# Should nuclear weapons have been used on China during Korean War? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2012, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476 "2012-09-22T06:12:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/81 "2012-09-23T10:11:27Z")
Using 80-120 atomic bombs against Chinese cities may have been overkill. But I really don’t understand why China was ‘off limits’ to conventional bombing. Bombs, rockets and napalm could be used against Chinese railroads, bridges, tunnels, ports, warehouses, depots, dams, power plants, shipyards, factories, mines, etc I think a sustained bombing campaign against the Chinese would have forced them to pull out of Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/82 "2012-09-23T10:22:55Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Using 80-120 atomic bombs against Chinese cities may have been overkill. In much the same way that napalm is overkill for lice. > [@moonshot925](#): > > But I really don’t understand why China was ‘off limits’ to conventional bombing. Because there wasn’t much point in turning a medium sized stupid war into a much bigger, much stupider war. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/83 "2012-09-23T10:56:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because there wasn’t much point in turning a medium sized stupid war into a much bigger, much stupider war. It wasn’t a stupid war. Tell that to the men who fought. UN Security Council Resolution 84 obligated us to repel the communist invasion of SK. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/84 "2012-09-23T10:57:28Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Using 80-120 atomic bombs against Chinese cities may have been overkill. > > But I really don’t understand why China was ‘off limits’ to conventional bombing. > > Bombs, rockets and napalm could be used against Chinese railroads, bridges, tunnels, ports, warehouses, depots, dams, power plants, shipyards, factories, mines, etc > > I think a sustained bombing campaign against the Chinese would have forced them to pull out of Korea. Well, now we’re just negotiating the price. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/85 "2012-09-23T11:08:45Z")
**moonshot925** , does anything like “killing millions of civilians is a bad thing” at all enter into your calculus about this topic? Or are the lives of non-Americans completely without value? ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/86 "2012-09-23T11:51:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > **moonshot925** , does anything like “killing millions of civilians is a bad thing” at all enter into your calculus about this topic? Or are the lives of non-Americans completely without value? It’s called collateral damage. The Chinese should have thought about that when they entered the war in October 1950. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/87 "2012-09-23T12:01:26Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > It’s called collateral damage. The Chinese should have thought about that when they entered the war in October 1950. So it has no value whatsoever? Is anything unacceptable, then? I’m genuinely wondering about the “human element”. Does that enter into the equation? Does the prospect of dead children bother you? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/88 "2012-09-23T12:35:04Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > It wasn’t a stupid war. Tell that to the men who fought. UN Security Council Resolution 84 obligated us to repel the communist invasion of SK. I asked if it was a stupid war to one of the men who fought over there…my father. He doesn’t share your opinion. He thinks it was worse than stupid (mostly because they dragged his ass over there to do the fighting). American lives are not more valuable than others. Dropping nukes in any conflict, especially a minor regional one no one wanted to expand to a truly global affair, after we learned just how truly horrible nukes were would the time most fucking stupid thing ANY nation could do. The notion that we could have done it because we had more nukes is only slightly less fucked up than the notion that we could have done it because they couldn’t yet deliver nukes to the American continent. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/89 "2012-09-23T12:42:28Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > All right, I LOL’d… It’d be interesting, were it not for the fact that most of what he could tell is already in the public domain. . No, I just would like to know what exactly did SAC teach their crewmen. If **moonshot** is anything to go by, it consisted mostly of lectures like _well then, this here is a picture of a non American, ain’t he ugly, well she/he/it is not really human, no shame in wanting ta kill em all, regrettably he got his own nukes._ ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/90 "2012-09-23T13:11:47Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So it has no value whatsoever? Is anything unacceptable, then? I’m genuinely wondering about the “human element”. Does that enter into the equation? Does the prospect of dead children bother you? One’s view about the ethics of bombing civilians depends largely on the moral point of view. North Korea was burned to the ground by American incendiary bombs and napalm during the war. Over 1 million civilians were killed. We could probably have won the war if that bombing was expanded to China. Attacks against Chinese industry, infrastructure and transportation would have diminished their ability to wage war. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/91 "2012-09-23T13:16:27Z")
This is what General MacArthur said. > [@](#): > > **“In interviews published posthumously, MacArthur said he had a plan that would have won the war in 10 days: “I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria.” Then he would have introduced half a million Chinese Nationalist troops at the Yalu and then “spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea – a belt of radioactive cobalt . . . it has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” He was certain that the Russians would have done nothing about this extreme strategy: “My plan was a cinch.” (12)”** > **[Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur? ... The Obscure History of Nuclear...](https://www.hnn.us/article/why-did-truman-really-fire-macarthur-the-obscure-h)** > > The media claim that North Korea is trying to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. Yet the United States, which opposes this strategy, has used or threatened to use such weapons in northeast Asia since the 1940s, when it did drop atomic bombs... ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/92 "2012-09-23T13:41:24Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > This is what General MacArthur said. > > [Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur? ... The Obscure History of Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War Provides the Answer — History News Network](http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html) To me it sounds monstrous. The ends do not always justify the means. Bombing is not always wrong- but in my opinion, in the situation you describe, it would have been one of the most monstrous crimes in all of human history. I believe it would have turned the world against us. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/93 "2012-09-23T14:18:27Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > We could probably have won the war if that bombing was expanded to China. Attacks against Chinese industry, infrastructure and transportation would have diminished their ability to wage war. In what universe are we now living that the UN didn’t win the war? I’m looking at a map of the world right now and South Korea’s still there. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/94 "2012-09-23T14:47:45Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > This is what General MacArthur said. > > [Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur? ... The Obscure History of Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War Provides the Answer — History News Network](http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html) And if the entire security of the free world for centuries to come rested on this hideous plan of mass murder and poisoning the earth, it might possibly have been justifiable. But “We could probably have got away with it and Russia durstn’t do nothing” is not justification. You have to ask yourself whether the moral price of being the tyrant of the world was one you wanted to pay. What good does it do to put one over on the Evil Empire when it turns out that, lo and behold, you now _are_ the Evil Empire - orders of magnitude more heinous than Genghis Khan? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/95 "2012-09-23T14:50:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In what universe are we now living that the UN didn’t win the war? I’m looking at a map of the world right now and South Korea’s still there. Agreed. I’ve also never really agreed with the idea that the war was “a draw”. Obviously, yes the US and UN forces didn’t overrun and take over North Korea, but they succeeded in their initial objective which was to prevent South Korea from being taken over. And yes, before anyone points it out, I’m also aware that technically the war didn’t end, that we’re in the midst of a “cease-fire”. Admittedly, thinking of wars as if they were games to be “won”, “lost”, or “drawn” has always struck me as pretty simplistic. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/96 "2012-09-23T14:51:19Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Well, that might have been dangerous. We would probably have to deal with millions of radical Muslim extremists. And they would probably launch more terrorist attacks against the USA killing many Americans. **Which would force us to deport all Muslim out of the country**. That is bigoted bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/97 "2012-09-23T15:17:55Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > In what universe are we now living that the UN didn’t win the war? I’m looking at a map of the world right now and South Korea’s still there. The UN failed to unite the peninsula under a democratic government. So for 59 years the people of North Korea have lived under communist tyranny. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/98 "2012-09-23T15:57:21Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > This is what General MacArthur said. > > > [@](#): > > > > “In interviews published posthumously, MacArthur said he had a plan that would have won the war in 10 days: “I would have dropped 30 or so atomic bombs . . . strung across the neck of Manchuria.” Then he would have introduced half a million Chinese Nationalist troops at the Yalu and then “spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea – a belt of radioactive cobalt . . . it has an active life of between 60 and 120 years. For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of Korea from the North.” He was certain that the Russians would have done nothing about this extreme strategy: “My plan was a cinch.” (12)” > > [Why Did Truman Really Fire MacArthur? ... The Obscure History of Nuclear Weapons and the Korean War Provides the Answer — History News Network](http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html) Wasn’t this the same Douglas MacArthur who had been certain the Chinese wouldn’t send troops into Korea? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/99 "2012-09-23T16:01:12Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > The UN failed to unite the peninsula under a democratic government. So for 59 years the people of North Korea have lived under communist tyranny. The Korean War also failed to restore Chiang on the mainland, free Eastern Europe, bring peace to the Middle East, and cure cancer. You have to keep your goals realistic. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476/100 "2012-09-23T16:27:14Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Yes. > > I was a Minuteman III Missile Combat Crew Commander in the 1980s. 448th Strategic Missile Squadron, 321st Strategic Missile Wing at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. > > To save American lives. I think the result would be millions and millions of dead Americans. And billions of other dead human beings. I happen to know someone who had the nuclear keys for the weapons designated for the Fulda Gap in Germany during the 1970s. I also studied nuclear theory in the 1980s. A great deal of care was taken to avoid having psychologically unstable people in the chain of command during that time. From the early 50s on, the theory of nuclear weaponry was deterrence: both sides simply had too many bombs to make it winnable. The idea was to ensure that damage to both sides would make war unthinkable. And it worked. And we were terrified it might result in war. At least once a Russian commander refused to launch during a conditions that orders required it and it turned out the supposed US incoming attack was due to bad information. The use of nuclear weapons was considered during Korea. And rejected as too dangerous and extreme. This was when the USSR did not have nearly as many bombs as the US. But such usage would have required occupying the entire world. The US Congress was not about to declare war on the USSR over Korea. As evil as Stalin was, he was not our problem. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-nuclear-weapons-have-been-used-on-china-during-korean-war/635476.md?page=6)