The lessons of the Cuban Missile crisis 

(Mains GS2 : Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.)

Context:

• Russia’s short ‘special military operation’ to ‘de-Nazify and de-militarise’ Ukraine is already a nine-month-war, and likely to extend into 2023.
• Although nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945 and a global conscience has sustained the nuclear taboo for over 75 years, its threat has become real now. 

Cuban missile crisis:

• The Cuban Missile crisis (October 1962) brought the world to the edge of nuclear Armageddon, as the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. 
• On October 16, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy was informed that the U.S.S.R. was preparing to deploy medium and intermediate range nuclear missiles in Cuba. 
• After deliberating with his core group of advisers, he rejected the idea of an invasion or a nuclear threat against Moscow, and on October 22, declared a naval ‘quarantine’ of Cuba. 
• Simultaneously, he authorised his brother Robert Kennedy to open a back-channel with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.
• The crisis defused on October 28; based on assurances conveyed through the back-channel, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev announced that Soviet nuclear missiles and aircraft would be withdrawn in view of U.S. assurances to respect Cuba’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Key lessons:

• The key lesson learnt was that the two nuclear superpowers should steer clear of any direct confrontation even as their rivalry played out in other regions, thereby keeping it below the nuclear threshold. 
• With their assured-second-strike-capability guaranteeing mutually-assured-destruction, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R were obliged to limit the instability to proxy wars. 
• Nuclear war games over decades remained unable to address the challenge of keeping a nuclear war limited once a nuclear weapon was introduced in battle.

Real threat:

• The Ukraine war is testing the old lessons of nuclear deterrence as Russia sees itself at war, not with non-nuclear Ukraine, but with a nuclear armed NATO. 
• The Russian president raised the stakes again on September 21 when he ordered a ‘partial mobilisation’, and announced referendums in the four regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
• He accused the West of engaging in nuclear blackmail and warned that Russia has ‘more modern weapons’ and ‘will certainly make use of all weapon systems available; this is not a bluff’.

Need global diplomacy:

• Right now, the goal of a ceasefire seems too distant and the United Nations appears paralysed given the involvement of permanent members of the Security Council. 
• Therefore, it is for other global leaders who have access and influence, to convince Mr. Putin that nuclear escalation would be a disastrous move.
• In a bilateral meeting with Mr. Putin in Samarkand, Mr. Modi emphasised that “now is not the era of war”.

Conclusion:

• The lessons of the Cuban Missile crisis remain valid even 60 years later which provide insight to reduce growing fears of escalation and may also provide a channel for communication and open the door for a dialogue that can lead to a ceasefire.