Why did the Korean War have the potential to trigger a third World War?

Answer 1

As a client state of the Soviet Union, North Korea was receiving military and technical aid from Russia in terms of supplies, advisors, and even several squadrons of fighter pilots. While the Soviet Union had just detonated its first atomic weapon in 1949 (a year before the war began), Russia did not yet have a stockpile of weapons or any sort of delivery system that could reach any foreign target, let alone the United States. However, as the war began to go badly for North Korea, Russia did begin to threaten retaliation by conventional invasion against Western Europe if the UN forces under American command were to completely destroy North Korea. When MacArthur followed all the way to the Yalu River and taunted, China intervened with about 200,000 men and pushed the US back to the 38th parallel. China did not yet have nuclear weapons, but again it gave another potential excuse for Russia to become involved somewhere else.

Political life was much more difficult in the past when you had to keep the feelings of military giants in mind whenever you did anything.

Answer 2

It was a proxy war between the superpowers, the US and USSR/China. If the US would've bombed the bridges coming into N. Korea and stopped the Chinese People's Army from reinforcing the N. Koreans, or were allowed to chase Russian MIGs over the N. Korean border with China, that could've escalated into a nuclear conflict, ie, WWIII.

Instead, the US held back and did not committ to 'total' war (as General Macarthur had wanted) and hamstrung the military, as they did in Vietnam years later. The result: a stalemate at the 38th Parallel.

Answer 3

China did enter the Korean War to help North Korea and General MacArthur did want to go ahead and fight China right back to China. This General was a Real General. If you are going to fight a War, Fight It! President Truman and all the other government people did not agree with him because they did think China would Fight the Next World War with us. So they did play it their way and did Relieve General MacArthur of his command to stop a major war with China. War and Politics are two different things and they did not do it right!

Answer 4

Pretty simple: Communist north against Capitalistic south - it was the cold war in a microcosm - a lot of talk, death and suffering, and in the end, the borders remained where they had been when the war started.

At any moment though, the USSR or America could have declared direct war on their Korean enemies and the two would have fired off a bunch of nukes and Presto! World War Three starts and ends in a couple weeks.