If the USA can neutralize airfields close to Korea and also seriously degrade the supply lines in China leading to Korea (rail concentrations in junction cities etc), this makes logistics in Korea very difficult for the Chinese. Yes the Chinese hump supplies on packs on dirt tracks at night. Yes the Chinese soldiers live on a handful of rice a day. If the Chinese have to carry supplies on their backs from a couple of hundred kilometers inside China to the Korean Border before they go anywhere in Korea this is a problem. If you are willing to nuke China, then tactical air will be tearing up everything within a couple of hundred kilometers of the border. Absent a sufficient logistical train the Chinese (and North Korean) armies will become ineffective in short order - a half a handful of rice or less won't cut even for the Chinese.
In 1950 the communist rule in China was by no means firm. There were significant areas marginally controlled and some effective nationalist forces over the border in Burma. Certainly Hainan could be taken back, and perhaps some Nationalist forces might get an area under control on the mainland. China in 1950 was not the China of the 1960s or 70s with hordes dedicated to the adoration of Mao and his thoughts.
IMHO Russia would not go to war with NATO over China/Korea. Any WP forces were of dubious quality and reliability, and as the A-bomb numbers showed the US could gradually reduce Russia to the 18th century level. The odds of more than one or two Russian bombs landing on the USA were small, in Europe, it depends. Stalin was willing to take what he could take easily - breaking agreements about Eastern Europe and free elections, the Czech coup etc but if there was a chance the response would smash the USSR no way.
Of course this is with the benefit of hindsight, and none is guaranteed to play out this way, Murphy always has a say. IMHO even if it all went as well as possible, the fact that atomic weapons had been used again would be a very bad thing and I expect we would have seen more use since then. Maybe in Vietnam when the French asked for it, later on maybe between India and Pakistan, etc. For sure the current nuclear proliferation restrictions would not have come about.
In 1950 the communist rule in China was by no means firm. There were significant areas marginally controlled and some effective nationalist forces over the border in Burma. Certainly Hainan could be taken back, and perhaps some Nationalist forces might get an area under control on the mainland. China in 1950 was not the China of the 1960s or 70s with hordes dedicated to the adoration of Mao and his thoughts.
IMHO Russia would not go to war with NATO over China/Korea. Any WP forces were of dubious quality and reliability, and as the A-bomb numbers showed the US could gradually reduce Russia to the 18th century level. The odds of more than one or two Russian bombs landing on the USA were small, in Europe, it depends. Stalin was willing to take what he could take easily - breaking agreements about Eastern Europe and free elections, the Czech coup etc but if there was a chance the response would smash the USSR no way.
Of course this is with the benefit of hindsight, and none is guaranteed to play out this way, Murphy always has a say. IMHO even if it all went as well as possible, the fact that atomic weapons had been used again would be a very bad thing and I expect we would have seen more use since then. Maybe in Vietnam when the French asked for it, later on maybe between India and Pakistan, etc. For sure the current nuclear proliferation restrictions would not have come about.
