The Real Cuban Missile Crisis (2013)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Perhaps we really are experiencing a similar twisting of the public view of military politics as happened back then.
when is the last time you heard about a Chinese cruiser in the Mediterranean
"On the Chinese side, the vessels involved were fewer in number but consisted of newer models including two Type 054A frigates, the Linyi and Weifang. Type 054A frigates are multirole warships and have been deployed for anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden since 2009. Also, among other tasks, in January 2014, a ship of the same class was sent to escort Syrian chemical weapons destined for destruction. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) currently has 18 Type 054A frigates in service. The third Chinese vessel to participate in Joint Sea 2015 was the Type 903 replenishment ship Weishanhu."[1]
Ok, it was two frigates instead of a cruiser, but still...
or a Chinese aircraft carrier off Greenland. I haven't heard of that. But:
"Five Chinese navy ships are currently operating in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, Pentagon officials said Wednesday, marking the first time the U.S. military has seen Chinese naval activity in the area.... “This would be a first in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands,” one defense official said of the Chinese ships, which have been operating in international waters. “I don’t think we’d characterize anything they’re doing as threatening,” the official said."[2]
[1] http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/china-and-russia-conclude-nav...
[2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-watches-as-chinese-navy...
On the other hand, the US has treaty commitments to many countries for mutual self defense, and is probably over committed.
The lessons here could also likely be applied to Iran.
Two earlier books by the author:
http://www.amazon.com/Week-World-Stood-Still-Stanford/dp/080...
http://www.amazon.com/Averting-Final-Failure-Meetings-Stanfo...
Some of the source material is available here:
I'm glad stuff like this would not happen in 2015
There is one thing that would never happen today: a Democrat attacking from the right, or for that matter talking about military strategy at all. Of course, the Republicans don't seem interested in talking about China, either. It's the new third rail of American politics.
General Curtis Le May even said to Kennedy "It will lead right to war. This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich."
All of us think we know the story, but few Americans have ever had occasion to consider some basic questions, such as: Why was it acceptable for America to place nuclear missiles near Russia, but not for Russia to respond by placing nuclear missiles near America?
The Cuban Missile Crisis also offers a humbling illustration of how American democracy rarely passes accurate judgment on the performance of the president. No matter how many justifications or excuses one makes for Kennedy's choices, there remains one inescapable fact: He brought the world as close to nuclear annihilation as it has ever come.
The successful "quarantine" that hagiographies of J.F.K. recount as his greatest diplomatic achievement almost destroyed the world, when American destroyers began dropping depth charges near a Soviet submarine in international waters. The submarine's captain ordered the launch of a nuclear torpedo, and his decision was affirmed by the sub's political officer — which normally would be enough to authorize the use of a nuclear weapon.
Why wasn't the world transformed into a sphere of radioactive ice? Pure Serendipity. The commander of the Soviet flotilla happened to be present on the submarine, and he was able to convince his comrades to stand down.
Thus, the man we owe our lives to is not Kennedy, our national icon, but rather a guy named Василий Архипов, whom most Americans will never hear about. I named my cat "Vasili" in his honor.
Sometimes, when I'm petting him, I think about the constant gulf between perception and reality that I have witnessed firsthand. How often do we think that the right people receive credit or blame when software breaks or corporations implode? Why would we expect verism to prevail in even higher stakes domains, like world history?
I stand by what I wrote a couple years ago: "[T]he highest entropy fields are also the ones with the highest stakes for society. For example, what were the consequences of American intervention against the Central Powers in World War I? They are difficult to fathom precisely because they were so immense. The problem is a combination of 'causal density' and 'holistic integration.' The more variables a decision affects, the harder it is to untangle the resulting chain of cause and effect. And if its consequences are far reaching, then there is rarely an opportunity to perform controlled experiments.
Thus, the experts who offer opinions about the momentous issues of our times are precisely those in whom we should have the least confidence. Their fields may appear prestigious because they involve matters of global importance, but there is a corollary decrease in the reliability of their insights."
I didn't think Thirteen Days was that unbalanced. It didn't portray a unilateral victory for the steadfast Americans, but made it clear that both sides made compromises to end the crisis.
Thirteen Days left me with an overwhelming impression of extreme arrogance on both sides. Who are you people, and who gave you the power of life and death over an entire planet? It's a good movie IMHO, and you're doing it a disservice by lumping it in with the usual jingoistic propaganda flicks from Hollywood.
First, before Jupiter missiles were deployed to Turkey, the question was raised in Congress of what our response would be if the Soviets responded by placing nuclear weapons in Cuba. Deployment of the Jupiter missiles was particularly provocative, because they were incapable of surviving a counter-force attack, so their only logical purpose was a first-strike capacity against the Soviet Union.
