With the popularity of the movie "Chosin Lake", the thinking about the Korean War has continued to heat up. Some friends have asked this question: Since the volunteer army beat the United States so badly, why did the United States not use nuclear weapons to attack the volunteer army or The Chinese mainland? In fact, they did think so, more than once!
On September 14, 1950, the U.S. military launched the Inchon landing at a time when the Korean People's Army was marching forward and about to unify the entire Korean Peninsula, thus completely reversing the situation on the battlefield. Over the next month, the Korean People's Army suffered heavy losses and was no longer able to fight. MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the US army, arrogantly said that he wanted to occupy the entire peninsula and Chen Bing's Yalu River. In order to defend the country, the Chinese volunteer army crossed the Yalu River in October 1950 and officially entered the Korean War.
From October 25 to November 5, 1950, the Volunteer Army launched its first campaign, pushing the front line to the Cheongcheon River. MacArthur always believed that the Chinese army did not have the courage to enter the war, so he was caught off guard. But even by this time, he still believed that the size of the Chinese army was limited and still refused to be cautious. Chairman Mao and Peng Dehuai, commander of the Volunteer Army, then ordered the Volunteer Army to retreat in an orderly manner and to show the illusion of weakness. MacArthur was sure of the plan, and ordered the American army to advance east and west, and once again pounced north of the Kiyokawa River. The second campaign of the Volunteer Army to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea immediately began.
At first, the U.S. military was more cautious in its offensive. According to the plan, the volunteer army pretended to be defeated and retreated, and lured the enemy deeper. Around November 21, the U.S. military gradually swelled, resumed its rapidly advancing style of play, and clamored for "ending the Korean War before Christmas." Their western offensive forces entered the Area of Chosin Lake from Jiashan and Yongsan Cave to Tokugawa and Ninhyuan, while the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Division on the Eastern Front also entered the Chosin Lake area. Watching the enemy enter the pocket array, the volunteer army shot at the same time on the east and west fronts, once again dealing a heavy blow to the arrogant American troops. Especially in the Chosin Lake area of the Eastern Front, although the 1st Marine Division mostly retreated, the casualty rate reached 43%, of which the 31st Regiment, known as the "Polar Bear Regiment", was completely destroyed, and even the regimental flag became the trophy of the volunteer army.
The victory in the second battle moved the entire front of the Korean battlefield south to the vicinity of the 38th Parallel. With the exception of the Yangyang area, there were no U.S. troops north of the 38th Parallel, and Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, was retaken. The situation on the Korean battlefield has been completely reversed!
The defeat of the U.S. military caused a great loss of face for its commander-in-chief, MacArthur, and U.S. President Harry S. Truman. For the first time since the founding of the United States, this level of rout was the first. So the two held separate press conferences, macArthur said that he would win the war at all costs, even to make it a full-scale war, and Truman said at the November 30 press conference that the United States was actively considering the use of atomic bombs in order to win!
As soon as Truman said this, it was not us who panicked first, but Britain, who was far away in Europe. Their former Prime Minister Winston Churchill and current Prime Minister Attlee have both expressed opposition to the attitude of the United States. Britain's 100 MPs also signed a letter of protest in support of their prime minister's position. Worried that the diplomatic route was too small, Attlee also flew to Washington and engaged in a 3-day argument with Truman! All their efforts had one purpose: to get Truman to retract his words.
As we all know, the Second World War ended because the United States dropped atomic bombs. With two atomic bombs exploding in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the most stubborn Japan announced its surrender. At that time, the United States was the only country with atomic bombs, and it was fully capable of carrying out unequal attacks on other countries. However, in 1949, the Soviet Union also successfully detonated the atomic bomb, becoming the second country to possess nuclear weapons. The two camps of capitalism and socialism have returned to the same starting line in terms of nuclear forces.
The Korean War, on the other hand, was actually a military game between the two camps in the Asia-Pacific region. If China, North Korea, and the United States and their allies fought a conventional war on a limited scale, it would not turn into a life-and-death war between the United States and the Soviet Union. But once the United States used the atomic bomb in North Korea, the Soviet Union would certainly not sit idly by. When nuclear weapons are flying all over the sky, the world will not be far from destruction.
Not only that, but Europe at that time was also in a delicate state. After the end of World War II, Europe's industrial powers desperately needed to recuperate and rebuild, but ideological battles always caused unexpected troubles. Patton, a famous American general who was once stationed in Europe, has repeatedly said that he is ready to attack the Soviet Union at any time; and Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech in 1946 pushed the confrontation between the two camps of the United States and the Soviet Union to a climax. The Soviet Union did not have such a high voice in the United Nations, nor did it want to talk nonsense, so it mobilized nearly 1 million troops to recruit troops in Eastern Europe to put pressure on Britain, France and other countries. At this juncture, European countries really did not want the North Korea problem to expand, and eventually it turned into World War III! The British Prime Minister went to meet with Truman for this purpose.
Attlee made very positive suggestions in order to calm the korean war. His proposal summed up roughly in three points: a ceasefire between north Korea and China and North Korea; after the ceasefire, the United Nations, led by the United States, withdrew from the Korean Peninsula; and in exchange for China's understanding, the United Nations seat represented by Taiwan could be ceded to New China. It should be said that if these three points are realized, it will be equivalent to acknowledging China's victory!
