Awesome link, a fascinating read, and I think it was also plausibly pessimistic. I recommend it to others. Nice commentary, on regional reactions to. They posit that such a successful and bold play would make Thailand and Burma very accommodative to Communist power/Chinese interests [not so sure I agree] but that it would raise Indian suspicion of and opposition to China. [I'm more inclined to agree with that].
I don't think Thailand or even Burma would necessarily eschew western support under these circumstances, but Burma would be a heck of a lot more worried that if it did not not clean out the armed ChiNat refugees and guerrillas on the borderland, the ChiComs would.
QUOTE="marathag, post: 14114862, member: 68581"]Operation Vulture happens. Might be enough for Truman to decide to unleash LeMay on China, too, if Mao looks to be that expansionist.[/QUOTE]
Well in this case it would not be Operation Vulture, the 1954 contingency plan to lift the siege of Dien Bien Phu, rather it would be a different atomic intervention to lift the siege of Haiphong...if Truman comes to the decision to do that within the six weeks the linked report said it would take to eliminate the French everywhere in Tonkin except for a Haiphong beachhead.
-----------------
A couple interesting things about this. If atomic weapons were employed in Indochina they could not do much more than break threatening troop concentrations around cities like Haiphong and Danang and Saigon. The ChiComs and Viet Minh could largely sustain themselves outside of cities, captured or otherwise, while ink-blotting the entire countryside. If extended to China, China has more to lose in terms of cities and industry, but if it came to it could still be a more resilient target than a Japan.
Such a swift defeat would also bag a lot of French prisoners. Granted, mainly legionnaires and and locally raised troops but still a lot of French officers. That could give some negotiating leverage to the Communist side.
---Another thing is that with speed and mass, the Chinese could do an unannounced intervention, claiming the forces involved are Viet Minh, of course provided with equipment and training by China. The French are unlikely to take Chinese prisoners, and while reports would come in from refugees or fleeing individuals that actual Chinese troops were engaged, it would be hard to produce photographic "proof" on par with what the US used during the Cuban missile crisis. The main limitation that a large-scale but unannounced and denied intervention would have is the charade would be spoiled if the Chinese use their air force, which they could be tempted to use to get the job done more quickly. Such denials would muddy the waters to the extent that nuclear attacks on China itself become more politically tricky.