Today is the 63rd anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki that played a critical role in eventually ending World War II. I highly recommend everyone read my prior posting about the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki. Likewise I highly encourage everyone to read my prior posting about the decision to drop the bomb that was the subject of much debate when I posted it.
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11:22 am on August 8th, 2008 1
After all these years, what have we learned?
In 1956, Russia aided the Chinese in developing a nuclear weapon — with the stolen nuclear secrets it got from the US.
In 1957, Eisenhower approved the forward positioning of nuclear weapons. In 1958, the first nukes were sitting in Korea — pointed at China. This Det at Kunsan remained in place supported by numerous units — mostly from Japan — into the mid-1970s. Later a Det was opened in Osan — with its weapons again pointed at China, but since the nuclear sub pens had opened up at Vladivostok, we can assume that they were included as either secondary or primary targets dependent upon the scenario.
The active nuclear alerts stood down when the 8th TFW took over in 1976 and the nuclear SIOP was switched to Kadena, Okinawa…and later silently downgraded. The “tactical nuclear artillery” had fallen out of grace long before and were still stockpiled in Korea, but not really part of any tactical plans.
All those years, the world was on a l5 Victor alert to WWIII…and they didn’t even know it after the hysteria of the 1950s faded away. SAC silently flew its Chrome Dome missions with satellite bases throughout Europe — and PACAF operated Korea. Then we had the period with the “tactical nukes” — you know, the ground artillery airburst shells and Nike nuclear airburst missiles in Korea — and later the ill-fated Matadors at Osan.
Now they are all gone — the last of the “training” weapons were removed in 1992.
Why? Because the ‘Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, Exchanges, and Cooperation’ (the North-South Basic Agreement) and the ‘Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’ (Joint Denuclearisation Declaration) was signed in December 1991. Both came into effect in February 1992.
However, by the end of 1992 dialogue between the two Koreas had stalled. And here we are hassling with “nuclear verification” over a decade later in 2008 — and still only on the plutonium nukes with the uranium nukes vaguely mentioned in all the diplomatic rigamorole.
LESSON LEARNED:
1. The US nukes in Korea were never about North Korea.
2. By the time the North got nuclear weapons, the US for all intents and purposes had no nuclear presence in Korea. It only had “training weapons.”
You hear people say, “We should nuke ‘em till they glow.” But is this a good solution? WHAT IF…???
SCENARIO 1:
1. The US nukes in Korea used on China in the 1950s as MacArthur wanted. China would have collapsed. There would be no 2008 Olympics today — as China would have been divided up into smaller nation states (like the USSR did after its fall) — that is after the nuclear fallout stopped.
2. The US would have been on the verge of bankruptcy with its foreign aid assistance to the starving masses of China — partly because of the collective guilt from using the nuclear weapons on the Chinese. But maybe 2 million people would have been saved from starvation by Mao’s “Long March”.
3. South Korea would have been a G-5 nation as it would have been feeding the “reconstruction” of China — along with Japan who would be the G-1 nation in the world.
4. And North Korea? It would have ceased to exist in the 1960s when China collapsed and absorbed into South Korea with the promise of UN support to assist in “nation building” efforts.
SCENARIO 2:
1. Eisenhower smacked across the head and pulled all the nukes back out of Korea and Okinawa. He kills the Strategic Air Command as a waste of money. The Russians with their nukes take over Europe — threatening total annihilation of America if it should interfere.
2. Park Chung-hee develops his clandestine nuclear weapon in s program in the 1970s — Japan develops its nuclear weapons (which I’m not too sure they don’t secretly have today) — and finally North Korea with its stolen technology had its nukes… and of course, China would be in a nuclear ICBM race with America and Russia.
3. We would all learn to love nukes as a means to world peace.