Why Didnt the U.S. Use Nukes in the Korean War?

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| Quarantining a War | Sean Malone | | Professor Fuhrman | 4/26/2013 | POLS 418 | Only five years after the United States ended World War II by creating and using nuclear weapons on the Japanese mainland, we were already embroiled in the Korean War. Entering this war with approval and support of the newly created United Nations, the United States assisted The Republic of Korea (South Korea) against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The Soviet Union and China played a crucial role in the war by keeping North Korea from collapsing and pushing the United Nations’ forces south of the Chinese border. The Korean War lasted three years, ending with a stalemate that resulted in an armistice between the two opposing Korean factions. The Korean peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel, and the two Korean nations have remained divided ever since. During the Korean War, the United States abstained from using its nuclear capabilities, but did consider using them and made threats to that effect at different times. According to the theory of deterrence, the United States withheld using its nuclear arsenal during the Korean War in order to avoid total war with China and the Soviet Union. Which sides were the original aggressors and defenders in the Korean War is still debated today, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, some light was finally shed on the issue. “Two staff members of the post-Stalin era archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union presented a paper” that contained detailed records which “explained in straightforward language that Kim II Sung had repeatedly pressed Joseph Stalin for permission to reunify Korea by military means long before the invasion was launched” (Korean War Revisited). This illustrates that this was not just the beginning of America policing the world of
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