Report Card for Donald Trump

[David Horn]

(01-24-2017, 06:22 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-24-2017, 05:59 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-24-2017, 05:31 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: The analysis you complemented me on earlier was simply a list of things that are going on now.  I don't think they preclude a more conventional conflict a little later on, and I don't think that conflict would necessarily escalate to a full-on nuclear exchange.  Probably wouldn't, really, for much the same reason the Korean War didn't.

It's not likely that escalation during the Korean War was limited by the possibility of a nuclear exchange.  We had roughly 300 nukes in our inventory; the Soviets had 5 or so.  No one else had any.  It would have been very one sided.

No, but they had a substantial enough military that Truman was unwilling to escalate anyways, citing fears from our allies that this would pull weapons and other resources from the critical European theater or Japan.  It was also felt it would set a bad precedent.

If you prefer another example, how about Vietnam?  Is this a criticism of the larger point, or solely my choice of examples?

I think your larger point Is right.  I only cited the nukes issue as being an unlikely contributor.  After all, Truman fired MacArthur for going too far, and he should have.  The last thing we needed was yet another major war in the 20th century.  Of course, we got one anyway.