tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/cuban-missile-crisis-4089/articlesCuban Missile Crisis – The Conversation2024-03-06T13:35:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231482024-03-06T13:35:23Z2024-03-06T13:35:23ZOppenheimer feared nuclear annihilation – and only a chance pause by a Soviet submariner kept it from happening in 1962<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578712/original/file-20240228-16-283s2r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5496%2C3899&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Onlookers at a Key West, Fla., beach where the Army's Hawk anti-aircraft missiles were positioned during the Cuban missile crisis. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/onlookers-gather-on-george-smathers-beach-in-key-west-news-photo/148266845?adppopup=true">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>History has often been shaped by chance and luck. </p>
<p>One of the blockbuster films of the <a href="https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/">past year, “Oppenheimer</a>,” tells the dramatic story of the development of the atomic bomb and the physicist who headed those efforts, J. Robert Oppenheimer. But despite the Manhattan Project’s success depicted in the film, in his latter years, Oppenheimer became increasingly worried about a nuclear holocaust resulting from the proliferation of these weapons.</p>
<p>Over the past 80 years, the threat of such nuclear annihilation was perhaps never greater than during the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban missile crisis of 1962</a>. </p>
<p>President John F. Kennedy’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, said that nuclear war was averted during that crisis by “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/100/2/598/695452">just plain dumb luck</a>.” As I detail in my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520390966/the-random-factor">The Random Factor</a>,” nowhere was the influence of chance and luck more evident than on Oct. 27, 1962.</p>
<h2>Russian missiles next door</h2>
<p>To set the stage, a cold war of hostilities between the U.S. and the communist Soviet Union began almost immediately following World War II, resulting in <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">a nuclear arms race</a> between the two during the 1950s and continuing through the 1980s. </p>
<p>As a part of <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-cold-war">the Cold War</a>, the U.S. was extremely concerned about countries falling under the Soviet communist influence and umbrella. That fear was magnified in the case of Cuba.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aerial photo of a missile base in Cuba." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerial spy photos from October 1962 of a medium-range ballistic missile base, with labels detailing various parts of the base during the Cuban missile crisis, San Cristobal, Cuba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/aerial-spy-photos-of-a-medium-range-ballistic-missile-base-news-photo/3208373?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba had dramatically escalated following the failed 1961 U.S. attempt to overthrow revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and his communist ruling party. Known as the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs">Bay of Pigs invasion</a>, its failure proved to be a major embarrassment for the Kennedy administration and a warning to the Castro regime. </p>
<p>In May 1962, Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">secretly deploy strategic nuclear missiles</a> in Cuba, with the intention of providing a strong deterrent to any potential U.S. invasion in the future. The Russian missiles and equipment would be disassembled and shipped aboard freighters bound for Havana, then be reassembled on-site.</p>
<p>On Oct. 14, a <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/cuban-missile-crisis">high-flying U.S. U-2 spy plane</a> photographed the construction of a missile launch site in western Cuba. This marked the beginning of the 13 days in October known as the Cuban missile crisis. </p>
<p>After heated deliberations with his cabinet and advisers, Kennedy decided on a <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/cuban-missile.html">naval blockade</a> surrounding Cuba to prevent further Soviet ships from passing through. In addition, Kennedy demanded removal of all missiles and equipment already in Cuba.</p>
<p>This began a standoff between the U.S. and Russia. Ultimately, the missiles were disassembled and removed from Cuba. In exchange, the U.S. removed its Jupiter ballistic missiles from bases in Turkey and Italy. </p>
<p>But one utterly random – and utterly crucial – aspect of this resolution was not known until years later through the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390500088304">memoirs of, and interviews with, Soviet sailors</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Use the nuclear weapons first’</h2>
<p>During the crisis, the Soviet Union had sent four of its <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/foxtrot-class-old-russian-submarine-notorious-past-208458">Foxtrot-class submarines</a> to the crisis area. Each submarine carried 22 two-ton torpedoes.</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to the U.S., one of those 22 torpedoes aboard each of the four subs was nuclear-tipped with a warhead yielding 15 kilotons, or a force equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb. </p>
<p>In a briefing before the four submarine commanders set out for Cuba, <a href="https://cimsec.org/cuban-missile-crisis-soviet-submarines-attack/">Vice Admiral A.I. Rassokha</a> of the Soviet Northern Fleet gave instructions that if attacked by the American fleet, “I suggest to you commanders that you use the nuclear weapons first, and then you will figure out what to do after that.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map newspaper map from the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis shows the distances from Cuba of various cities on the North American Continent." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578691/original/file-20240228-18-tdn122.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This newspaper map from the time of the Cuban missile crisis shows the distances from Cuba of various cities on the North American continent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-newspaper-map-from-the-time-of-the-cuban-missile-news-photo/515016314?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His advice came alarmingly close to being carried out. </p>
<p>In approaching the blockade area on Oct. 27, Captain Valentin Savitsky’s submarine B-59 had been under prolonged harassment from an array of U.S. ships, aircraft and helicopters attempting to force it to the surface. Needing to recharge the boat’s electrical system, the B-59 did eventually resurface, at which point Savitsky thought he had emerged into a full-scale conflict – surrounded by naval ships and planes, shots being fired across his bow, depth charges dropped and powerful blinding searchlights aimed at the conning tower. Thinking he was under attack, Savitsky gave the order to immediately dive and prepare the nuclear torpedo for firing. </p>
<p>And here was where pure luck intervened. </p>
<h2>Stuck on a ladder</h2>
<p>Staff Captain Vasili Arkhipov and an unnamed sailor aboard B-59 likely <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2022-10-03/soviet-submarines-nuclear-torpedoes-cuban-missile-crisis">prevented World War III from occurring</a>.</p>
<p>As Savitsky tried to descend from the conning tower into the hull of the sub and begin the dive, he was momentarily blocked by a signaling officer who had accidentally gotten stuck on the conning tower ladder. During this split second delay, <a href="https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8342&context=nwc-review">Arkhipov, who was on the conning tower as well</a>, realized that the chaos on the water’s surface was not an attack but rather an attempt to provide a warning. </p>
<p>Arkhipov, who had equal authority as Savitsky, immediately ordered the submarine to “cancel dive, they are signaling.”</p>
<p>World War III was very likely averted as a result of a brief delay in time caused by a sailor who happened to be stuck in the right place at the right time, along with a second-in-command who, when given a few extra seconds, perceptively realized that the boat was not under attack.</p>
<p>Had this not happened, Savitsky would have dived and in all likelihood within five minutes fired his nuclear-tipped torpedo, causing a cataclysmic reaction on the high seas and the world as a whole. </p>
<p>According to Martin Sherwin, co-author of the <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/kai-bird-and-martin-j-sherwin">Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Oppenheimer</a> that the recent movie was based on, “The extraordinary (and surely disconcerting) conclusion has to be that on October 27, 1962, a nuclear war was averted not because President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev were doing their best to avoid war (they were), but because Capt. Vasily Arkhipov had been <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/165952/gambling-with-armageddon-by-martin-j-sherwin/">randomly assigned to submarine B-59</a>.”</p>
