American Committee for US-Russia Accord

In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear-charged threats to use “all available means” in the Russo-Ukrainian war have again raised the prospect of nuclear war. And on October 6, US President Joe Biden reportedly told a group of Democratic donors: “For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going.”

Any uncontrolled escalation of these existing conflicts could end in global catastrophe, and the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis suggests that such escalation may be more likely to happen through miscalculation and accidents.

Let’s hope Putin and Biden both understand how not to give way to passions.

For approximately 13 days in October 1962, beginning on October 16, the world stood on high alert amidst a crisis of unprecedented proportions.

On the 48th anniversary of the crisis, four distinguished scholars, Fredrik Logevall, James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, and David A Welch addressed these questions: Why did the crisis occur? What caused it to spin out of control? How close did the crisis come to nuclear war?

Newsweek has drawn up a list of the nuclear near misses since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, with some expert comment on their severity.

Depending on their range, yield, location, and delivery mode, the types of nuclear weapons varied. Most writings on the crisis, however, describe certain weapon types and leave others out. The tally, therefore, remains incomplete…

Much will depend on whether President Biden can be brought to recognize how poorly served he, and the country, have been by his current coterie of advisers.

Peter Kuznick is a professor of history and director of the award-winning Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. He has written extensively about science and politics, nuclear history, and Cold War culture.

Putin says he’ll do whatever it takes in Ukraine. Biden is warning of “Armageddon.” Sixty years after the U.S.–Soviet standoff over Cuba, why is nuclear war still an ever-present worry?

 

There’s a disconnect between Western leaders’ increasingly hawkish public discourse and the quiet consensus among their military experts that any armed encounter with Russia would likely end in a nuclear catastrophe.
 

Decades of progress in reducing the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world has recently been undercut by backsliding on nuclear weapons treaties, lack of progress on disarmament (in fact, the opposite, a new arms race with all nuclear states upgrading their arsenals), and hypocrisy on non-proliferation by the nuclear powers. There are now nine nuclear-armed states—the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea—and many more that could go nuclear if they so choose. Clearly, humanity has so far failed to deal with the existential threat of the weaponized atom.

In 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchev listened and talked—if secretly.

On October 14, 1992, the Public Broadcasting System aired a one-hour documentary titled, “The Cuban Missile Crisis: At The Brink.” The program looked back at the event thirty years earlier that nearly led to nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

What are the lessons we can learn from history’s closest brush with Armageddon? These questions were addressed by Professor Philip Brenner of American University in Washington, DC with comments by Kingston Reif, of the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation on the 50th anniversary of the Crisis in October 2012.

The standoff 60 years ago has newfound relevance as Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens to deploy nukes in Ukraine.

As nuclear powers ratchet up tensions around the Ukraine war, the U.S., NATO and Russia are carrying out nuclear war games. Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists are calling on lawmakers and world leaders to “Defuse Nuclear War.” Their calls come on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

As the best documented major crisis in history, in substantial part because Kennedy secretly taped the deliberations in which he and his closest advisers were weighing choices they knew could lead to a catastrophic war, the Cuban missile crisis has become the canonical case study in nuclear statecraft.

As a key player in Kyiv’s defense and the leader of sanctions against Russia, Washington is obligated to help find a way out.

 

It is safe to assume that any use of nuclear weapons could quickly lead to an escalation of a local or regional conflict into a global one.

Listen to Miller Center recordings from the signature moment of JFK’s presidency.