If Truman had permitted atomic war in Korea

Hard to tell the ramifications of a non-decision without going into numerous hypothetical scenarios. MacArthur was leery of Soviet ambitions. China was a political teapot.  Communism would pose a threat to western leadership. He felt the future of the world would be decided in Asia and not in Europe. These worries of his were recorder before the outbrake of WWII. Since then we all know what happened, his mentality was shaped further by its aftermath. I could understand the grave sense of urgency MacArthur felt. 

Edited by Seko - 07-Aug-2007 at 19:57

Here is the scenario that I believe was somewhat the reason why Truman didn't allow a nuclear attack. The U.S. nuclear attacks would have triggered a war with China.

The U.S. would not have been able to win a war against China for the simple reason that it lacked the amount of people to wage a conventional war. This meant that the U.S. would have had to wage nuclear war on China. The U.S. would have drained their meager resources that was recovering from WWII, and, since it was the major economic power during the post war, this could have started a big economic crisis.

After that, I think that it is hard to tell what would have happened. The world would be dramatically different.


Also, you should revise your judgment on Truman. As you said, Truman set up US policies that were followed by every president since then. One should thank him for reigning in the hawks, who always think of themselves as cool strategic realist, yet often are just sadists dressing up their thirst for blood.

Sparten,

How would the U.S. win against China? It probably lacked the amount of people just to occupy the country. The U.S. would had fought as an invading force against a people defending their homeland.

And even though it is true that the U.S. could have dropped A-bombs, China could have borrow a few from the USSR and drop it on the U.S. positions, killings any significant American armies.

And the Chinese leaders had experience on resisting an invading force and being on the run.

They would have counted on weapons from the USSR since the USSR would have assumed that if the U.S. was so reckless to invade China, it would be next, so they would rather keep the conflict in China for as long as possible.

And assuming that the U.S. had the capacity to bomb the entire country, what would it had won? A massive nuclear waste area?

The Truman administration seems to have been aware of this; general McArthur wasn't

Sparten,

Remember that McArthur was set to invade China. He would not have stopped in Korea, which is what made him so dangerous in the area.

The main goal of the mission was accomplished without using any nuclear weapons; in other words, it cost a lot less that it would have. I see this as a superior outcome.