From: mike wilson
P. J. Alling wrote:
> Oppenheimer. The atomic bomb kept the peace for 50+ years, at least
> there were no "major" shooting wars for 50 years because no one wanted
> to risk a conventional war getting out of hand. Probably the first time
> that a weapon was actually too terrible to use.
Wow. Whilst I can understand that you may not consider the recent stuff
in the Middle East major because not so many Americans have been
affected, how you can say that Vietnam was anything other than major for
the USA (especially considering the psychological effect of "losing"
after all those deaths) and at least three other countries, I do not know
World War One caused something like 16 MILLION deaths in four years.
The second world war produced somewhere between 62 - 78 MILLION deaths
worldwide in six years, including between 1 and 1.5 million civilian
deaths in what was then French Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia).
In the first Indochina war -
500,000 Viet Minh KIA; 89,797 French KIA/MIA
In the second Indochina war, aka the Vietnam War -
1.5 million Vietnamese KIA (both sides);
60,000 US KIA/MIA; 524 Anzac KIA; 4,407 ROC KIA; 351 Thai KIA;
30,000 Meo/Hmong people KIA
It was a major conflict for those involved, but on a worldwide scale, it
was limited compared to the two world wars that preceded it, plus being
confined, for the most part, within the boundaries of a "single" country.
It's a reasonable argument that fear of escalation to a nuclear
confrontation was one reason it did not become a larger conflict.
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