Of course, Truman's attitude toward the Korean War was the same as that of European countries. The so-called use of atoms is nothing more than a big word he said in order to save face. At this time, when he saw someone mediating, he immediately saw the wind and steered the rudder, ensuring that the United States would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb crisis in the Korean theater was officially lifted. But truman rejected all three of Attlee's suggestions.
However, Truman changed his mind, and MacArthur was not so good-tempered. Soon, he caused an uproar because of his nuclear weapons program.
If MacArthur had a strategy, he would probably not even be able to fill a division commander in China. But if we talk about arrogance, he is the most military man in the world at that time! Sometimes this arrogance is unbearable even for Americans themselves.
On October 11, 1950, MacArthur and Truman met, and MacArthur chose the meeting place on Freeke Island, 1,900 kilometers from Tokyo and 4,700 kilometers from Washington. When the two met, MacArthur dressed casually and did not salute Truman.' When Truman suggested that MacArthur should see the United States, he was downplayed and refused. U.S. Secretary of State Acheson wrote in his memoirs: "MacArthur actually thought of himself as a head of state!" ”
MacArthur's attitude toward his subordinates in his army was even more excessive. He always deliberately presented himself at press conferences, and did not mention it to other contributing generals. After the third campaign, the "magnetic tactics" proposed by American General Ridgway paid off, and MacArthur directly took this credit for himself, so angry that Ridgway said, "I don't want to stay with MacArthur for a minute!" ”
As the old Chinese saying goes: a proud soldier will lose. MacArthur's arrogance also made him suffer frequent losses on the battlefield. Before the start of the first battle, there was intelligence that the Chinese army might enter Korea, but MacArthur stubbornly thought that it was impossible, forced his troops to advance quickly, and finally suffered a fiasco; after the formal confrontation between the two sides, he stubbornly believed that the size of the Chinese army would not be too large, and the victory in the first battle was just a fluke, so he forced his generals to rush madly, and the result was that he once again tasted the bitter fruit of defeat.
With MacArthur's arrogant personality, he could not accept the continuous failures in any way. He repeatedly claimed to expand the scale of the war and hoped that Washington would increase his troops, but what he got was the comment that "MacArthur did not understand politics". His extremely sensitive self-esteem was hurt and he desperately wanted to save face through victory on the battlefield. But the American soldiers who lost two major battles in a row had already demoralized, and everyone just wanted to hurry back to the United States to live their own little lives. Moreover, a bad news also came with the retreat of the US army: General Walker, the former enemy commander-in-chief of the US army and the commander of the Eighth Group, was killed by a panicked South Korean army vehicle when he returned! Although the new general Ridgway roughly stabilized the American position in the third and fourth battles, the capital of South Korea, Seoul, was lost, which caused an international uproar.
The blows drove MacArthur crazy. He presented the Joint Chiefs of Staff with three plans aimed at cutting off the logistical supply of the Volunteers. The first is to carry out large-scale bombing of all roads and railways in North Korea; the second is to directly carry out large-scale bombing of northeast China; and the third is to use bombers to sow nuclear waste cobalt in large quantities on the border between China and North Korea to form a nuclear pollution belt, thereby blocking the transportation line of the volunteer army.
All three plans were rejected in the end. If the United States blows up all the roads and railways in North Korea, it is equivalent to picking out its own harm to North Korean civilians, and the United States will not be able to hang on to its face; large-scale bombing of northeast China will most likely drag the Soviet Union into war and trigger a third world war; sowing nuclear waste, of course, is even more impossible. In Americans' own words, this would cause decades of nuclear contamination in North Korea and would put enormous pressure on the United States. Moreover, dumping nuclear waste, like attacking directly with atomic bombs, was equivalent to the use of nuclear weapons, and the reaction of the Soviet Union had to be taken into account.
In this way, MacArthur's plan did not work. And his madness eventually made Truman make up his mind to replace him. MacArthur eventually returned to the United States in a fit of invective. Since then, the United States has also reached a tacit agreement not to expand the scale of the war and not to use nuclear weapons on the Korean battlefield until the war ended completely in 1953.
Although the crisis of nuclear war has been lifted, the threat of the United States still makes the leaders of the new China feel like they are on their backs. Although the Soviet Union promised to launch a nuclear umbrella against China, the promises of others were ultimately less trustworthy than their own strength. In 1955, Chairman Mao publicly stated that China not only wanted more aircraft cannons, but also had its own atomic bombs! In this world, Chinese want to be free from bullying, you can't do without this thing! As a result, the construction of China's nuclear industry officially began.
This road, New China did not take easily. The three-year War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea has placed a heavy burden on China's economy. Although peace has finally come to the unity of the people, the process of industrialization in the country is still lagging behind. When the nuclear industry was launched, China's economic level and nuclear physics level were very weak. Although the Soviet Union later sent some experts to our aid, they were all withdrawn as relations between the two countries changed in 1959. China's nuclear weapons industry still needs to be solved by ourselves.
Under extremely difficult circumstances, led by Founding Marshal Nie Rongzhen, a large number of scientists such as Guo Yonghuai, Qian Sanqiang, Deng Jiaxian, Zhu Guangya, etc., immersed themselves in hard work, from the material production and model design of theoretical public relations, one by one to overcome the difficulties, and finally in 1964, China's first atomic bomb was manufactured. Just two years later, China's first hydrogen bomb was successfully developed. As mushroom clouds rose in Xinjiang's Gobi Desert and China officially entered the International Nuclear Weapons Club, Chinese waist poles hardened.