Doug MacArthur gets way in 1951, Korean War goes nuclear

I think a possibility that hasn't been brought up is that the Soviets might end up making a landgrab in Manchuria. The Russians and Chinese had been enemies for centuries. In our TL, the USSR and China weren't on friendly terms from the early 60s on, the tensions escalating into a limitied border conflict in 1969. Russia in late 1950 doesn't have much capacity for force projection. It's a country still reeling from the devastation of WWII, and the Red Army in the last war rolled on American trucks and filled its belly with American food supplies. It isn't going to attack the West, but maybe it sits back for awhile, lets the UN forces do the dirty work, then swoops down on the battered Chinese like a vulture to pick off some meat? Stalin was a pretty kooky bird, himself, and I wouldn't put anything past him...
 
After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945 there was not much left of the industrial base . The Soviets looted the place taking whole factories apart and shipping them to the Soviet Union. The Chinese Civil War also left China in a serios state of disorder.
It should be noted that by the ealry 1950's eastern europe was beginning to show its unhappyness with soviet occupation by unress and uprisings in Poland, East Germany and Hungary (1956). Thus it is questionable as to whether the Red Army would invade the Peoles Republic of China.
However, the Red Army was far better equipped than the Chinese. China did not have any jets until the Soviet Union Provided them.
 
Taking Manchuria would shorten the supply lines to Vladivostok, cutting up to 24 hours off the trip to Moscow. The TSR, when originally built, went through Manchuria, with the all-Russia route only completed about the time WWI broke out.
 
MacArthur never sought to use atomic weapons, he wanted certain restrictions on the use of conventional bombing lifted.

Quite typically and hypocritically he ignored the fact that China had reciprocated by making many key US locations also off limits, including Japan, the carriers and even the vital port of Pusan.

As a historical note, the restrictions he hated were later lifted without any noticeable effect on the war's outcome.

Also note that MacArthur didn't 'squabble' with Truman, his removal for insubordination was actually a kindness as Truman could have brought charges of criminal incompetence, on the grounds that he did nothing to prepare for Chinese intervention AFTER several weeks and several Chinese attacks up to divisional strength, or, based on the interview MacArthur gave in which he pretended that he had deliberately sought to provoke Chinese intervention, Truman could have noted the disastrous results of what MacArthur claimed was his strategy, a strategy in blatant defiance of Truman's direct orders, and had MacArthur executed.
 
Taking Manchuria would shorten the supply lines to Vladivostok, cutting up to 24 hours off the trip to Moscow. The TSR, when originally built, went through Manchuria, with the all-Russia route only completed about the time WWI broke out.
Yet the Soviets did not take Manchuria when they were in an unequalled position to do so in '45. What has changed in the intervening years?
 
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