Serhii Plokhy

A harrowing account of the Cuban missile crisis and how the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear apocalypse.

A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Nuclear Folly

This topic is incredibly important - we need to learn the lessons of our past so we don't erase our future. 

Instead of a review, I'll paste the concluding section of the book's epilogue. While reading this, consider how elections will unfold next year. Think about the folly we will lemmingly walk into if Trump returns to the helm.

"[We face] a situation in which not only have old threats returned but new ones have appeared to make the situation even more unstable and dangerous. The unprecedented proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technologies has dramatically increased the number of states that can launch a nuclear strike. Even extremely poor but determined regimes, such as the one that rules North Korea, can threaten a superpower with nuclear war. Two rivals, India and Pakistan, both have nuclear capabilities, and Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology causes grave concern not only in the undeclared nuclear state of Israel but also in the non-nuclear regional hegemon Saudi Arabia. Cyberwarfare also makes the current situation more dangerous than that of the early 1960s, as it allows one power to seize control of another's nuclear arsenal without firing a shot.

What remains largely the same is that control over nuclear weapons is still in the hands of a very few individuals, and the rest of the world depends on their leadership and political skills, the soundness of their judgment, and the strength of their nerves. What saved the world during the Cuban crisis was that both leaders considered a nuclear war unwinnable. This is now changing with the scrapping of the old arms control treaties, the renewal of the nuclear arms race, and the development of new technology making possible the execution of extremely accurate nuclear strikes. These factors have lowered the psychological barrier for using nuclear arms, making nuclear confrontation more likely.

What can be done? Hoping that populist and nationalist politicians will stop being irresponsible in their statements and actions, that revisionist autocrats will mutate into defenders of the status quo, that leaders of all political stripes will start following the advice of their experts, or that those experts will free themselves completely of their political and cultural biases is a hopeless proposition. We cannot count on that in a world where the number of nuclear "drivers" on the unregulated highways of international politics is growing with frightening persistence. So is the fear of being attacked and wiped out by a nuclear strike. Such fear may prompt a first strike, with incalculable consequences. The old strategy of mutually assured destruction works only if fear of nuclear war prevails, but such fear has waned with the withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, nuclear testing, the end of the Cold War, and the growing conviction that tactical nuclear weapons may be used without provoking a wider war. 

Today we are back to a period resembling the one that preceded the Cuban missile crisis, when there is no generally recognized "balance is terror," to use Churchill's phrase of the 1950s, and various countries are competing in a race to improve and extend their nuclear arsenals. This is one of the most dangerous moments in history of nuclear arms. Back in the Reagan era, another highly unstable, period in the nuclear arms saga, the United States outspent the Soviets. The US can outspend the Russians once again, but what about the Chinese? Can Washington do so without borrowing from Beijing? 

To avoid a nuclear war, we must free ourselves from the belief that nuclear weapons belong to the past, are no longer relevant, and will fade into non-existence almost on their own -- a post-Cold War view dominant until recently in academic and political circles. We should return to the negotiating table and renew the arms control process that began in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. We can't wait for another crisis of such proportions to bring leaders back to their senses, as the next crisis may prove much worse than the previous one.

At the height of the Cold War, public debate put arms control on the political agenda: governments alone would not have done so. Thus, as citizens, we must re-educate ourselves about the history of nuclear weapons and the dangers they present so that a new arms control regime can be negotiated. Elected politicians eventually listen to their electorates. As participants in democratic politics, we must relearn the forgotten lessons of the past in order to make politicians act upon them. Looking back is an essential prerequisite for moving forward."

Ashlyn

This topic is incredibly important - we need to learn the lessons of our past so we don't erase our future. 

Instead of a review, I'll paste the concluding section of the book's epilogue. While reading this, consider how elections will unfold next year. Think about the folly we will lemmingly walk into if Trump returns to the helm.

"[We face] a situation in which not only have old threats returned but new ones have appeared to make the situation even more unstable and dangerous. The unprecedented proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technologies has dramatically increased the number of states that can launch a nuclear strike. Even extremely poor but determined regimes, such as the one that rules North Korea, can threaten a superpower with nuclear war. Two rivals, India and Pakistan, both have nuclear capabilities, and Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology causes grave concern not only in the undeclared nuclear state of Israel but also in the non-nuclear regional hegemon Saudi Arabia. Cyberwarfare also makes the current situation more dangerous than that of the early 1960s, as it allows one power to seize control of another's nuclear arsenal without firing a shot.

What remains largely the same is that control over nuclear weapons is still in the hands of a very few individuals, and the rest of the world depends on their leadership and political skills, the soundness of their judgment, and the strength of their nerves. What saved the world during the Cuban crisis was that both leaders considered a nuclear war unwinnable. This is now changing with the scrapping of the old arms control treaties, the renewal of the nuclear arms race, and the development of new technology making possible the execution of extremely accurate nuclear strikes. These factors have lowered the psychological barrier for using nuclear arms, making nuclear confrontation more likely.

What can be done? Hoping that populist and nationalist politicians will stop being irresponsible in their statements and actions, that revisionist autocrats will mutate into defenders of the status quo, that leaders of all political stripes will start following the advice of their experts, or that those experts will free themselves completely of their political and cultural biases is a hopeless proposition. We cannot count on that in a world where the number of nuclear "drivers" on the unregulated highways of international politics is growing with frightening persistence. So is the fear of being attacked and wiped out by a nuclear strike. Such fear may prompt a first strike, with incalculable consequences. The old strategy of mutually assured destruction works only if fear of nuclear war prevails, but such fear has waned with the withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, nuclear testing, the end of the Cold War, and the growing conviction that tactical nuclear weapons may be used without provoking a wider war. 

Today we are back to a period resembling the one that preceded the Cuban missile crisis, when there is no generally recognized "balance is terror," to use Churchill's phrase of the 1950s, and various countries are competing in a race to improve and extend their nuclear arsenals. This is one of the most dangerous moments in history of nuclear arms. Back in the Reagan era, another highly unstable, period in the nuclear arms saga, the United States outspent the Soviets. The US can outspend the Russians once again, but what about the Chinese? Can Washington do so without borrowing from Beijing? 

To avoid a nuclear war, we must free ourselves from the belief that nuclear weapons belong to the past, are no longer relevant, and will fade into non-existence almost on their own -- a post-Cold War view dominant until recently in academic and political circles. We should return to the negotiating table and renew the arms control process that began in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. We can't wait for another crisis of such proportions to bring leaders back to their senses, as the next crisis may prove much worse than the previous one.

At the height of the Cold War, public debate put arms control on the political agenda: governments alone would not have done so. Thus, as citizens, we must re-educate ourselves about the history of nuclear weapons and the dangers they present so that a new arms control regime can be negotiated. Elected politicians eventually listen to their electorates. As participants in democratic politics, we must relearn the forgotten lessons of the past in order to make politicians act upon them. Looking back is an essential prerequisite for moving forward."

Nuclear Folly A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

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