WI MacArthur had NOT been recalled

Let's say Mac had been given a free hand in Korea after the Chinese invaded, what would he have done and what would have been the Chinese response? We know from his address to Congress that he wanted to bomb Chinese facilities beyond the Yalu and to blockade the Chinese coast. His most strident wish was to "unleash Chiang" from Formosa and set him on Mao as well. Mao was only ensconced in Beijing for scarcely two years at the time of Korea. Could his regime have even collapsed in 1951 if MacArthur had put the screws to him in any really serious way? And would this have greatly alarmed the Soviet Union and brought them into the conflict directly or not?
 

Straha

Banned
civilization would be dead and eath would be a silent world in the cosmos with all life gone.
 
I have come across an amazing claim that I had never heard before. According to Manchester's American Caesar, President Truman in a press conference on Nov 30 1951 , had indicated that nucular bombs might be used against the enemy (in Korea). It is also a fact that Truman DID deploy a couple (few?) atomic bombs to the western Pacific in April 1951, but they were stopped at Guam and the B.29 unit assigned the task was not used. Truman also is supposed to have used a veiled threat to use the bomb as a last resort if the peace negotiations broke down. In a addition, MacArthur issued an ultimatium suggesting he had authority to conduct such a bombing plan.
 
Well, first off, the Chinese didnt have nukes at this time. The question you have to ask is would the Soviets have used theirs? I think its possible but not certain. Im not sure of this, but I dont think the USSR had a lot of A-bombs at the time. My guess is they would hold off using them unless the Chinese looked like they were on the brink of folding.

What we got OTL was probably the best result for the West. The DMZ as it is now is on the most defensible land on the peninsula. Invading China would cause the DMZ to wind up much farther North where the terrain is less easily defended and would result in a longer frontier. The Kuomintang could probably have took a piece of the Mainland but could they have defended it? Probably not. Look at how much trouble they had holding onto some puny islands just off the shore!
 
No matter what the result, "the end of the world" wouldn't happen here. The USSR really has no way to get nukes here (besides, they probably had less than a dozen at that time), and if they used them on Korea, we'd just nuke them back, and the world might be a better (albiet with a higher radiation level) place. Communist China and the USSR would have both fallen if that had happened, probably saving us some later bloodshed.
 
tom said:
1949 1 Soviet nuke
1950 5
1951 25
1952 50
1953 120 Soviet nukes
From http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab10.asp#fortynine

So were looking at between 5 and 25 city busters at the time in question. Pretty small amount. I think the Sovs would hold onto them until something big was to happen. Bet there would be some diplomatic maneuvering too to let the US know Stalin was thinking about using them (sort of like we did to get the truce talks going).
 
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