kasumigenx
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Post by kasumigenx on Mar 21, 2024 8:07:19 GMT
But that does not happen immediately perhaps in another decade after the nuking of China. That makes little sense. It would require the US to hit China with multiple nuclear weapons, then turn around and go home afterwards whilst leaving a live enemy behind. The only way we get the latter course of action is in event of a late 1950s/early 1960s kitchen sink hit on China. That, by its nature, does not allow for a recovery within a decade, or a century. The scenario that I am thinking of is US nuking Beijing and Nanjing which will also alienate the Nationalists in China. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Mar 21, 2024 9:08:07 GMT
That isn’t a realistic scenario for a Korean War situation. The initial targets were in Manchuria, but if it expands to cities, it isn’t going to be limited to Peking and Nanking. I would strongly suggest some research and consideration of USAF practice and SAC declassified materials.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Mar 21, 2024 9:34:06 GMT
Say if Stalin decided that escalating things in Korea would be more costly than it's worth, he wouldn't allow Kim Il-Sung to attack the South. However, that does not mean Rhee Syng-man wouldn't throw the first punch either, as he might be more ambitious in attempting to reunite the Korean peninsula. If the US tells Rhee to not attack as well, then the Korean peninsula would stabilize for a while, until Stalin's death. I would also predict that a conflict between the North and the South would play out similarly to what happened in Vietnam, with an underground communist movement in the South causing chaos there (there's also a South Korean Communist Party that existed before 1948, but some of its members had initiated an armed guerrilla struggle before the Korean War broke out). I would suspect that this South Korean Communist guerrilla movement would become an earlier analogue to the Viet Cong, but less organized than its VC counterpart. Another interesting side effect of a no-Korean War would be post-war Japan's possible economic recovery, which may not happen as a result of them not taking advantage of another country's conflict to reposition itself as a supply hub. Labor disputes would continue, and political violence would be far worse than what has happened in the 1930s. However, sooner or later, there would be a conflict in the Korean peninsula, though of different conditions. I would suspect that a long terrorist campaign on part of the South Korean communists might destabilize the South Korean government long enough for the North to launch its attack. Overall, a reunified Korea might not be as wealthy as its OTL southern counterpart, because of how devastated it is, but it wouldn't have episodes of famines and malnutrition. However, it would still have gulags and other kinds of concentration camps, which would be a downer. I might actually plan on adopting this kind of scenario for a map project.
As I understand it the S Korean force was little more than a police force, hence the rapid withdrawal to the Pusan/Busan pocket and desperate defensive action there. As such I can't see Rhee would be deluded enough to attack, especially with the US having rejected any such move. That would leave him isolated against not just the more heavily armed North but potentially the USSR and/or China, both of which are likely to be eager to not just protect their ally but expand communist control to the south.
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kasumigenx
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Post by kasumigenx on Mar 21, 2024 10:04:04 GMT
That isn’t a realistic scenario for a Korean War situation. The initial targets were in Manchuria, but if it expands to cities, it isn’t going to be limited to Peking and Nanking. I would strongly suggest some research and consideration of USAF practice and SAC declassified materials. Although if US does nuke China it will cause alienation between the Nationalists and the US in general, they can also bomb the base or capital of the Communist Koreans as well. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Mar 21, 2024 10:06:20 GMT
If it gets to the point of bombing Red China, they won’t care too much about “alienation”, but destroying Red China’s ability to make war.
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kasumigenx
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Post by kasumigenx on Mar 21, 2024 17:41:34 GMT
If it gets to the point of bombing Red China, they won’t care too much about “alienation”, but destroying Red China’s ability to make war. Then they need to bid goodbye on supporting ROC or any kind of Democratic China in this timeline. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Mar 21, 2024 17:49:38 GMT
If it gets to the point of bombing Red China, they won’t care too much about “alienation”, but destroying Red China’s ability to make war.
In general agreement that China will be hit hard although there is a possibility that only limited nuclear bombing occurs of China because either/or a) The US leadership think only 2-5 bombs say would be enough to cause a collapse of communism in China or at least to make them back down and withdraw in the Korean conflict. - I doubt this would be accurate given Mao's personality but they could think that.
b) Depending on the situation they might have relatively few nuclear weapons - especially if no earlier Korean war to increase tension - and want to make sure they have plenty left over to deter/defeat the Soviets.
c) They get warnings from Moscow that it won't stand by while repeated nuclear strikes on China occurs and decide to believe the Soviets.
d) There is a strong reaction inside the US itself against the idea of multiple attacks doing massive damage to China.
If none of those factors apply then China is going to be hit very hard. Probably not enough to remove the communists from China as a whole because of its size and the relatively limited nuclear capacity at the time. However going to put the country - which is probably still recovering from the Japanese occupation and the following civil war - at least a decade, although there will be a lot of political fall-out as well.
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Post by raharris1973 on Apr 3, 2024 11:55:25 GMT
In the absence of a Korean War, the major Communist powers may have been cooking up two other major fiestas for later in 1950 or 1951. The Chinese, planning an invasion of Taiwan, for which they were rapidly expanding their Navy and Air Force and massing troops in their southeastern Fujian province, and the Soviets, who, according to many reports were positioning to remove Tiitoist deviationism by an invasion of Yugoslavia, with a first wave consisting largely of Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian troops with a leavening of Yugoslav exile forces loyal to Stalinism, and Soviet forces forming the decisive second echelon.
What might either of these result in, especially a Yugoslavia invasion, right in Europe.
Some have speculated that a Yugoslavia invasion, being in Europe, bringing Soviet power closer to western possessions and tempting western involvement, (and the west was already providing military aid to Tito's Yugoslavia by 1950) would have been hard, possibly impossible to contain from spreading into WW3. A Yugoslav invasion/intervention crisis was the basis of a 1950s "Look" Magazine article titled "A Preview of the War We Do Not Want" which envisioned a US victory after a long, conventional WW3 where Europe is lost to the Soviets and then liberated from them.
I don't think a Soviet/East Bloc invasion would be impossible to keep localized/contained however. The superpowers managed it for Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Greece.
I think try as they might, the Yugoslavs would not be able to stop satellite and Soviet troops from occupying much, or most of their territory. But at the same time, since Tito and his ruling group would have his Army and militias behind him, capable of fighting both conventionally, and guerrilla style, this type of invasion would certainly be no Hungary 1956 nor a Czechoslovakia 1968 style walkover.
At the same time, it is not certain that Tito would be keeping control of a fully united partisan resistance, keeping the Soviets on the back foot the whole period of fighting and attempted occupation. The Soviets may well find both ideologically sincere, and opportunistic collaborators, and Soviet bloc forces may be able to saturate the country up to its western, southern, coastal borders to the point that western intel services and military forces have trouble infiltrating in support for Tito's Neo-Partisans from outside.
Western support for Titoist Neo-Partisans against Soviet occupiers would be likely as long as feasible, presaging, about 30 years ahead of OTL's schedule, western support of the Afghan Mujhadeen and the Nicaraguan Contras, and the *ahem*, embarrassed cough, Khmer Rouge (and accomplices), in the 1980s. That would raise tensions with the eastern bloc. It would be interesting if that motivated Stalin and the satellite states to revive support for cross-border guerrilla warfare in Greece.
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