.
Again, you're demonstrating your ignorance.
Douglas MacArthur's command was terminated by Harry Truman in April 1951. By that time, the only Soviet nuclear test had been the Joe-1 shot in 1949. This was a plutonium implosion-type bomb similar to the one used at Nagasaki. But that was just a test model.
The second Soviet test shot did not occur until late 1951, after MacArthur had been sacked. This was Joe-2, another test model. It wasn't until October of that year until the Soviets did a test drop from the air. But again, these are all test models not meant for deployment in combat.
The first nuclear weapon to be mass-produced and deployed by the Soviet Union was the RDS-4 model. They tested it for the first time in the summer of 1953. It was another plutonium implosion-type device with a yield of 30 kilotons. It was deployed beginning in 1954. But by 1954 the United States had deployed the Mk-17, the first fusion weapon to enter service. It had a maximum yield of 15 megatons - 500 times more powerful than the Soviet devices.
So, no, the Soviets most certainly were not producing deployable nuclear weapons in 1951. Not one a month. Not any at all. And the ones they eventually had by 1954 (a year after the end of the Korean War, at any case) were fewer in number than those possessed by the U.S., were vastly smaller in yield, and they didn't have nearly the fleet of capable aircraft to deliver them as did the USAF.
Truman was correct not to use nuclear weapons. But he most certainly did not decline to do so out of some hare-brained notion that the Chinese might invade Alaska, or that the Soviets had a nuclear arsenal with which to retaliate.
"More than that - by the end of 1950 the U.S. had stockpiled more than 300 nuclear devices. "
Yeah, I didn't have the energy to get Rhodes out.
This is true, but, these were mostly near-copies of the Fat Man bomb, (barely practical weapons) and could be carried only by B-49 and B-36 (B-49 was relatively easy prey for the MIGs of 1950) (B-36 apparently had a large advantage in max altitude against period fighters, but, range issues, a barely practical airplane) aircraft in 1950. B-47's were not available until mid-1951, and not really till '53.
The USSR had no operational nuclear capability AFIK in 1950.
This is true, but, these were mostly near-copies of the Fat Man bomb, (barely practical weapons) and could be carried only by B-49 and B-36 (B-49 was relatively easy prey for the MIGs of 1950) (B-36 apparently had a large advantage in max altitude against period fighters, but, range issues, a barely practical airplane) aircraft in 1950. B-47's were not available until mid-1951, and not really till '53.
The USSR had no operational nuclear capability AFIK in 1950.
As we now know in 2016. The knowledge about their availability was more nebulous on 1950.
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why did Truman relieve McArthur of his command?
