History
In 1953, Eisenhower threatened the use of Nuclear Weapons to end the Korean War if the Chinese refused to negotiate. Consequently the Chinese and North Korean signed the Armistice.
The United States issued several nuclear threats against the People's Republic of China in the 1950s to force the evacuation of outlying islands and the cessation of attacks against Quemoy and Matsu, part of Republic of China.
Recently declassified documents from the National Archives (UK) indicate that the United Kingdom considered threatening China with nuclear retaliation in 1961 in the case of a military reclamation of Hong Kong by China.
The unwillingness of the Soviet Union to respond to these threats on China's behalf was one of the major factors in the Chinese decision to develop an independent nuclear arsenal.
It has been claimed that Margaret Thatcher threatened nuclear retaliation against Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Blackmail
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
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—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)