On June 25, 1950, the Korean War broke out in full swing. In this war of great disparity of power, it ended in the victory of the weak North Korea. The Korean War was a massive local war that erupted in the early days of World War II, in which the United States planned to use nuclear weapons six times.
The use of nuclear weapons played a pivotal role in the end of World War II, and the current situation in Hiroshima, Japan, has made us more intuitively aware of the power of the atomic bomb. So why hasn't the United States been able to implement six plans to use nuclear weapons?
The Korean War was a microcosm of the U.S.-Soviet struggle for hegemony. For the United States, the main purpose of the Korean War was to fight the Soviet Union. As far as the military strength of the United States and the Soviet Union was concerned at that time,
America's top policymakers argue that America's military power has not reached the point where it can "showdown" with communism. They need time to build up military forces to deal with all-out war. So the United States took all decent measures to avoid any action that could lead to an open conflict with the Soviet Union.
During the Korean War, although the Soviet Union did not participate in it directly, it provided a lot of support to China and North Korea in terms of military weapons, and sent a small number of troops to join the battle. Truman repeatedly stressed that their main enemy was sitting in the Kremlin, insisting that "as long as this enemy does not enter the war and leads the way behind the scenes, we cannot waste the remobilized military forces." "Therefore, even after the U.S. military and the Soviet Air Force fought, the U.S. side eventually kept it secret to avoid the gaffe of the war."
In addition, in this war, the United States has always regarded the Soviet Union as its main enemy. The use of atomic bombs requires a lot of financial and material resources, and in the case of a limited number of atomic bombs, American policymakers have always regarded the atomic bomb as the main weapon against the Soviet Union, and there are no special circumstances that the atomic bomb will not be easily used on other countries.
What's more, Korea was originally a Japanese colony, and its industrial development was not developed, there was no large city and industrial base, and there was no clear attack site. And experiments at the time showed that "if people dig deep enough to get very close to the site of the explosion without being harmed." "The Chinese and South Korean militaries have dug air raid shelters on the 150-mile-long forward front, which makes the power of the atomic bomb unable to achieve the original effect." Coupled with the narrow terrain of North Korea, the two armies are not far apart, and the use of atomic bombs is likely to cause the result of "wounding one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred."
Then, since North Korea does not have a suitable place to drop the atomic bomb, some people have proposed to drop the atomic bomb into China. The United States believes that dropping atomic bombs into China and expanding the battlefield will only weaken the national strength of the United States and enable the Soviet Union to gain power. U.S. policymakers believe that the reason why China sent troops to participate in the war was not based on its own interests, but was forced by the pressure of the Soviet Union, which was the real "operator" behind the scenes.
Even the use of atomic bombs to extend the war to China would not ensure the end of the Korean War and bring China to its knees. On the contrary, it may exacerbate the resistance of Chinese people to US imperialism.
U.S. Secretary of State Acheson said all-out war with China would be a "bottomless pit" that would "drain our blood." ”
In addition, the United States did not use atomic bombs, in addition to the fear of the Soviet Union, the United States allies and the international community also gave the United States a lot of pressure.
U.S. leaders fear that extending the war to China will not only fail to gain the support of allies, but will also "strain" or even break down the Western alliance.
After Truman's declaration of the nuclear threat in November 1950, it triggered "the fiercest political upheaval in Europe since the end of the war." "The main purpose of the United States' involvement in the Korean War was to fight the Soviet Union, which, as the backer of North Korea, had the potential to trigger World War III if the United States used nuclear weapons.
For the countries of the world that have just experienced the Second World War, they really cannot afford the outbreak of another world war. For a time, at home and abroad, the anti-war movement was on the rise. At the beginning of the war, the British Foreign Office stated: "The main and fundamental objective of our policy is to try to control the situation in the Korean War in order to avoid a global war." So, when truman was heard in 1950 that he had intentions to use the atomic bomb, 76 members of the British Parliament declared that if the use of the atomic bomb was not prevented, they would collectively resign. More than a hundred MPs have demanded withdrawal from the United Nations. In the face of such pressure, British Prime Minister Attlee personally went to the United States for talks.
State Department officials are particularly concerned that NATO could "fall apart" if the United States uses atomic bombs, a political cost that is too high. Lemmer, commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Force, once lamented: "For the first time in history, fear of nuclear weapons dominates our policies and prevents us from winning a war that is perfectly victorious." ”
In addition to political factors, the mistakes in US military strategy also account for part of the reason. Because the strength of the United States and north Korea is too large, the United States obviously despises the strength of the North Korean side. Although MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the United States, anticipated the entry of Chinese troops, in his view, China would only send a small number of troops to support North Korea, so he believed that the Chinese army was not enough to be afraid. In the Korean War, MacArthur always insisted on using atomic bombs, and after the defeat of the first two battles, he even proposed to drop 10 atomic bombs on China to completely cut off China's ties with North Korea, and it was obvious that his proposal could not be passed by Congress. But in MacArthur's final memoirs, he said he would have taken North Korea long ago if congress hadn't interfered in his decisions.