So why didn't they just nuke North Vietnam?

So why didn't they just nuke North Vietnam?

russia had nukes also, you dingus

North Vietnam isn't anywhere near Russia dingus.

That wasn't the point of the "war". Also incredibly stupid, evil, and childish.

Because they were """""liberating""""" them.

so why didn't he USSR just nuke pakistan?

Because thankfully enough people in both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. leadership realized how fucking bad it would be to normalize nuclear warfare, even on the A-bomb scale.

>I can't into china

OP

What purpose would that serve?

Winning the war.
Fear of retaliation from China/USSR

Basically what said.

during the korean war Truman had set a precedent against normalizing the use of nuclear weapons, and no president wanted to be the one who would go down in history as the bastard who changed that. This was far from the only reason though, fear of escalation was another big one. It was never seriously proposed like in Korea though.

A better question to ask OP would be why the US didn't invade north vietnam.

if only.

Ridiculous argument. While it was a sincere concern of the US, the realities were that until the later stages of the war, China was completely incapable of providing anything outside of war materiel. The late 50s and early 60s were fucking hell on the PRC.

China fought us to a stalemate/beat us in Korea
It was entirely natural for US leaders to be concerned about their capability to intervene in Vietnam, especially since they had a (limited) nuclear stockpile of their own and they had significantly grown in industrial power. While famines like the Great Leap Forward hurt they were temporary impediments to China's capability to wage war, and the Cultural Revolution was directed from the top and as shown by the intervention of the army could be stopped if so directed.

>A better question to ask OP would be why the US didn't invade north vietnam.
Because even the people behind the Vietnam didn't want to try Korean War 2: Attritional Boogaloo.

Just to illustrate how stupid this argument is: the Great Leap Forward ended in '61 and China didn't recover until late '66. Had the U.S. intervened sooner, or outright invaded in '65, China would have been relatively powerless to prevent it. On top of this, Kruschev had no interest in intervening in Vietnam after what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. USSR intervention was something that could only come from Brezhnev and even he wanted nothing more than to provide materiel and advisement.

ikr we shoulda just nuked them russians and chinks while were at it too tbqdh

>why didn't they nuke North Vietnam?

MAD was in effect, the Soviets would have responded in kind, either targeting Saigon or just go straight for the US mainland.

>why the US didn't invade north vietnam.

If the guerrilla war inside South Vietnam was enough to keep the US' hands tied, then occupying North Vietnam would've been a nightmare on its own, not to mention the Chinese most certainly would've intervened just as they did in Korea, turning it into an attritional meat grinder again.

Why didn't they just nuke the USSR and China?

I feel as if someone who doesn't grasp the politics of LOTR enough to ask the eagles question would inevitably ask that question about real world politics.

Wouldn't even have been necessary of the US had enough brain to focus on other objectives than muh killcount.

Why didn't the USA just nuke the whole world?

really makes you think

They did drop more bombs than the entire WW2 and it didn't work, what made you think that nuking would be more effective?

>and China didn't recover until late '66.

But this is incorrect