<p>This is but one of countless examples where global and military history has been dramatically altered by chance and luck. On Oct. 27, 1962, the world was extremely lucky. The question that Robert Oppenheimer would surely ask is, will we be so lucky the next time?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Robert Rank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the Cuban missile crisis, World War III was likely averted by what one US official called ‘just plain dumb luck.’Mark Robert Rank, Professor of Social Welfare, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920592022-10-06T16:46:28Z2022-10-06T16:46:28ZUkraine recap: bad news from the battlefield for Putin, renewed nuclear threats from Russia<p>Vladimir Putin had barely finished his speech last Friday welcoming four new regions into Mother Russia, when his mouthpiece, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov admitted that they didn’t actually know where the borders of these regions were. “We will clarify everything today,” he said, when quizzed as to whether Russia was laying claim to those parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions still under Ukrainian control.</p>
<p>But Putin and his advisers are no clearer now as to how much of their neighbour’s land they have claimed than they were a week ago. The stunning success of Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the south and east have pushed Russian troops out of thousands of square kilometres of territory, in the process taking large numbers of prisoners and capturing huge amounts of Russian military equipment.</p>
<p>Precious Chatterje-Doody, who researches politics and international affairs at the Open University, believes the sham referendums and annexations were as much for <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-putin-announces-annexation-of-four-regions-but-his-hold-on-them-may-be-flimsy-191641">domestic consumption</a> as anything else. Support for the war in Russia, despite what polling might suggest, appears to be waning – particularly since the Kremlin announced its partial mobilisation last month. You’ve only got to look at the numbers of military-age Russians flooding across the borders of neighbouring countries to see that the urge to risk life and limb for the motherland is not exactly irresistible for many. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-putin-announces-annexation-of-four-regions-but-his-hold-on-them-may-be-flimsy-191641">Ukraine war: Putin announces annexation of four regions, but his hold on them may be flimsy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For the Russian president, bad news on the battlefield has been compounded by political pressure from the right wing. There has been growing criticism of the way Putin has been conducting the campaign, which many feel should have long ago been upgraded from “special military operation” to all-out war.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1577449160760074242"}"></div></p>
<p>Jules Sergei Fediunin, a political scientist at the Raymond Aron Centre for Sociological and Political Studies in France, <a href="https://theconversation.com/has-vladimir-putin-been-outflanked-by-the-russian-far-right-191781">has identified</a> some of the prime movers in Russia’s far-right, who range from military veterans, to ultra-nationalists to the increasingly visible military bloggers (<em>milbloggers</em>). These people represent an increasingly powerful tendency in Russian politics, writes Fediunin – and it’s uncertain to what extent Putin will be able to keep them onside.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/has-vladimir-putin-been-outflanked-by-the-russian-far-right-191781">Has Vladimir Putin been outflanked by the Russian far right?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Ukraine Recap weekly email newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This is our weekly recap of expert analysis of the Ukraine conflict.</em></strong>
<em>The Conversation, a not-for-profit newsgroup, works with a wide range of academics across its global network to produce evidence-based analysis. Get these recaps in your inbox every Thursday. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Newsletter+Ukraine+Recap+2022+Mar&utm_content=WeeklyRecapTop">Subscribe here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Nuclear sabre rattling</h2>
<p>Another of Putin’s allies who has been urging an escalation in Ukraine is the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who is urging the Russian president to make good on his threat to defend Russia with “all available means” at their disposal, meaning tactical nuclear weapons. The Russian leadership has hinted several times over the past seven months that it might be prepared to resort to its nuclear arsenal if it feels there is an existential threat to Russia. And, since the annexations, fighting is mainly taking place on what the Kremlin considers to be Russian soil.</p>
<p>As Christoph Bluth of the University of Bradford <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-how-the-biden-administration-is-responding-to-putins-threats-to-go-nuclear-191889">notes here</a>, the US and Nato have taken pains to play down these threats as so much bluster. But the US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, recently revealed that Washington had “been war-gaming” its response. Bluth has looked into a variety of ways in which Russia might deploy its nuclear arsenal and talks us through the possible US response. We must hope that cool heads prevail on both sides of the Atlantic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-how-the-biden-administration-is-responding-to-putins-threats-to-go-nuclear-191889">Ukraine war: how the Biden administration is responding to Putin's threats to go nuclear</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Coincidentally, we’re not far off the 60th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, 13 days during which the world stood on the brink of nuclear war after Russia deployed medium-range nuclear missiles to Cuba and the US blockaded the island and demanded their removal. The crisis deepened after Soviet anti-aircraft missiles shot down a US spy plane over Cuba.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yGm0Jz1ZweE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Until hell freezes over’: US ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson puts the Soviet Union on the spot during the Cuban Missile Crisis.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The crisis pitted a relatively inexperienced US president, John F. Kennedy, against a hardheaded Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, both of whom were reportedly under pressure to escalate from influential hawks in their respective administrations. Tom Vaughan, who researches nuclear politics at Aberystwyth University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-does-it-take-luck-or-reasoning-to-avoid-it-lessons-from-the-cuban-missile-crisis-60-years-on-191239">recounts the crisis</a> and draws parallels with today’s situation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-does-it-take-luck-or-reasoning-to-avoid-it-lessons-from-the-cuban-missile-crisis-60-years-on-191239">Nuclear war: does it take luck or reasoning to avoid it? Lessons from the Cuban missile crisis, 60 years on</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Away from the battlefield</h2>
<p>With his eyes firmly on the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing in about ten days, the last thing Xi Jinping must want is to become embroiled in nuclear brinkmanship in Europe. Xi has consistently backed Putin, but has tempered his position with a degree of ambiguity, simultaneously refusing to condemn Russia’s actions while at the same time restating his firmly held position on the sanctity of the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.</p>
<p>The University of Birmingham’s Stefan Wolff and Tatyana Malyarenko of the National University Odesa, believe that Xi’s support for Putin is finite, with one of the main red lines being any use of nuclear weapons on Russia’s part. For Xi, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-chinas-lukewarm-support-for-russia-is-likely-to-benefit-kyiv-heres-why-191790">increasing asymmetry of the two countries’ relationship</a>, in which Russia is increasingly the junior partner, is not such an undesirable outcome. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-chinas-lukewarm-support-for-russia-is-likely-to-benefit-kyiv-heres-why-191790">Ukraine war: China's lukewarm support for Russia is likely to benefit Kyiv – here's why</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile the perpetrator of what looks likely to have been deliberate sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea remains unclear. But the episode is a sobering pointer for the damage that could be done by a mischievous power bent on wreaking real havoc with vital infrastructure. </p>
