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.
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.
Crazy to think that we might have had a world with a unified democratic Korea and no North Korea had this not happened.
MacArthur was too cocky.
To say the least.
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.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/redacted-testimony-fu...
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.