Operation Matador

October 1950-McArthur has ignored orders to stop before the Yalu. Chinese troops pour over the border, sending the UN forces back. POD: Instead of nukes McArthur asks for chemical weapons.

Truman approves the use. Chemical weapons will stop the invaders, and the US has never had the mass exposure to chemical warfare that Europe had.

Bombing begins of the narrow neck of the Korean peninsula where it meets China. Thousands of farmers become ill with blistered skin. Nerve gas simply won't last long enough: Mustard gas is the chosen agent. The Chinese invasion is halted. The UN forces push up, and the Korean war is over. But the South decides to expell the US afterwards in protest. Civil Wars might be nasty, but if your cousin is on the other side, odds are you aren't going to use the really ugly weapons. Protests in the US are muted: Victory has been achieved at few US lives.

Did I say UN forces? Well, the Europeans pulled out of NATO in protest. The USSR introduced a resolution in the General Assembly calling on the end of chemical and biological warfare. The US vetoes it.

Germany reunites: With the collapse of NATO there is no need to refuse the Russian offer of an independent, reunited, Germany. GB does not get the hydrogen bomb, as VX doesn't get invented.

While the West is split they are still anti-communist. And so Vietnam evolves as IOTL, until Rolling Thunder becomes Rolling Death. The gassing of Ho Chi Min city is a war crime plain and simple. And with a military that learned how to keep things out of the news, the Vietnamese response is a surprise.

Nerve gas is very simple to make. A V-2 is a little harder, but the Vietnamese manage it. And so Ubon airbase is anhilated: A V-2 containing a cluster weapon loaded with nerve and mustard gas hits it. Every pilot, mechanic, and soldier is incapacitated, either dead (easy to deal with if you are not the Americans) or wounded(taking up valuable resources). The US retaliates with more gas. And so the USSR issues an ultimatum: Agree to the Chemical Warfare Treaty or face destruction.
 
An interesting post. I would hope my country wouldn't be so quick to use chemical weapons, especially against civilian population centers, but who can say for sure? However, may I say, Ho Chi Minh City was called Saigon until 1975, it was the capital city of our ally the Republic of Vietnam, which America was fighting to maintain. The North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi would have been a more likely target.
 
Did I say UN forces? Well, the Europeans pulled out of NATO in protest. The USSR introduced a resolution in the General Assembly calling on the end of chemical and biological warfare. The US vetoes it.

Germany reunites: With the collapse of NATO there is no need to refuse the Russian offer of an independent, reunited, Germany. GB does not get the hydrogen bomb, as VX doesn't get invented.

While the West is split they are still anti-communist. And so Vietnam evolves as IOTL, until Rolling Thunder becomes Rolling Death. The gassing of Ho Chi Min city is a war crime plain and simple. And with a military that learned how to keep things out of the news, the Vietnamese response is a surprise.

Nerve gas is very simple to make. A V-2 is a little harder, but the Vietnamese manage it. And so Ubon airbase is anhilated: A V-2 containing a cluster weapon loaded with nerve and mustard gas hits it. Every pilot, mechanic, and soldier is incapacitated, either dead (easy to deal with if you are not the Americans) or wounded(taking up valuable resources). The US retaliates with more gas. And so the USSR issues an ultimatum: Agree to the Chemical Warfare Treaty or face destruction.

Seems somewhat alright at the begging but you really lose me after the Korean part of it. For starters, I'm not sure even that would break up NATO during that time period ... the Red Army was still seen as all too eager to pour into Western Europe. But I guess it's not impossible, just unlikely. More unlikely is a Soviet Union calling for such a measure in the UN ... when they had an enormous operation going in this industry. I suppose they might have called for some kind of statement (even that is almost funny) that had no teeth for enforcement ... but then the US probably might have signed that too. Moving along, I don't think there are enough evil people in the United States (even in this timeline) to stage a chemical attack on a city or population centre. Its a stretch any country would use gas on military targets after WW1 at all really. Lastly, I don't think the Soviet would ever threaten themselves or the world with nuclear war for the sake of some UN false treaty or the fate of a poor strip of land in SE Asia.

Seems to be a very large divergence in the policies and tolerance of the United States and the Soviet Union. For some reason these 1950 - 60's Soviets are looking to be the worlds humanitarians and the US has turned into some kind of murder state. Even though I don't think Truman would have ever allowed the use of chemical weapons in Korea (for fear of a reply on American troops) , even if they did and the response is as stated ... seems like there would be no chance of the US using them again, especially not on a large city. And something tells me that between the Korean conflicts and Nam here in this TL ... the Chinese would be planning or take some kind of revenge on the US as well.
 
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