<p>As Christian Bueger, a professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, points out, this raises the question of the vulnerabilities of European pipelines, electricity and internet cables. This, says Bueger, appears to be what is known as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-how-an-attack-could-have-been-carried-out-and-why-europe-was-defenceless-191895">“grey-zone” attack</a>, so called because it could either have been perpetrated by a rogue state or by a group acting indirectly on behalf of state interests. What makes it all the more tricky is that it’s the first carried out underwater, where at present there is little surveillance in place. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-how-an-attack-could-have-been-carried-out-and-why-europe-was-defenceless-191895">Nord Stream pipeline sabotage: how an attack could have been carried out and why Europe was defenceless</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The trouble with conscription</h2>
<p>We mentioned earlier that some of Putin’s right-wing allies want him to double down on the war and call for mass mobilisation, which implies a general conscription of fighting-age men. This has rarely been a popular move, particularly when the cause is not an existential one as it was for many of the allied countries in the second world war. </p>
<p>And it appears that nobody is immune to a degree of cynicism when it comes to making hard political choices as to who to send off to risk life and limb. Kevin Fahey, a political scientist at the University of Nottingham, has analysed archival information about how the US conducted conscription in the second world war. He reveals that the Democratic Roosevelt administration <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-what-the-history-of-wwii-conscription-shows-us-about-who-gets-sent-to-the-front-lines-191607">systematically rigged</a> the call up to favour their party at the next election, taking fewer conscripts from swing states where sending people’s boys off to fight might have boosted the chances of their Republican rivals. <em>Plus ça change,</em> you might say.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-what-the-history-of-wwii-conscription-shows-us-about-who-gets-sent-to-the-front-lines-191607">Russia: what the history of WWII conscription shows us about who gets sent to the front lines</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Ukraine Recap is available as a weekly email newsletter. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/ukraine-recap-114?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+Newsletter+Ukraine+Recap+2022+Mar&utm_content=WeeklyRecapBottom">Click here to get our recaps directly in your inbox.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Some of the key articles from our coverage of the war in Ukraine over the past week.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1912392022-10-04T11:57:56Z2022-10-04T11:57:56ZNuclear war: does it take luck or reasoning to avoid it? Lessons from the Cuban missile crisis, 60 years on<p>The United States and the Soviet Union came dangerously close to war in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. Just ahead of its 60th anniversary, Russian president Vladimir Putin is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63016675">issuing nuclear threats</a> following the unexpectedly poor performance of his troops in Ukraine. The invasion poses a new kind of challenge to European security, but as in 1962, tensions between Russia and the west are rising.</p>
<p>Talking of use of nuclear weapons, the US defence secretary <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/02/lloyd-austin-russia-nuclear-putin-00059917">Lloyd Austin</a> recently said that Putin could make “another decision”. US teams have been exploring possible responses to a nuclear attack, it has emerged.</p>
<p>Journalists ask: “<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/9/22/23366499/putin-russia-ukraine-war-nuclear-threat-expert">How close we are to nuclear war?</a>.” It’s hard to tell. Deliberate escalation may be unlikely, and we may avoid the worst-case scenario. However, there are <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-07-18/what-if-war-in-ukraine-spins-out-control">many situations</a> that could unintentionally lead to disaster. </p>
<p>The Cuban missile crisis cannot teach us how to avert war – it shows us that, once tensions are ratcheted up, this comes down to luck. Instead, we should learn from the crisis, the nearest the world has got to nuclear war, that the very existence of nuclear weapons always invites catastrophe.</p>
<p>We have been lucky to avoid nuclear war so far. If the nuclear crisis in Ukraine is averted, we will have been lucky again. The key lesson of Cuba is don’t mistake luck in Ukraine for reassurance that nuclear war in the 21st century is impossible.</p>
<h2>Learning from history</h2>
<p>On October 14 1962, a US spy plane captured <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/photos.htm">photographs</a> of Soviet missile launch sites under construction in Cuba. Missiles launched from Cuba would be within range of much of the US mainland. In response, US president John F. Kennedy imposed a <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/kennedy-imposes-naval-blockade-of-cuba-oct-22-1962-028584">naval blockade of Cuba</a>. </p>
<p>This was intended to prevent Soviet nuclear weapons reaching the Caribbean island. Kennedy demanded that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev remove the weapons. Khrushchev refused. </p>
<p>Over the days that followed, the two leaders traded private appeals and public demands, urging each other to back down. On October 26, Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/jfk-attack/">wrote to Khrushchev</a>, asking him to attack the US. On October 27, Soviet antiaircraft missiles shot down a US spy plane over Cuba. </p>
<p>Realising that war was imminent, Kennedy and Khrushchev offered concessions. Kennedy agreed to remove US intermediate range nuclear missiles from Turkey - within range of the Soviet Union. In return, Khrushchev agreed to remove the offending Soviet missiles if the US promised not to invade Cuba afterwards. By October 28, the crisis was over. Global thermonuclear war was avoided - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/12/the-day-nuclear-war-almost-broke-out">but only narrowly</a>.</p>
<h2>Creating an illusion of safety</h2>
<p>Despite the close call, many analysts were over optimistic about lessons from the crisis. Influential US political scientist <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/nuclear-learning-and-ussoviet-security-regimes/2A417B0A9B6F236DFE4BBA8A7FADE2AA">Joseph Nye argued</a> that the crisis produced a sense of vulnerability and fear among policymakers and strategists. US and Soviet leaders learned from this experience <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/25/18196416/nuclear-war-boris-yeltsin-1995-norway-rocket">(and other near misses)</a> that they had been lucky to avoid war, and that measures were needed to prevent future crises. In response, they created arms control agreements and lines of communication, intended to make future crises less likely. These can be helpful, but they contribute to an <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/303337/command-and-control-by-eric-schlosser/">illusion of safety</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u07rkwHTPLk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">President Kennedy’s speech on the Cuban missile crisis.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Alternatively, others <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/10/16/the-cuban-missile-misunderstanding-how-cultural-misreadings-almost-led-to-global-annihilation/">including US historian John Lewis Gaddis </a> have argued that the crisis showed that nuclear deterrence works: the Soviet Union was deterred from attacking by the prospect of a devastating nuclear response from the US. Under this argument, the crisis was under control, despite misunderstandings between the leaders. Kennedy and Khrushchev calculated that the other wanted to avoid conflict, and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538793#metadata_info_tab_contents">prospect of nuclear retaliation lowered the risk</a> that either would attack.</p>
