MAD precludes total wars of national survival ala WW2. It does not at all preclude the sorts of cabinet wars that were fought between the European powers for centuries before Napoleon.
If we crossed the Yalu River today, do you think we'd be alive tomorrow to talk about it? Nuclear deterrence, as part of the taboo, prevents any nation from violating the sovereignty of a nuclear power. The only exception I know of is the Yom Kippur War, and if there is ever a person who never received a well-earned Nobel Peace Prize, it's Golda Meir.
Ukraine crossed the Russian frontier. The Russians escalated by importing cannon fodder from North Korea.
I think the better question would be if China crossed the Yalu River today and joined the North Koreans to assault South Korea, what would the response of the US, South Korea, and Japan be? The latter two can trivially develop nuclear weapons if the US security situation degrades.
I think wielding nuclear weapons requires a baseline level of competence to exploit.
Yes? North Korea's own nuclear capability is very limited, and China doesn't care enough about North Korea to use its own arsenal and risk nuclear annihilation.
I still wouldn't want to be in Seoul or Tokyo if that happens though, and yes, there's a non-zero risk somebody somewhere gets trigger happy and things spiral out of control.
The Yalu River separates China and North Korea. General MacArthur sent US troops across the Yalu, which is what caused the Chinese to enter the Korean War, and led to most of the US casualties. Truman fired MacArthur for disobeying his order to stay on the Korean side of the Yalu. That was before the Chinese had nuclear weapons. The Korean peninsula has been under an armistice and not at peace for 70 years in large part because MacArthur invaded China in I would characterize as a Cabinet war mentality. Go to the MacArthur museum in Norfolk, Virginia. MacArthur was from an extraordinarily wealthy family and clearly saw himself as an aristocrat with warrant to act unilaterally while deployed far afield.
If the US sent its own troops to invade China today, do you think we be here to talk about it tomorrow? That would be no Cabinet war.
You are right. MacArthur surrounded himself with sycophants and completely mismanaged the situation due to the disconnect with reality. He may have wanted to provoke a wider war with China, including nuclear weapons and supporting a nationalist invasion of China.
His mother was like a modern PR machine, and is the reason he has a mostly positive reputation. He left alot of dead Americans in the tracks of his journey to glory.
The statement was silent, of course, on the secret testimony of Marshall, Bradley, Vandenberg and Collins. MacArthur thereby escaped the injury the testimony would have done his reputation, but the secrets badly eroded his support among those who should have been loudest on his behalf. Alexander Wiley, Styles Bridges and the other Republicans were compelled by the revelations about America’s vulnerability to rethink their endorsement of MacArthur and the belligerent course he favored. They didn’t recant in public; they wouldn’t give Truman that satisfaction. But they no longer looked to MacArthur as a credible alternative to Truman on military strategy or in politics. They eased away from the general, and because the testimony was sealed, they never said why.
