The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Russia-Ukraine war and nuclear risks

• NDC Policy Brief 20-22:
  The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Russia-Ukraine war and nuclear risks, by Jean-Yves Haine*

On 6 October 2022, in New York City, President
Biden acknowledged to Democrat donors
that, “we have not faced the prospect
of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile
Crisis”. Russian President Putin, he added, was
serious about using nuclear, biological, or chemical
weapons because “his military [was], you might say,
significantly underperforming”.1 Is he right? How
dangerous was the Cuban Missile Crisis? What lessons
can NATO draw from this historical moment?
An analysis of both the sequence of events during the
Crisis and retrospective views of the decision makers
involved points to the affirmative. Moscow’s nuclear
rhetoric during its war with Ukraine may bring NATO
to a different yet equally dangerous confrontation.
The nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and
United States over Cuba points to the importance of
reputation, risk taking, command-and-control, and
sheer desperation that may at any point escalate to
a nuclear exchange. For NATO and the Allies, lessons
include the need for risk reduction, recognition
of potential errors and accidents, managing Ukrainian
expectations, and dialogue with Russia.

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