Second, the declassified EXCOMM transcripts include all sorts of shocking moments. At one point, JFK commented that the Soviets were acting as if we had deployed missiles to Turkey... at which point someone had to remind him that we had done exactly that. It's possible that the drugs he was taking for his back injury seriously impaired his cognitive ability.
Within the White House, it was openly acknowledged that the missiles were of no military significance, and that the "crisis" was a matter of public perception. Yet RFK still advocated a full invasion of Cuba! Is that in Thirteen Days? (Honest question)
Third, the very fact that the movie left you with an impression of mutual arrogance demonstrates that it misled you. The Soviets' deployment of the missiles was a completely reasonable response to (1) the attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and (2) American missiles in Turkey and Italy. And they offered to honor the principle of reciprocity, which America was striving to violate during the entirety of crisis, until finally succumbing to reason and cutting the original tit-for-tat deal that the Soviets wanted in the first place.
In a sense, the fact that Thirteen Days is a facially credible movie makes it that much more misleading than transparently jingoistic action flicks. Viewers are more likely to accept its version of history, no matter how slanted.
It sounds scary, but in fact there was quite a lot of procedural tolerance for the use of underwater nuclear devices; they wouldn't have crossed the NATO 'tripwire', for example, whereas using a tactical nuke of the same yield on land would have done so.[0]
Hence it doesn't automatically follow that the release of a nuclear torpedo would have escalated beyond the tactical level.
[0] In fact just months after the Cuban crisis the Canadian forces began an investigation as to whether they should up-gauge to nuclear anti-submarine weapons, simply to overcome targeting and effectiveness problems.
Based on my memory of the Cold War literature, there was quite a bit of concern about a naval nuclear exchange triggering strategic nuclear war. A quick search seemed to confirm my recollection: "[T]he doctrines and operational procedures associated with sea-based nuclear weapons are subject to less well-defined thresholds and, in some cases, are quite provocative. Moreover, there are good reasons for believing that the first use of nuclear weapons could take place at sea, and for concern that the escalation dynamics of nuclear warfare in this theater are far less constrained than those that would attend nuclear operations on land." (Ball, Desmond. "Nuclear war at sea." International Security (1985): 3-31.)
The risk of escalation would have been intensified during the missile crisis, because the underlying dispute involved strategic weapons. If a Soviet nuclear weapon destroyed an American carrier battle group, at minimum the U.S. would have retaliated with tactical nuclear weapons. And there would be significant pressure to target land-based military installations in order to achieve a proportionate response, because the Soviets were so much less dependent on their Navy than the U.S. At that point, all bets are off, particularly given the Soviet's proclivity for interpreting any American action in the worst possible light.
Escalation to extinction-level global nuclear war was certainly not guaranteed, but it was arguably the most probable outcome. One cannot reasonably dispute that it was well within the realm of possibility.
Never mind the American response. On a game-theoretic basis, it would have made sense for the Soviets to follow up the submarine attack with an immediate overwhelming strike, even if they had no idea what (if anything) provoked the torpedo launch in the first place.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/stanislav-petrov_n_...
tl;dr Stanislav Petrov was a Soviet officer working in a satellite recon unit tasked with discovering US nuclear missile launches. One day the system told him that five American rockets had been launched. Proper procedure would have been to inform his superiors so they could strike back. However, he speculated that the warning system was malfunctioning (it was) and did nothing.
You're obviously very knowledgeable about this topic. Is there a book you could recommend that tells the true story of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Here are the most important documents from the Cuban Missile Crisis: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/docs.htm
Can you explain how this is different from the statement, how is it acceptable for the US to have an atomic bomb, and Hitler doesn't?
If either statement were meant to be logical, it would have to be judged by applying some rationalistic framework like a utilitarian ethics, and summing up every potential achievement or atrocity into a total, so that one party might be declared more responsible with their nukes.
(We don't do this, so when such a dilemma is presented, it's entirely for a rhetorical purpose - either to sway an unthinking audience, or to demonstrate a fallacy in action.)
This doesn't bother me in some moral sense, because I'm fine with states pursuing their own self interest. But the issue is still important to point out, because it punctures the mythology of noble American statesmen carefully managing a crisis instigated by the Russians.
Even though morality is subjective, in game theory reciprocity is a logical Schelling point. This isn't just post-hoc criticism of American policy; the Russians were actively pointing out this contradiction to the United States. Kruschev accused Kennedy of sinning against the very laws of logic. And he was right — which is why the U.S. ultimately agreed to the Soviet's proposed tit-for-tat withdrawal of mid-range nuclear missiles.
