Quote:
Originally Posted by LeoXiao
And get China really involved (as you said), and the Soviet Union too? The resulting nuclear war probably would have killed everyone in North Korea, like half of China, and millions in Russia, Europe, and America. Who knows when the war would have ended. It's a good thing that Truman fired MacArthur before he did something stupid.
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I don't think either side had enough nukes in 1950 to make that kind of war possible (remember, the Soviets only tested their first bomb the previous year). The US didn't go crazy with building bombs until a few years later, and the Soviets didn't follow suit until Kennedy started talking about the "missile gap".
The problem with using nukes in Korea is it would've changed them from a weapon only used in special circumstances, to just another tool of the trade to be whipped out whenever the US or Soviet Union got themselves in a tight spot.