<p>These lessons have influenced how we interpret the nuclear dangers of the war in Ukraine. Most western officials act as if Russia’s nuclear threats <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/340dacce-10c8-45bc-a157-5aeb0a443b5e">are a bluff</a>, because Putin is well aware of the devastating potential of nuclear escalation. Furthermore, conventional wisdom still tells us that possessing nuclear weapons – or being under the nuclear umbrella of <a href="https://www.nti.org/atomic-pulse/natos-new-strategic-concept-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/">an alliance such as Nato</a> – is a reliable way of deterring Russian aggression.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shelling-of-europes-biggest-nuclear-power-plant-exposes-multiple-risks-a-nuclear-expert-tells-us-what-they-are-189078">Shelling of Europe's biggest nuclear power plant exposes multiple risks – a nuclear expert tells us what they are</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some would argue that these lessons come from a fallacious interpretation of the Cuban missile crisis: because we avoided nuclear war then, nuclear war in the future must be unlikely. On the contrary, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.13142">over a long enough timeline, it is inevitable</a>. Some people tell us that the continued existence of nuclear weapons isn’t really dangerous, because we’ve learned how to minimise the risk of war, and even that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05679328108457394">nuclear weapons themselves make war less probable</a>. They encourage us to believe that we can control nuclear escalation and accurately calculate nuclear risks.</p>
<p>Recent research and reviews of Cuban missile crisis documents has shown that many global leaders believed that the nuclear risks were under control during the crisis. Nuclear history expert <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/nk/en/membre/benoit-pelopidas">Benoît Pelopidas</a> shows that, even at the height of tensions, French and Chinese leaders were less <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/unbearable-lightness-of-luck-three-sources-of-overconfidence-in-the-manageability-of-nuclear-crises/BDE95895C04E7E7988D15DB4F217D1E4">fearful of nuclear war</a> than many might expect. For them, the fact that war was avoided simply proved that it is possible to reliably “manage” the danger of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00471178221094726">most scholars now agree</a> that nuclear war was only avoided during the crisis by sheer luck, not rational decision making. For example, on October 27, 1962, a Soviet submarine captain believed that war had begun. He decided to fire his nuclear torpedo at US ships, but was convinced otherwise by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize">a fellow officer.</a> On October 28 1962, US forces in Okinawa, Japan, received a mistaken order to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/10/28/how-one-air-force-captain-saved-the-world-from-accidental-nuclear-war-53-years-ago-today/">launch 32 nuclear missiles</a>, again only being stopped by one quick thinking captain. </p>
<p>Remember that Putin could invade Ukraine without worrying about a western military response <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/science/russia-nuclear-ukraine.html">because of Russia’s ability to threaten nuclear retaliation</a>. He may yet calculate that he can use tactical nuclear weapons to defend against a Ukrainian counter-attack without provoking a Nato nuclear retaliation, because western leaders will not risk nuclear war. He may be mistaken. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/foreign/mearsh.htm">Comforting stories about the cold war</a> have encouraged people to believe that nuclear deterrence keeps the peace. This is not true. We have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/12/forgetting-the-apocalypse-why-our-nuclear-fears-faded-and-why-thats-dangerous">forgotten</a> the dangers of states holding large nuclear arsenals. Assuming nuclear war in Ukraine is avoided, the lesson from Cuba? Don’t <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2071179">forget </a> again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Vaughan has previously received funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).</span></em></p>Because the west avoided a nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis it should not be overconfident about Russia’s nuclear threats.Tom Vaughan, Lecturer, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1852942022-06-23T20:07:10Z2022-06-23T20:07:10ZFriday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?<p>Should Australia join the United States in a war against China to prevent China taking the US’s place as the dominant power in East Asia? Until a few years ago the question would have seemed merely hypothetical, but not anymore. </p>
<p>Senior figures in the Morrison government quite explicitly <a href="https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-says-australia-should-prepare-for-war-so-how-likely-is-a-military-conflict-with-china-182042">acknowledged</a> that the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China could lead to war, and their Labor successors do not seem to disagree. That is surely correct. Neither Washington nor Beijing want war but both seem willing to accept it rather than abandon their primary objectives. </p>
<p>There can be no doubt that if war comes, Washington would expect Australia to fight alongside it. Many in Canberra take it for granted that we would do so, and defence policy has shifted accordingly. Our armed forces are now being designed primarily to contribute to US-led operations in a major maritime war with China in the Western Pacific, with the aim of helping the United States to deter China from challenging the US, or helping to defeat it if deterrence fails. </p>
<p>In fact, the risk of war is probably higher than the government realises, because China is harder to deter than they understand.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-does-not-want-war-at-least-not-yet-its-playing-the-long-game-160093">China does not want war, at least not yet. It's playing the long game</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The biggest war since WWII</h2>
<p>If war comes, Australians would face a truly momentous choice. Any choice to go to war carries special weight, because the costs and risks that must be weighed against the potential benefits are qualitatively different from those involved in other policy choices. A nation’s leaders must decide whether those exceptional costs and risks are justified by the objectives for which the war is fought. </p>
<p>That is a big responsibility even for the relatively small wars which Australia has joined in recent decades in <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-that-never-ended-ten-years-on-iraq-remains-bloodied-12840">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-occupation-of-afghanistan-was-colonialism-that-prevented-afghan-self-determination-167615">Afghanistan</a>. But a war with China would be nothing like those. Once fighting began, there would be little chance of avoiding a major war, because the stakes for both sides are very high, and both have large forces ready for battle. </p>
<p>This would be the first serious war between two “great powers” since 1945, and the first ever between nuclear-armed states. It would probably become the biggest and worst war since the second world war. </p>
<p>If it goes nuclear, which is quite probable, it could be the worst war ever. A decision to fight in that war would be as serious as the decisions to fight in 1914 and 1939, which were arguably the most important decisions Australian governments have ever made.</p>
<p>It is important to be clear what the decision would be about. If war comes, it will be sparked by a dispute between the United States and China over something like <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-taiwan-rely-on-australia-when-it-comes-to-china-new-poll-shows-most-australians-dont-want-to-send-the-adf-164092">Taiwan</a> or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-is-the-south-china-sea-such-a-hotly-contested-region-143435">South China Sea</a>. </p>
<p>But the specific dispute would not be the reason we would go to war with China, any more than we went to war in 1914 over the fate of Belgium or in 1939 over the fate of Poland. On both occasions the decision for war was driven by our concern to help prevent a defeat in Europe which would destroy British power in Asia, which we then relied on for our security. </p>
<p>We would go to war with China to preserve the US strategic position in Asia on which we depend for our security. That is not quite the same as saying that we would fight to preserve our alliance with the US. Many people assume that that would be our primary objective, because the US might abandon its commitments to us if we failed to support it. </p>
<p>But Washington’s disappointment with us does not threaten our US alliance nearly as gravely as Washington’s defeat by China. As long as they have strategic ambitions in Asia, Washington will have good reasons to help defend Australia. What would destroy the alliance would be American defeat and withdrawal from Asia.</p>
<p>Australia would be profoundly affected by a US–China war whether we joined the fighting or not. That might tempt some to think that our decision didn’t matter much one way or the other. </p>
<p>That obviously overlooks the consequences for those who actually serve, and the possibility that Australia itself could be targeted. But more importantly, it overlooks the possibility that Australia’s decisions would influence decisions elsewhere – including in Washington. </p>
