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:
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)