Nuclear War Is Once Again "Thinkable" Sixty Years After the Cuban Missile Crisis

Washington: The Cuban Missile Crisis has loomed large for 60 years as a sobering reminder of how dangerously near the world came to nuclear apocalypse and how shrewd leadership prevented it.The threat has resurfaced as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening Ukraine with nuclear war, but this time, experts are less certain of how to stop it.As Putin's military is "significantly underperforming" in its invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden stated in early October that the world risks experiencing nuclear annihilation for the first time since 1962. He added that Putin was "not joking" about the use of the extremely destructive weapons.

According to Biden, he wanted to give Putin "off-ramps." Putin doesn't appear to be willing to accept one, though.More than any time since 1962, according to George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this situation "may escalate to the use of nuclear weapons."

I've been working in this profession for 40 years, and this is the most difficult circumstance I've ever encountered since Russia is a nuclear-armed state and its leader has declared the current situation to be existential.The world is currently dealing with several nuclear flashpoints, as opposed to 1962, with hints that North Korea is preparing for another atomic test, simmering tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, and Iran stepping up its nuclear activity.However, because the crisis involves the two biggest nuclear powers in the world, Ukraine presents special risks. However, Biden himself has cautioned it is difficult not to "end up with Armageddon" once a nuclear weapon is launched. Tactical nuclear weapons would be likely to be employed in any Russian strike; these weapons would be targeted on the battlefield and not shot across continents.

Putin, who has questioned Ukraine's historical legitimacy, has declared the annexation of four districts and warned that a nuclear strike may result from either an attack on the newly seized "Russian" territory or direct Western engagement.

greater stakes

The Cuban Crisis, when the issue was how to avoid a Cold Conflict clash over the finding of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island, is fundamentally different from the horrific war that has now lasted for eight months.In one of his recorded conversations that historians have studied, US President John F. Kennedy stated that European friends believed Washington was "demented" because of its obsession with Cuba, which is around 90 miles (140 kilometres) from Florida and had a long history of US interference.

According to Marc Selverstone, a Cold War historian at the University of Virginia, "Ukraine is substantially more vital to America's friends than Cuba was."

The idea that Putin might be willing to redraw Europe's borders terrifies Europeans.

Although his motivations were more general than Putin's, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's were less rigorous. Moscow, for example, wanted to close a missile deficit with the United States and gain influence with the West over divided Berlin.

The Bay of Pigs invasion, an attempt by the CIA to remove communist revolutionary Fidel Castro, had failed, embarrassing Kennedy politically, and congressional elections were just days away.Kennedy chose to use the phrase "quarantine" instead of a blockade, which would have been an act of war, and rejected suggestions for airstrikes instead.

Kennedy's commitment to refrain from invading Cuba and to covertly remove US nuclear missiles from Turkey caused Moscow to withdraw.

Selverstone remarked that reducing the likelihood of a nuclear exchange was Kennedy's top priority."I doubt that Vladimir Putin is thinking about that right now. In fact, he appears to be raising the stakes."

Their "red lines" were raised.

The nuclear powers faced further uncertainty from on-the-ground allies both in 1962 and in the present.On October 27, 1962, a US U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba, killing a US pilot, as Khrushchev and Kennedy were exchanging signals.Kennedy disregarded calls for retaliation because he believed—and history confirmed—that Cuba, not the Soviet Union, had given the order to fire.

The following day, Khrushchev announced an agreement, and his son later said that he thought things were getting out of hand.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has vowed to capitalise on current success and retake all territory taken by Russia.Although the United States has sent Ukraine billions of dollars' worth of armaments, Biden has refrained from supplying missiles that could strike into Russia because he does not want to risk "World War III."

Selverstone noted that while Kennedy and Khrushchev were reducing their red lines in 1962, "Zelensky and Putin have both adopted maximalist postures, strengthening their red lines."Perkovich claimed that Biden, for whom he had worked as a senator, handled crises with the same composure and historical knowledge as any other US president.

However, he added that 2022 is also a new age. In 1962, Russia consented to maintain the secrecy around Kennedy's decision to remove US missiles from Turkey because they recognised the political implications for the president.

According to Perkovich, "many crises throughout history have been resolved by covert diplomacy."

"Can you image keeping a deal like that secret now in this media age with open-source intelligence and social media?"