<p>Recent scholarship has highlighted the remarkable weight given to Australia’s attitudes by British policymakers in the crises of 1914 and 1938–39. Douglas Newton has <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/hell-bent-9781925106060">shown how</a>, at a critical moment, Britain’s choice for war in 1914 was nudged by Australia’s eager support, while David Lee and David Bird have shown the influence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-the-bitter-dispute-that-cost-pm-stanley-bruce-his-seat-in-1929-115129">Stanley Bruce</a> and Joseph Lyons on Britain’s innermost councils in 1938 and 1939.</p>
<p>The possibility that Australia’s choices might help to shape the ultimate decisions for war or peace in Asia over the years ahead make it all the more important that we weigh those decisions carefully.</p>
<p>Choices for war are profoundly shaped by historical analogy. Often this is the primary driver of a decision, in part because there is so little else to go on – nothing like the kind of data that can guide decisions on, say, tax policy or health policy. </p>
<p>We decide whether to go to war or not largely by looking at what our predecessors did in previous crises. Much depends, then, on which earlier crises we choose to consider, on how well we understand them, and on how closely yesterday’s crisis resembles today’s. </p>
<p>As Australia considers whether to join a US-China war, it is natural and prudent to look for guidance to the two previous occasions when we have faced comparably serious choices: 1914 and 1939. When we do this, we find an acute contrast between the way these two choices are now understood.</p>
<h2>Two world wars, two lessons</h2>
<p>Today, no one seriously doubts that we – Australia and its allies in the British Empire – were right to go to war in 1939 against Nazi Germany, nor that we were wrong not to go to war over the Czech crisis of 1938. </p>
<p>This was also the seemingly universal view of those who lived and fought through the war. In 1961 the historian A.J.P. Taylor <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-9780140136722">noted</a> how little interest there was in contesting the accepted view of these momentous decisions. The same is true <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551557/appeasement-by-tim-bouverie/">today</a>. The second world war is seen as a war that had to be fought.</p>
<p>The contrast with 1914 could hardly be starker. No one today seems seriously to doubt that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">first world war</a> should not have been fought. Again, today’s judgment matches the verdict of those who lived and fought through the war itself. </p>
<p>Throughout the troubled decades from 1919 to 1939 there was an almost universal belief that the war had been a ghastly mistake and should never have been fought. Ever since, and despite lively debates about details of the debacle that led to war, especially how much of the blame lay with Berlin, the clear consensus has endured that war came that long-ago summer through the collective folly, weakness and ineptitude of the statesmen involved. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469447/original/file-20220617-14-p60pgp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The British wartime Prime Minister, Lloyd George, writing soon after the war ended, said the nations of Europe “slithered over the brink” into a war that none of them intended. <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-sleepwalkers-9780141027821">Sleepwalkers</a>, the title of Christopher Clark’s notable recent account of how it all happened, suggests how little those essential judgements have changed.</p>
<p>The intriguing thing about these very different verdicts is that the underlying reason for Britain and the empire going to war was much the same on both occasions. It was to prevent the domination of Europe by a single power that would then be strong enough to threaten Britain itself, and hence Britain’s capacity to defend its empire, including Australia. </p>
<p>Both times Germany threatened to upset the balance of power between the European Great Powers, on which Britain had relied for centuries to safeguard its security across the Channel and thus allow it to project power around the globe to build and defend its <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-empire-is-still-being-whitewashed-by-the-school-curriculum-historian-on-why-this-must-change-105250">empire</a>. After 1918 this seemed a wholly insufficient reason to go to war. And yet when the same strategic logic drove Britain and its empire to war again in 1939, this seemed entirely justified.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-great-war-wwi-100462">World politics explainer: The Great War (WWI)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Why the difference? One important reason concerns who did most of the fighting. In the first world war the hardest fighting was done by Britain and France on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-infinity-of-waste-the-brutal-reality-of-the-first-world-war-106593">Western Front</a>. In the second world war it was done by the Soviet Union against Germany in Europe, and (as we all too easily forget) by the Chinese against Japan in Asia. That is why, for all its horrors, the second world war was less horrific for Britain and Australia than the first. </p>
<p>But the main reason is of course the nature of the Nazi regime. During the first world war many lurid things were believed about the evils of Prussian militarism, and some of them no doubt were true. </p>
<p>But no one would compare them with the truly astonishing evil of Nazi Germany, which turned out after the war to be far worse even than most people had imagined. As the liberation of Europe in 1944 and 1945 revealed the reality of life under Nazi rule, it was hard to doubt that this was a challenge that must be defeated.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the lessons that have been drawn from 1914 and 1939 are very different – indeed they are diametrically opposed. After the first world war it was universally accepted by national governments that war on that scale must be avoided at almost any cost. It was therefore always better to compromise and accommodate the ambitions of a country that wanted to change the international system in its favour, rather than fight to defend the status quo. The word they used was “appeasement”. </p>
<p>The lesson drawn from 1939, and especially from the failure of the last gesture of appeasement at Munich in 1938, was never to make concessions to any power that seeks to expand its influence in the international system. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469454/original/file-20220617-12-mvb8ol.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Neville Chamberlain on his return from Munich, 30 September 1938.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Accommodation only encourages further demands. An unshakable refusal to compromise, backed by a clear determination to fight if necessary, will probably force the challenger to back off, thus avoiding war. And if they do not back off, then better to fight sooner before the challenger gets any stronger. They will have to be fought sooner or later, before they become too strong to be stopped.</p>
<p>It is not surprising that this stark and simple rejection of the lessons of 1914 should have appealed to people during the six hard years of the second world war. It is a bit more surprising that it has retained such a strong influence ever since. </p>
<p>Today these simple, powerful precepts remain perhaps the most potent element of that vague set of ideas, preconceptions and prejudices that provide the intellectual framework for foreign and strategic policy-making in the Western, and especially the Anglo-American, world. </p>
<p>The ideas that we should always be willing to fight rather than compromise, and that the more willing we are to fight, the less likely we are to have to fight, took on the aura of timeless precepts of universal application. As such, they had, and have, obvious appeal. They make difficult policy decisions look easy, and allow leaders and their advisers to look and sound tough.</p>
<p>But the results have not always been happy. The “lessons of Munich” <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691025353/analogies-at-war">inspired</a> Britain’s debacle in Suez, the US’s defeat in Vietnam, their invasion of Iraq in 2003 and many other mistakes. These failures are easy to explain. </p>
