In 1950 as part of the Korean war, China attacked a force under the banner of the UN, but consisting mostly of US and South-Korean soldiers even though China did not have nukes (and would not have them till 1967) and the US did.
So, one reason to have a conventional military is that nukes aren’t enough to prevent even non-nuclear states from attacking you. Well, yeah, you could say that if the US didn’t have a conventional military to send to Korea, then there would’ve been no US citizens within range for China to attack, but then the US would’ve had to put up with South Korea’s being absorbed by North Korea and consequently becoming communist. (And if that happened and the US Navy was incapable of projecting non-nuclear force, Taiwan would’ve been the next to fall.)
Given what actually did happen during the Korean War (namely, China’s not being afraid to kill many thousands of US citizens in the process of preventing a takeover by the UN of North Korea followed immediately by China’s strenuously trying to take over South Korea), if the US hadn’t sent a conventional military force to Korea, but merely announced to China and North Korea, “We have nukes, you do not, so don’t you dare attack South Korea because if you do, we will nuke you!”, that announcement or threat would not have been enough to prevent some combination of China and North Korea from taking over South Korea.
I could not find an estimate of US casualties inflicted by China for the entire war, but in the so-called “second-phase offensive”, described in the first paragraph of this next page as “an offensive by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) against United Nations Command (U.S./UN) forces, most of which were soldiers of South Korea and the United States”, China inflicted “24,000 casualties (including 4,538 killed)” on the US military.
In 1950 as part of the Korean war, China attacked a force under the banner of the UN, but consisting mostly of US and South-Korean soldiers even though China did not have nukes (and would not have them till 1967) and the US did.
So, one reason to have a conventional military is that nukes aren’t enough to prevent even non-nuclear states from attacking you. Well, yeah, you could say that if the US didn’t have a conventional military to send to Korea, then there would’ve been no US citizens within range for China to attack, but then the US would’ve had to put up with South Korea’s being absorbed by North Korea and consequently becoming communist. (And if that happened and the US Navy was incapable of projecting non-nuclear force, Taiwan would’ve been the next to fall.)
Given what actually did happen during the Korean War (namely, China’s not being afraid to kill many thousands of US citizens in the process of preventing a takeover by the UN of North Korea followed immediately by China’s strenuously trying to take over South Korea), if the US hadn’t sent a conventional military force to Korea, but merely announced to China and North Korea, “We have nukes, you do not, so don’t you dare attack South Korea because if you do, we will nuke you!”, that announcement or threat would not have been enough to prevent some combination of China and North Korea from taking over South Korea.
I could not find an estimate of US casualties inflicted by China for the entire war, but in the so-called “second-phase offensive”, described in the first paragraph of this next page as “an offensive by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) against United Nations Command (U.S./UN) forces, most of which were soldiers of South Korea and the United States”, China inflicted “24,000 casualties (including 4,538 killed)” on the US military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Phase_Offensive
I picked the second-phase offensive at random: China mounted 5 of these “phase offensives”.