Carole Nash....

See previous answer.

 

Given this is usenet and all posts should be fairly light hearted (unless
your name is Bear) why do you think Trueman was right over McArthur.
Other than the obvious answer of Pres is always right.

 

Because a conventional proxy war between the USSR and USA over a dinky
little peninsula is one thing. A proxy war between the USSR and USA over
a fucking great country with a quarter of the world's population is
another. And the non-proxy war that would surely have followed would
have been a disaster.

On the one hand, it would have prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis and
most of the rest of the cold war. On the other hand, that would have
been because EVERYONE WOULD BE DEAD.

The soviets had just demonstrated a nuclear capability a year or so
earlier. And both sides seemed pretty much willing to use them.

 

It wasn't the Ruskies that poured into North Korea it was the Red Chinese.
Russian Chinese relations were not exactly good. Chinese had no nuclear
capability until 1964. In 1950/51 the Russians had very little and even less
ability to deliver.

Though the initial KPA was Russian armed Stalin decided after the UN push
back, in Oct '50 that his armies would not be directly involved. I think he
knew he would be beaten. Though they provided limited air support of course
(leading up to the deployment of the Sabre and G-suits which re-established
allied air superiority). This was an agreement matched by Mao. Shortly
thereafter the Chinese flipped and invaded.

Truman did bring the USAF up to nuclear readiness with Tactical weapons, not
deployed for political reasons and because of the difficulty of identifying
concentrations of ground forces.

So began a process of stalemate and appeasement which led to the Cold War
and the Cuban crisis and a huge cost in life and money over 30 years. One
can make a plausible argument that decisive action by the US and the UN
Allies in Asia would have set back the growth of China and the Soviet Block
and would have backed an ultimatum to both those forces not to develop
thermo nuclear weapons. Or even further fusion weapons.

It's gotta be said that the political and strategic events leading up to and
into the Korean conflict are the most tortuous one can imagine and make eye
watering reading.

 

Not unlike most of your posts then.

 

Huge? Not as huge as if WW3 had kicked off.

That was Truman's view and I'm inclined to agree.

 

If you discount American 'policing' of countries where they disagreed
with the government in power we've had a remarkably quiet time since
1945.

Every man and his dog knows that it's nigh on impossible to win a war
where you've invaded a country and the nationals don't want you there
(1) so unless two of the so-called superpowers (or an out and out head
case) decide to fire off a couple of nukes it'll stay that way.

I know I can be accused of being slightly biased when it comes to
whether or not we need an independent (2) nuclear capability but as
long as we've got subs creeping around on the sea bed nobody is going
to **** with us directly.

(1) Vietnam, The Falklands and Afghanistan prove this quite
adequately.

(2) Yeah, I know the missiles aren't really ours.

 

The Vietnamese were resisting invasions from the Chinese for centuries,
so the later incursions of round-eyes was just more of the same - they
knew they'd win in the end and the political affiliations were more or
less just for expediency.

The Brits know all about the Afghans - which makes it all the more
surprising the utter stupidity of doing it all over again. A revealing
docu on telly a few weeks ago, where a UK Asian reporter embedded
himself with a Taliban/Muji group, showed how most of them were fighting
to get rid of the foreigners. A few expressed interest in killing all
the Westerners in the World, but that can be excused as youthful
enthusiasm, especially if your family's just been cluster-bombed by
Yankee scum operating remote control drones from Andrews AFB.

 

See what I did there?

Oh I'm not suggesting that 'your' way isn't better, just that the same
crappy result could have been got cheaper then the US managed.


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WW3 required USSR/China to have large nuclear weapons capabilities. TBF
China has never gone that way. I do think the USSR could have been stopped
between 1946 and 51.

Then again I'd have let the Germans get on with it first some years before
rather than all that dicking about in Yugoslavia then opening up war on 2
fronts.

I suppose the argument is that the Cold War was good for industry.

 

Oh I'm aware of it. The period 1913 to 1990 featured mass death and massive
technological advancements on a new scale.

 

Only UKRM can go from Carole Nash are cunts to this in 24 hours.

 

It's an obligation

 

Where exactly did this "mass death" occur post 1945?

Don't give me any bollocks about Cambodia or Rwanda because they were
nothing to do with the cold war.

 

Asia.

 

Have a read of this and see where the majority died in the twentieth
century. Asia wasn't quite as bad as you seem to believe (unless of
course you're counting places like Afghanistan and Bangladesh as part
of the deal

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm


The cold war was minor compared to Africa when it comes to body counts
and I don't think that was down to technological advancements apart
from when SA poked their noses into Angola.

 

I wasn't thinking of or making any particular comparison. I'm sure the two
sides competed in Africa as well.

 

Didn't they just. Every bushfire war was backed by one or the other
side.

 

Well, it is a bit one-sided (which I'm sure comes as a big shock

http://www.globalissues.org/article...big-business#GlobalArmsSalesBySupplierNations

 

China.