Korea wasn't 4th generation warfare. It was the last, basically conventional war we fought on such a scale. However, it wasn't an industrial total war either, given Korea's limited manufacturing base. And, the fact that the commies had the A-bomb, that whole MAD thing I noted, prevented it from being a total war at the sources of production inside the Soviet Union and China. I believe MacArthur lost his job over that point, and we're alive to post on this message board as well.
Charon
MAD really did not yet truly exist at the time of the Korean War. The United States still had a HUGE advantage in nuclear weapon stockpiles at that time. A nuclear exchange would have definitely resulted in a defeat for both Russia and China, even in the worst case scenario. However, the cost would have been so high that the victory would have been rather Pyhrric in nature. The amount of radioactivity released into the upper atmosphere by just the American nuclear weapons alone would have had devastating effects to the ecology of the entire planet. Although scientists really did not yet fully understand such consequences back then.
But the United States would not have been destroyed, while China and Russia would clearly have been. So it would not have really been MAD yet. China had no nuclear weapons themselves yet, so they could not have retaliated. Would the Russians have then attacked if only China was struck, knowing that they then faced annihilation themselves? That is really a tough one to judge. Stalin would have been crazy to have done so. But who knows, maybe he would have?
MacArthur's plan called for 29 Atomic Bombs to be dropped along the Korea/China border, which he said would effectively "isolate" the battlefield, creating a nuclear wasteland that would have effectively sealed off North Korea from resupply. While Truman rejected this plan, as the war dragged on, and Eisenhower was elected President in November of 1952 promising to end the war, nuclear weapons did play a major role in eventually ending the combat.
According to published reports, on May 19 1953 the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended direct air and naval attacks on China that included the use of nuclear weapons, in order to bring the stalemate to an end. The very next day, the National Security Council endorsed the JCS recommendations. Eisenhower still held out for a negotiated settlement, however.
Secretary of State Dulles traveled to India at that time, and past on a communication to the Chinese through Nehru that if speedy progress was not made in peace talks towards an end to fighting, that the United States would begin attacks on China. However, he allegedly made no threat in that communication of Nuclear Weapons being used, as the Joint Chiefs had recommended. Although there are some historians who believe that Eisenhower may have actually done so.
The United States had a big nuclear weapons advantage at that point in the war in terms of firepower, as we had already begun deploying much more powerful Hydrogen Bombs, while Russia had yet to even test its first Hydrogen device. The US had also already begun a major escalation of the air war in North Korea that May, and later into June. On May 13th 1953 the Toksan Dam was destroyed by a dramatic strike by 58th Fighter-Bomber Wing. Three days later, the Chasan Dam was also destroyed. This resulted in the destruction of over 13,000 acres of planted rice fields, and many miles of both roads and railways. Because experts had felt that the loss of these key irrigation systems could lead to massive civilian starvation, they had not been previously targeted earlier in the war.
As the war dragged on into June of 1953, the air battle reached its peak of the entire war. On June 15th, 910 combat sorties were flown against North Korea in a single day.
So this all needs to be taken into context, when you consider that the armistice was signed just a month later that July. The United States was clearly ratcheting up its attacks, and threatening to do much more if the fighting did not end. And with this all being directed by a new President who had been one of America's greatest military leaders, it was no longer in the interests of either China or Russia to continue the fighting.
And many folks do not even realize that Eisenhower deployed many nuclear weapons in South Korea starting in 1958, almost 5 years after the fighting had ended. He did that to emphasize to the communists that any renewed fighting in Korea would quickly go nuclear in nature if they ever chose to attack South Korea again. At its peak, there were 450 total nuclear weapons deployed, and they were not totally withdrawn from South Korea until 1991.
I personally believe myself that it was fear of America's nuclear might that both brought the fighting to an end, and also prevented it from ever flaring up again.
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