<p>Lessons of history are inevitably tied to the original circumstances of time and place from which they are drawn, and how well they apply to new situations depends on how far and in what ways the new circumstances resemble the original ones. The lessons drawn from the failure of appeasement in 1939 are specific to the circumstances of that failure, and some of those circumstances were very unusual.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469446/original/file-20220617-22-bw775f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The main gate at Auschwitz, known as the Gate of Death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stanislaw Mucha/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Above all, the shadow of Nazi Germany was unusual and perhaps unique in several critical ways. One was the sheer evil of the Nazi regime to which we have already referred. Another was its unusually stark and clearly stated strategic ambitions. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://theconversation.com/mein-kampf-publication-the-best-way-to-destroy-hitlers-hateful-legacy-51707">Mein Kampf</a> onwards, Hitler made clear that he planned to do more than build Germany’s position as the leading power in Europe by expanding its influence over other countries. He wanted to destroy other countries by seizing and occupying large tracts of territory to provide <em>Lebensraum</em> for the German people. </p>
<p>A third was its potential to realise its ambitions on the basis of its formidable national power – economic, demographic, technical and organisational – compared to its neighbours. Against this kind of challenge, the only possible response may well be, as the lessons of Munich suggest, unwavering and uncompromising opposition; if necessary, by fighting a major war.</p>
<p>But neither Nasser’s Egypt, nor Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnam, nor <a href="https://theconversation.com/gulf-war-30-years-on-the-consequences-of-desert-storm-are-still-with-us-156140">Saddam Hussein’s Iraq</a> were anything like Hitler’s Germany. The dangers they posed were nowhere near as serious as was assumed, and the costs and risks of resisting them by force turned out to be much higher than expected, and higher than could be justified to avert those dangers. Even more strikingly, however, the lessons of Munich had relatively little influence on a number of much bigger questions. </p>
<p>The postwar architecture hammered out between US president Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at Yalta, based on the United Nations, was premised on a spirit of accommodation and compromise. </p>
<p>Even more strikingly, so was the West’s approach to the one adversary it faced in the postwar decades that was in some ways comparable with Nazi Germany – the Soviet Union. Western leaders sometimes invoked the follies of Munich to advertise and justify hard-line Cold War postures, but their policies were most often guided by a prudent recognition of the need to negotiate understandings with Moscow in order to avert the danger of war.</p>
<p>This was of course all the more imperative as the Soviet capacity for nuclear warfare grew. In the 1950s even the archetypal opponent of appeasement, Winston Churchill, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2713969-negotiation-from-strength">became</a> a fervent advocate of negotiation with Moscow to settle differences in order to avoid nuclear war. </p>
<p>In the darkest moment of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was influenced much more by the lessons of 1914 than by those of 1938–39, which <a href="http://blog.loa.org/2012/03/how-barbara-tuchmans-guns-of-august.html">prompted him</a> to offer the concessions which defused the crisis. In any case, the policy of Détente that evolved in the aftermath of that crisis owed a lot more to the lessons of 1914 than those of 1938–39.</p>
<p>It seems clear that, as a new Cold War looms between the United States and China, the lessons of 1939 loom much larger than the lessons of 1914, both in Washington and Canberra. Washington has made it clear that it has no interest in seeking an accommodation with China that would meet any of China’s aims to expand its influence in Asia and beyond. </p>
<p>Washington’s talk of preserving the “rules-based liberal order” plainly embodies its intention to perpetuate the old status quo of US primacy, and its emphasis on meeting China’s military challenge reflects its willingness to go to war with China rather than to compromise that objective. In Canberra, Scott Morrison made clear the influence of Munich on his policy when, launching his government’s <a href="https://defence.gov.au/ADC/Publications/AJDSS/volume2-number2/prime-minister-address-launch-2020-defence-strategic-update.asp">Defence Strategic Update</a> in 2020, he explicitly compared today’s strategic circumstances to those of the 1930s and early 1940s.</p>
<p>Is this the right way to think about the problem of China? To be clear, the question is not whether we should try to resist China’s ambitions, but how far we should resist them, and at what cost. Should Australia be willing to go to war, whatever the cost may be, to preserve the US-led regional and global order, and block any expansion of Chinese power and influence? Or should we be willing, reluctantly, to accommodate some of China’s ambitions by accepting an expansion of its influence, in order to reduce the risks of war? It is not a simple question.</p>
<p>The lessons of Munich do not seem to offer a very helpful guide to answering it. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-communist-party-claims-to-have-brought-prosperity-and-equality-to-china-heres-the-real-impact-of-its-rule-163350">Chinese Communist Party</a> has many faults and is responsible for much brutality and oppression, but it is not by any stretch comparable to the evil of the Nazi Party. </p>
<p>China today is certainly strategically ambitious, but there is no serious reason to fear that – the special case of Taiwan apart, its claim to which the rest of the world acknowledges – it seeks to conquer and absorb others’ territory. And although China is set to become the most powerful country on earth, it cannot dominate and subjugate such strong neighbours as India and Russia. </p>
<p>Overall, then, the risks that China poses to the regional and global order, though significant, are not like those posed by Nazi Germany, or indeed the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a war with China may well be as costly as the world wars of the 20th century, or even more costly, especially if it becomes a nuclear war. That would be an almost unimaginable disaster even if our side won – a victory, as Churchill <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90230.The_World_Crisis_1911_1918">wrote</a> of the First World War “bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat”.</p>
<p>Moreover, there is no reason to assume that we and our allies would win. Indeed, it is hard to see how a major war with China could be “won” without the kind of full-scale invasion or subjugation of the enemy’s country that brought victory in the two world wars. It is somewhat easier to imagine how China could defeat the United States – by imposing such heavy costs that Washington decides to abandon the war, and withdraw from Asia to the Western Hemisphere. </p>
<p>That raises the very real possibility that a war with China launched to preserve the US’s position in Asia might well end up destroying it, just as the First World War destroyed the empires that went to war to preserve themselves in 1914.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-untold-reaction-to-the-cuban-missile-crisis-10104">Australia's untold reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The limits to accommodation</h2>
<p>What, then, do the lessons of 1914 offer as a guide to our policy choices today? In the 1920s and 1930s the majority of those who survived the first world war would have been quite clear about that. </p>
<p>They would say that we should avoid war at almost any price, by being willing to go a long way to accommodate China’s ambitions by according it a much larger share of influence and authority in the international system. They would have been confident, however, that China’s ambitions could be constrained by limits imposed, not by armed force, but by a powerful international institution – the League of Nations – and by what they called “international public opinion”. </p>
<p>They repudiated war as an instrument of policy, but they placed great faith in these alternatives to achieve what war, or the threat of war, had long been relied upon to do. Of course, this did not work. </p>
<p>As the historian E.H. Carr <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-349-95076-8">wrote</a> just before war broke out in 1939, their misplaced confidence in these constraints, and what he later called “the almost total neglect of the factor of power” did much to create the crisis which then confronted Britain with no alternative but to go to war again.</p>
<p>We would be wise, then, not to follow their example. Where then to turn? We might begin by noting that the lessons of 1914 and of Munich are both aberrations. They depart from much older traditions of statecraft which had developed over many centuries as the modern European state system had emerged and evolved. </p>
<p>Those traditions do not by any means forswear war. Indeed, as the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one of its foremost contemporary exponents, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50562.A_World_Restored">wrote</a> in the first page of his first book: “those who forswear war will never have peace”.</p>