EDIT: BTW, there are lots of interesting dissenting opinions in the comments section of the article.
Can?
The self prescription for Kennedy's back pain? Pussy from many different women.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was directly on Kennedy's hands, he directed the bombers and invasion based on his time zone and forgot to adjust it for cuban which resulted in b-52 bombers being decimated and the entire invasion blowing up.
We already know that Eisenhower, Nixon, and Kennedy all conspired to assasinate Castro. Kennedy invaded the country in the US sponsored Bay of Pigs. We know that the Cold War paranoia was used as a political tool particularly by Kennedy against Nixon in the 1960 election. We also know both the US and USSR were making provocative acts against the other.
What strikes me espeically is the argument here that, since McNamera said so, USSR putting nuclear missles 90 miles off the coast of Florida had no impact on the balance of power, ie.. not a real new threat - which means Kennedy should not have opposed that, at the risk of inflaming tensions. I just don't find that a sensible argument.
As for 'Kennedy shouldn't have opposed that', the article touches on it when it quotes Kennedy as saying he shouldn't have said the soviets couldn't have those missiles a few weeks earlier, and infers he now has to stick with it for domestic consumption because he'd be flip-flopping, not good after already being humiliated on Cuba, after running a campaign partially driven by hawkish views on Cuba. So Kennedy agrees with you that it makes no sense, and the article touches on the fact the Soviet position made sense, and that the European position disagreed with Kennedy, and that his own staff told him the threat wasn't significant, and the article also touches on the fact the Kennedies wanted to keep this a secret because it was a political, not a strategic move, and so part of his staff was kept in the dark (even the VC), part of the white house lied to congress, they pressured the Soviets to keep it in the dark and even went so far as to retrieve a letter that would expose it all if it was ever leaked, that tells you a lot.
That's a bit of an understatement, the CIA estimated in 1958 that the Soviets had:
'the technical and industrial capability ... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960, and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962."'
'It is known today that even the CIA's estimate was too high; the actual number of ICBMs, even including interim-use prototypes, was 4'
The reason the Cuban missiles didn't change the balance of power was because the USSR could have attacked the USA anyway, using Russian-based long range missiles and (especially) submarine-launched missiles. The only difference between the Cuban missiles and the other two types were that the Cuban missiles were more visible, so they seemed more dangerous even though they were not.
I don't think the argument here is that Kennedy shouldn't have done anything about the missiles in Cuba. Clearly, for political reasons if nothing else, it was necessary. But as pointed out, he could have scored just as many points by agreeing publicly to a mutual reduction instead. Then he can not only go on TV and tell Americans that his stalwart determination rescued America from a grave threat, but he can also claim to have reduced overall tensions. If he wants to, he can even claim that the entire purpose of the Jupiters all along was to serve as a bargaining chip should such a situation arise (if you're going to lie, you may as well tell the lies that help you most). It would have been a fitting prelude to Reagan.
The new impact was abandoning the Munroe Doctrine, or more accurately re-defining its limitations. OK so on paper we should roll the landing craft and tanks in, but you have nukes so you get a free pass, we'll harass the heck out of you but keep the weapons that directly impact us out of sight and we'll not fight back too hard. There is also some face saving going on that sure there are plenty of leftist orgs with weapons that suspiciously happen to be all from your factories but we can kind of plausibly deny based on plenty of western rifles and even local factory production. But it goes too far WRT saving face to take over and four years later emplace Russian missiles and nukes... we can turn a blind eye to generic infantry rifles but the missiles are a step too far.
Another way to look at it is confusion about the borders of the Munroe Doctrine. When it was written the US didn't have hundreds of military bases around the world full of troops and we just did two world wars and we're fighting brushfire conflicts all over the planet. Suddenly partitioning the globe by hemisphere into ours and theirs and never the two shall meet doesn't seem so fair or realistic. So newly negotiated result of the post crisis Munroe Doctrine is the Russians can do behind the scene and adviser stuff right up to our borders, but strategic weapons were a step too far at that time (although it would have been more fair to let them do in Cuba what we did in Turkey, that was just too big of a step at that time)
Now debating the sanity or wisdom or ethics of the Munroe Doctrine is a whole nother kettle of fish, but given it, there are some interpretations based on it that shouldn't be missed. Pre-crisis, this is our hemisphere, keep out, because we don't get involved in foreign entanglements. Post-crisis, well, yeah, we get into all kinds of foreign entanglements and the new line in the sand is no permanently emplaced strategic weapons in our hemisphere, fair or right or not, its the new line in the sand and the other guys agreed to it.