[A Formerly Proud Canadian]

When the Korean war started, the Soviets did not have many bombs but they had many times the military strength in East Germany. We (NATO), could not match their numbers and, as a relatively new organisation founded in 1949, NATO had not the ability to co-ordinate the militaries of 12 nations. SHAPE was not even founded until 1951!

Most members of NATO had drastically reduced their militaries after Ww2. The two largest European members had thousands of their troops stationed in their colonies, to try to keep them as colonies! The US had huge numbers of troops occupying Japan, as many as 350,000 by the end of 1945 but reduced somewhat by 1950. The Soviets still had a huge army that could easily overwhelm disorganized NATO forces in Germany. At the very least, in Paris the lingua franca would have been Russian now, if MacArthur had been allowed to nuke China.

[DiogenesLamp]

The Russian army wouldn't be as much of a threat when all it's logistical support was destroyed by Curtis LeMay.

Curtis LeMay had the capability and the willingness to destroy every significant Russian city, and at the time, they could not have stopped us.

For the loss of life it would have entailed, I am glad it did not happen, but it came very close.