<p>But the aim is always to achieve the maximum advantages without war, and that entails a willingness to negotiate and accommodate; to appease, in other words. War is not an alternative to accommodation; it is used to set the limits to accommodation and to enforce those limits. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469449/original/file-20220617-23-1u31yq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Kissinger, US Presidential National Security Adviser, and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Peking, China, July 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">White House/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This approach prevented any single power dominating Europe for centuries, and after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Congress-of-Vienna/Decisions-of-the-congress">1815 Congress of Vienna</a>, it prevented any Europe-wide wars for almost a century until 1914. Seen in the light of this tradition, the appeasers’ mistake at Munich was not that they accommodated Hitler over Sudetenland, but that they failed to make it absolutely clear that they would go to war to deny him the rest of Czechoslovakia, or any of Poland.</p>
<p>As that example makes clear, the key to this kind of statecraft lies in deciding where to set the limits to accommodation. These are hard decisions to make. As we have seen, one of the attractions of the lessons of Munich as a template for strategic decision-making is its simplicity. But it achieves simplicity by lazily assuming that all ambitious powers are essentially the same and must be treated the same by refusing any accommodation. </p>
<p>Taking a more responsible approach requires careful judgements about the current and probable future extent of an adversary’s ambitions and power, and nuanced assessments of the implications for our future security. Then we can judge how far we can afford to accommodate them before the costs and risks of doing so exceed the costs and risks of the war we would need to fight to stop them.</p>
<p>Looking back, for example, it is interesting and instructive to think about the alternatives to war in August 1914. Had Britain stood aloof, France and Russia may well have been defeated, leaving Germany the unquestioned leading power in Europe. <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-pity-of-war-9780141975832">That</a> appeared an unacceptable outcome to the majority of the cabinet in Whitehall, but a minority argued that Britain could live with it more easily than it could bear the burdens of war, and in the light of events since then they were probably right.</p>
<p>After all, the Germany of 1914 was not Nazi Germany. And Australia might well have been better off had the arguments for peace prevailed in Whitehall. Not only would we have been spared the losses we suffered, but Britain would have remained a stronger global power that was better able to defend its Pacific dominions than it proved to be in 1941.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-would-be-wise-not-to-pound-war-drums-over-taiwan-with-so-much-at-stake-159993">Australia would be wise not to pound 'war drums' over Taiwan with so much at stake</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Rhyming history</h2>
<p>History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. As we face the challenge of a rising China we can hear the clear echoes of the choices faced by our predecessors in the last century and the centuries before that. Those echoes tell us that to meet that challenge we need to do a lot more than mouth slogans about Munich. </p>
<p>We have to think carefully and realistically about the nature of China’s challenge to the old order in Asia, the kind of new order that might be created to accommodate it, the safeguards that would be required to protect our most vital interests in that order, and how that might be achieved at minimum cost and risk. We must also think about how best we can influence our major ally as it addresses the same questions, because its answers will have immense significance for us. </p>
<p>All this is a formidable task. Indeed, it is probably the most demanding foreign policy task that Australia has ever faced. But we should not be surprised by that, when we remember that China’s rise is the biggest shift in Australia’s international setting since Europeans first settled here in 1788.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469455/original/file-20220617-23-hc6qtz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In meeting that task, it falls to the present generation of political leaders, policymakers, commentators and, ultimately, citizens around the world to navigate one of the biggest, swiftest, most disruptive and most dangerous power transitions in modern history. </p>
<p>One might say, too, that it falls to the current generation of historians to contribute to that work by offering a deeper understanding of the choices that were made by earlier generations navigating similar transitions. </p>
<p>That is not easy, because the accepted versions of earlier episodes like 1914 and 1938–39 are encrusted with tradition, sentiment and ideology, and few historians have sought to challenge or overturn these accepted versions. Perhaps more will step forward as the nature and seriousness of today’s choices, and the need to illuminate them with lessons from the past, become clearer. </p>
<p>One key element of such work will be the methodologically vexed but undoubtedly stimulating exploration of counterfactual histories. To assess and learn from the decisions of 1914, we need more nuanced and sophisticated views of how Europe and the British Empire would have fared had Imperial Germany dominated the Continent. </p>
<p>To assess and learn from the decisions of 1938 and 1939 we need to better understand what might have happened had different decisions been made. We also need to recognise and meditate on what might have happened had “our side” not won the last two major power wars. Because we might not win the next one.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://unsw.press/books/lessons-from-history/">Lessons from History: Leading historians tackle Australia’s greatest challenge</a>s, edited by Carolyn Holbrook, Lyndon Megarrity and David Lowe (NewSouth).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hugh White warns of a potential war between the US and China, drawing lessons from the first and second world wars to explore how Australia might respond to such a conflict – and where to draw a line.Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1823682022-05-09T19:58:45Z2022-05-09T19:58:45ZIs Russia increasingly likely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462062/original/file-20220509-19-nw0g3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C41%2C4648%2C2985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Russian military intercontinental ballistic missile launcher rolls by during the 2019 Victory Day military parade celebrating the end of the Second World War in Red Square in Moscow in May 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/is-russia-increasingly-likely-to-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>At the beginning of Russia’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60525350">invasion of Ukraine</a>, Vladimir Putin reminded the West that Russia had nuclear weapons by <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2022/0227/Putin-s-nuclear-threat-What-does-special-combat-readiness-mean">putting them on “special combat readiness.”</a></p>
<p>Putin’s actions suggested that Russia was considering their use, even though actually launching them was a remote possibility. In precisely what circumstances Russia might use nuclear weapons was left vague — <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/putins-nuclear-saber-rattling/">Putin’s intent was presumably to frighten NATO</a> and discourage its intervention on behalf of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Since then, much has changed — and not for the better in terms of the risk of nuclear war.</p>
<p>Although NATO hasn’t sent troops to fight in Ukraine, the West has implemented <a href="https://graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-CRISIS/SANCTIONS/byvrjenzmve/">increasingly tough economic sanctions</a> against Russia and <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/latest-aid-package-ukraine-major-escalation-support">provided Ukraine with military equipment</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-04-29/card/poland-has-sent-more-than-200-tanks-to-ukraine-Krwar3DCPzHJJk4UMVh4">like tanks</a>. </p>
