What if Truman had used A bomb in Korea?

lounge60

lounge60

What if in 1950 President Truman had used the atomic bomb in Korea war aganist north Korea and Chinese army ?
 

Bmao

WWIII, here we come!!!

That surely means we wouldn't be here discussing this on the AH.com forum.
 

Cockroach

WWIII, here we come!!!

That surely means we wouldn't be here discussing this on the AH.com forum.
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The butterfly effect mean most of us won't exist so in that sense your right.

However if you intended to mean "nukes fly, civilisation goes bung" then there is the small issue that the number of nukes avalible to the soviets is going to be small... after all it is 2 or 3 years since the Sovs tested their first one.
 

Wendell

Cockroach said:
The butterfly effect mean most of us won't exist so in that sense your right.

However if you intended to mean "nukes fly, civilisation goes bung" then there is the small issue that the number of nukes avalible to the soviets is going to be small... after all it is 2 or 3 years since the Sovs tested their first one.
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Not to mention that the Soviets may have issues with delivering such weapons early on.
 

carlton_bach

I'm not at all convinced the USSR woud have escalated the conflict with nuclear retaliation. Their capabilities were dramatically lower than America's. They might even have decided to let go of North Korea, though from a purely strategic point of view, they have more to gain by pushing the Chinese to fight to the last. It would make a huge propaganda coup - imagine how the Japanese Communist Party would play it! And it could hurt US standing in Europe. If Stalin wanted to retaliate, he might choose to go through Berlin. Of course, that could well trigger nuclear war anyway, but who's perfect...
 

HueyLong

Banned
A nuclear strike on North Korea would affect South Korea and Machuria, if not the Russian Far East too. It would be impossible to justify.
 

Bulldawg85

Textbook

What if in 1950 President Truman had used the atomic bomb in Korea war aganist north Korea and Chinese army ?
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Actually, according to one textbook it did happen. Several yrs ago when I lived in Texas there was a big controversy because one of the textbook companies had issued a new HS history textbook and there thousands of errors in the textbook. They said that they didn't have time to republish it with no errors and that they would eliminate the number of errors down to a reasonable number :eek:, several hundred, and then issue a supplement to clear up any confusion.
 

carlton_bach

This is the early 50s. People still believe that if you hold your breath and tape up small cuts and bruises, you'll be fine. I doubt fallout concerns would have stopped a military that sent its own troops across ground zero while the sand was still cooling to see what happens..
 
Matt

Matt

Cockroach said:
The butterfly effect mean most of us won't exist so in that sense your right.

However if you intended to mean "nukes fly, civilisation goes bung" then there is the small issue that the number of nukes avalible to the soviets is going to be small... after all it is 2 or 3 years since the Sovs tested their first one.
Click to expand...

Indeed, the Soviet arsenal at this time was extremely small compared the United States, and it only means of delivery to the continental United States were one way mission in Tu-4 bombers.
 

M79

Communist China is screwed, Russia invades W Europe, we get a mostly non-nuclear WWIII with the Cold War ending about 1953 with the end of Russia as an opposing superpower. Millions dead and much slower tech advancement.
 

Wendell

M79 said:
Communist China is screwed, Russia invades W Europe, we get a mostly non-nuclear WWIII with the Cold War ending about 1953 with the end of Russia as an opposing superpower. Millions dead and much slower tech advancement.
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Have a map for the resulting world?
 

M79

Sure, Russia and China are dismembered, Korea and Germany reunited, and Poland gains her pre-Molotov-Ribbentrop land back while most of Belarus stays Russian. Central Russia = Siberia, Russian Pacific Coast = Rep. of Kamtchatka, independent Machuria/Tibet/Chinese Turkmenestan

World 1953 postwar.JPG
 

Bulgaroktonos

A reunified Korea. That's about it. At least some evidence indicates Stalin didn't want a confrontation over Korea, and was quite surprised by our response.

Mao is firmly in China. The Commies aren't going ot just collapse.

We take all of Korea, sign a peace with the Chinese, and life goes on.

Vietnam is likely a US victory, as China and Russia stay out of it, and if and when the Hungarian revolution happens, you might get actual US intervention.
 

M79

Bulgaroktonos said:
A reunified Korea. That's about it. At least some evidence indicates Stalin didn't want a confrontation over Korea, and was quite surprised by our response.

Mao is firmly in China. The Commies aren't going ot just collapse.

We take all of Korea, sign a peace with the Chinese, and life goes on.

Vietnam is likely a US victory, as China and Russia stay out of it, and if and when the Hungarian revolution happens, you might get actual US intervention.
Click to expand...

If we get into a war with Beijing, then we would likely nuke China into submission with the Chinese Turkmenistan and Tibetian areas gaining outright independence. Manchuria would be invaded with an evetual Western puppet government coming to power there. Remember, Russia has single-digit numbers of nukes, if they retaliate then it gets *really* bloody.
 

Dean_the_Young

I agree that the atom bomb may have let the US win the Korean War, but once the Rubicon has been crossed, you can't go back over it. A precedent has been set, and now nuclear powers have fewer barriers to dropping a-bombs on neighbors to resolve wars. Look for a future full of nuclear proliferation, as small states/groups scramble for A-bombs so that they won't in turn be bombed, while using their bombs on others.
 
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