Following warnings on Wednesday that Russia intends to respond to any US attempts to deploy nuclear missiles in Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin added that his nation is militarily ready for a “Cuban-style Missile crisis” if the US wants one.
The 1962 Cuban Missile crisis between the United States and Soviet Union is one of the closest times the two nations came to nuclear war. The crisis ended with a secret deal that saw both sides remove nuclear arms from one another’s borders.
Putin’s comments clearly seek to draw a parallel between the US placing nuclear arms in Turkey in the 1960s and Russia’s fear that the US will use the collapse of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as an excuse to position nuclear arms in Europe, in areas along the border with Russia.
Putin has said Russia is determined to keep parity with the US in ability to strike and time to impact, and has suggested in these latest comments that could include a growing reliance on naval delivery vehicles positioning nuclear missiles closer to the US mainland.
In the previous crisis, these tit-for-tat escalations eventually settled down with a deal to restore a less dangerous state of affairs. While that can certainly be hoped for, the danger remains that another such precipitous crisis will not see cooler heads ultimately prevail, but rather spiral out of control.
And this time, no one will be smacking their shoe on a table.
or getting a pilot released who was shot down in a spy mission over the then-Soviet Union.
This will only get worse under the current regime. There aren’t any real diplomats left. Furthermore, there isn’t any incentive to negotiate with people who cannot be trusted to make good on their nation’s signature.
Putin might have a point if Venezuela were to host 100 nukes.
“cooler heads ultimately prevail”? – Bolton, Pompeo, Pence. Trump, Abrams – -not a cool head in the house. If the Russians don’t have one – we are truly screwed.
The claim that the 1962 missile crises was one of the closest times the world came to nuclear Armageddon is a complete myth and has been promoted as such since this event occurred.
Around 1980 a computer glitch send off a SAC squadron of B52s with armed weaponry to attack Moscow. Aft6er passing its first two “fail safe” points it was 20 seconds from the third when a young airman monitoring the progress of the bombers found the glitch and recalled the bombers.
No one was talking then and if the squadron had passed that final “fail safe”, we wouldn’t be here right now…
“The 1962 Cuban Missile crisis between the United States and Soviet Union is one of the closest times the two nations came to nuclear war. The crisis ended with a secret deal that saw both sides remove nuclear arms from one another’s borders. ”
It also ended with ongoing secret peace negotiations between a another first-term hedonistic oligarch with daddy issues and a thuggish cold war veteran who was ready for peace. The first, JFK, ended up with his brains decorating the trunk door of a Lincoln, and the latter, Khrushchev, ended up overthrown and exiled in Siberia. Both punished for the crime of “collusion”.
Does any body else feel a touch of deja-vu coming on. Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. We appear to be gearing up for one hell of a farce. Putin’s best move would be to move defensive IBM’s to Venezuela and/or Nicaragua. Trump’s best move would be to fire Pompeo and Bolton and take his own goddamn advice for once. Put America first and look out for those grassy knolls. Just like LBJ, Pence is the greater of two evils.
I see no possibility of Nicaragua, Venezuela or Cuba permitting Russia to deploy nukes on their soil. They won’t provoke the US into attacking them to protect Russia. Cui bono?
Anyway, between Russia and the US both sides are nuts (or maybe MAD?) Would Russia have more deterrence if they could obliterate North America in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes? That’s as crazy as believing that 65 megaton bombs are deadlier than 20 megaton bombs.
One of the few correct things Robert McNamara said (but did not practice) is that 200 nukes are sufficient for any superpower to deter any conceivable attack. Deterrence is the certainty of devastating retaliation, not the speed of the response. Nuclear war is not a Dodge City gunfight where the quickest draw wins.
“Putin’s comments clearly seek to draw a parallel between the US placing nuclear arms in Turkey in the 1960s and Russia’s fear that the US will use the collapse of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as an excuse to position nuclear arms in Europe, in areas along the border with Russia.”
Maybe he means that, and maybe he is referencing naval systems.
However, the deal done by JFK to remove missiles from Cuba was to remove similar American medium range ballistic missiles from the borders of Russia. If the US now moves them back, Putin could just as well mean he’ll put missiles back into Cuba, and perhaps Venezuela and Nicaragua too. A deal is a deal, and the US broke the deal.
In those days long ago we had hot heads and cooler heads. Today we still have the cool heads, but the hot heads are a lot hotter than yesteryear.