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To: John Lacelle who wrote (12369)	6/17/1999 8:46:00 PM
From: Andy Thomas	Respond to of 17770

Hi John, Your post about Korea was thoughtful and insightful (inciteful?<g>). My heart would go with MacArthur but my head says the Chinese would have never forgotten, and would have cooked up some kind of major revenge later on. FWIW Andy

To: John Lacelle who wrote (12369)	6/17/1999 8:53:00 PM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

<<The $20,000 dollar question is whether nuclear weapons would have accomplished a military victory. I am not much of an alternative historian but I believe that probably it would have. While Mao was willing to expend millions of lives, he would not do it in futility. I think he would have allowed Korea to be taken rather than deal with a radioactive PLA>> And lets not forget that it wasnt just the Chinese fighting along the Yalu. There were Russian pilots flying MiGs across the river in China... I think MacArthur really got too big for his britches, and deservedly got put in his place, despite being a brilliant man. Turning a limited conflict into a nuclear spitting match with the Chinese, and consequently the Russians, might well have been a huge disaster... Derek

To: John Lacelle who wrote (12369)	6/18/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 17770

<<The $20,000 dollar question is whether nuclear weapons would have accomplished a military victory. I am not much of an alternative historian but I believe that probably it would have. While Mao was willing to expend millions of lives, he would not do it in futility. I think he would have allowed Korea to be taken rather than deal with a radioactive PLA. >> John, your assumption about what Chinese would do if the US had used nuclear weapon in Korea is from an American point of view. So I will tell you my point of view as a Chinese. I think if the Korean War had continued, no matter whether the US would use nuclear weapon or not (which I personally think did not matter), China, with some assistance from the Soviets, would have helped North Korea until the whole Korea were united under the Northern regime. The US was fighting a war far away from its homeland, so it wanted to finish it as soon as possible. While China is next door to Korea. Historically, there virtually had no borders bet. the two countries. I personally know a couple of Koreans settled down in northeast part of China (HeiLongJiang Province). China is very good at fighting a long-term war, such as anti-Japanese war, which lasted 8 years). Geographically and weather-wise, China definitely had an upperhand. I think a lot of Westerners, including Americans, do not understand Chinese as a nation. Power cannot scare off the Chinese. As a matter of fact, because of the effect of the reverse psychology, the more the super power threatens, the harder the Chinese fight. FWIW.