What-if - Douglas MacArthur was allowed to use nuclear weapons in Korea?

THe US can simply nuke supply lines and oil refineries especially to force the USSR to give up. Nuclear war in 1951 is not the end of the USSR as a nation but it WILL be defeated.

So the USSR won't retaliate if Korea and China are tactically nuked. As others have said, it makes the USA look like terrible warmongers, and sort of legitimatizes the future tactical use of atomic weapons. I think that MAD would still be in effect (just like in WW2 nobody used poison gas or anthrax against each other), but proxy wars would become much more deadly, and possibly more frequent if it is found that they can be "won" through the use of nuclear bombs.

Nuclear proliferation happens. If Israel gets nukes and can use them against armies in the field the UAR sure as hell won't let them be the only ones.

Basically, a more dangerous world.
 
You have to remember this is pre-Sino Soviet split. China and the USSR are firmly on the same side.

About that: Mao might get his ass removed from power by his henchmen for bringing atomic wrath upon the newly-unifed country. Korea was his decision after all. Though knowing the man he'd probably talk his way out of the fiasco at some Party meeting, and instantly purge anyone who disagrees with him. Cultural Revolution 15 years early.
 
As others have noted a theatre commander like MacArthur could not unilaterally order the USAF to use nuclear weapons against targets in North Korea or China.

This is true, as I have been told as well. However, if you're just looking for nukes to be deployed in the Korean Conflict, what looks to be a quite possible PoD to make this happen -- though it's not without contention -- is a successful assassination of Truman in 1950.
 
There's also the distinction of using them in China on major cities and using them in China but limiting the targeting to the bridges across the Yalu and large assembly points for the PLA moving into Korea. You'll still kill large numbers of people but at least the latter option avoids too many civilian casualties and limits them mostly to PLA members.
 
There's also the distinction of using them in China on major cities and using them in China but limiting the targeting to the bridges across the Yalu and large assembly points for the PLA moving into Korea. You'll still kill large numbers of people but at least the latter option avoids too many civilian casualties and limits them mostly to PLA members.

I think that's been sort of been presumed to be true by all present, as using them in a tactical sense was the very reason why MacArthur wanted to use them at all. Nuking Chinese cities kills a lot of people and ruins China as a nation, but it doesn't solve the problem immediately and is a waste of nukes, remember they had a limited number.
 
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