<p>NATO is now involved in what is, in essence, a full-fledged <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-russia-proxy-war.html">proxy war against Russia</a>. Not only have NATO nations — particularly the United States — <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/west-weapons-flow-ukraine-military-fight-russia-rcna26082">provided Ukraine with an array of different weapons</a>, but they are clearly helping Ukraine with other elements of its war effort, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russia-ukraine-us-intelligence-sharing-b2028091.html">including intelligence</a> — some of which has been used to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/us/politics/russia-generals-killed-ukraine.html">target Russian generals</a>. </p>
<h2>Ukraine emboldened</h2>
<p>From the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/map-russian-kyiv-ukraine-invasion-war-2022-4">failure to take Kyiv</a> to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60506682">plodding pace of Soviet gains in the Donbas region</a> in eastern Ukraine, the war has not gone according to plan. Russia has taken heavy losses due to the intense Ukrainian resistance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-ukrainian-nationalism-and-its-tumultuous-relationship-with-russia-179346">A short history of Ukrainian nationalism — and its tumultuous relationship with Russia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Russian troops will likely dig in and seek to consolidate their gains in the east. Reasserting <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-recognizes-independence-of-ukraine-separatist-regions/a-60861963">independence from Ukraine for the separatist regions</a> — backed up by troops on the ground — could be presented by Putin as a Russian win. He could then declare his <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-authorises-military-operations-donbass-domestic-media-2022-02-24/">“special military operation”</a> over.</p>
<p>Ukraine could subsequently reach some sort of peace agreement with Russia involving loss of territory — one that probably wouldn’t be <a href="https://peacediplomacy.org/2022/04/22/now-is-the-time-for-zelensky-to-push-for-peace/">much different from the sort of agreement that could be negotiated today</a>.</p>
<p>Currently there is no sign of Ukrainian inclination to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/04/17/zelensky-says-ukraine-wont-cede-territory-to-russia-but-offers-limited-hope-for-negotiations/?sh=1ea8b7855f03">negotiate over the Donbas region</a>. Nor is Ukraine willing to formally give up Crimea, seized by Russia in 2014 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-Maidan-protest-movement">after the pro-western and anti-Russian Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear his war aim is to <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/zelensky-ukraine-seeks-full-restoration-of-territory-including-crimea/">liberate all Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, including Crimea</a>. His NATO backers — most vocally <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/25/us-diplomats-to-return-to-ukraine-and-fresh-military-aid-unveiled-after-blinken-visit">the U.S.</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/27/uk-leading-g7-allies-to-weaken-putins-military-arsenal">the U.K.</a> <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rob-huebert-did-chrystia-freeland-just-commit-canada-to-russian-regime-change">and Canada</a> — are willing to provide Ukraine with the means to do so.</p>
<p>These countries hope to see Russia come out of this war <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/27/1094970683/u-s-war-aims-shift-in-ukraine-and-bring-additional-risks">significantly weakened as a regional power</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people raise the Canadian flag as they stand at the base of a flagpole." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462060/original/file-20220509-26-ntcp4p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine Larisa Galadza and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raise the flag over the Canadian embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 8, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/CBC News/Pool/Murray Brewster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Russian nuclear threat</h2>
<p>While committing NATO forces directly to Ukraine is unlikely, <a href="https://mwi.usma.edu/war-termination-and-escalation-in-ukraine/">some hawkish western commentators have suggested NATO could do so without Russia retaliating with nuclear weapons</a>.</p>
<p>Even though Russia raised the spectre of nuclear weapons at the beginning of the war, as it progressed, Russian sources suggested that nuclear weapons would only be used in the event of an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/russia-only-to-use-nuclear-weapons-if-existence-threatened">existential threat to Russia</a>. </p>
<p>Recent Russian nuclear sabre-rattling — <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-deploy-first-nuclear-capable-sarmat-missiles-tass-2022-04-23/">such as the testing and deployment of more advanced missiles</a> or Russian TV segments showing the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-propagandist-threatens-uk-ireland-with-nuclear-strike-2022-5">impact of a nuclear attack on the U.K.</a> — is undoubtedly cause for concern, but it doesn’t make the use of nuclear weapons significantly more likely in the short term. </p>
<p>What would? </p>
<p>If the war was to turn in Ukraine’s favour and Ukrainian forces started not only to recapture swaths of territory in the east, but to threaten the separatist regions — or Crimea.</p>
<p>Some western observers have suggested that Russia might employ an <a href="https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/">“escalate to de-escalate” strategy</a> in such circumstances, using <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/tactical-nuclear-weapon">tactical nuclear weapons</a>. Launching them in territory likely to be held by the enemy, instead of where Russia hopes to retain control, makes a lot more sense.</p>
<p>If the war escalates to the point where a western-backed Ukraine threatens territory Putin considers to be Russian, then the chances of nuclear weapons being employed would increase dramatically.</p>
<h2>The problem of Crimea</h2>
<p>Zelenskyy has suggested that Ukraine will not stop fighting until Crimea is in Ukrainian hands. But for <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/poll-majority-of-russians-support-crimea-annexation-but-worry-about-economic-effects/29859570.html">Putin and many Russians, Crimea is Russian</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give-away-crimea-sixty-years-ago">Crimea’s incorporation into Ukraine in 1954</a> is often seen as a historical accident, rather than an expression of Crimea being ethnically Ukrainian. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people hold photos of soldiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462061/original/file-20220509-20-2nwc56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Relatives of servicemen who died during the Russian war in Ukraine pose for a photo holding portraits of soldiers during a celebration to mark the 77th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, in Sevastopol, Crimea, on May 9, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crimea’s Tatar population was largely displaced by ethnic Russians — not Ukrainians — and it has a long history as Russian. From <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Tolstoy">Leo Tolstoy’s</a> <em>Sevastpol Sketches</em>, for example, to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vasily-Aksyonov">Vasily Aksyonov’s</a> 1970s novel <em>The Island of Crimea</em>, Crimea is widely represented in Russian literature. </p>
<p>A credible western-backed threat to Crimea would undoubtedly constitute the sort of existential threat to Russian territory that would dramatically increase the risk of nuclear weapons being used. </p>
<h2>A distant but increased nuclear threat</h2>
<p>Putin’s frustration over Ukrainian resilience and western support is clearly increasing — recent <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/russia-at-war/marine-intel-officer-putins-nuclear-posturing-his-last-threat/">nuclear posturing</a> is evidence of that. The nuclear threat has been increasing since February, even if the use of nuclear weapons probably isn’t imminent.</p>
<p>Even the use of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/limited-tactical-nuclear-weapons-would-be-catastrophic/">low-yield tactical nuclear weapons</a> by Russia would likely provoke some sort of western response. Such a response would then increase the likelihood of further escalation. Informed estimates suggest Russia has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2022.2038907">more than 1,900 non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons</a>. The threshold for their use is lower than for larger nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>The sort of scenarios that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons are outside the immediate confines Putin’s war in Ukraine. It would require a significant deterioration in Russian fortunes — and greater western involvement in the conflict.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, not since the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban Missile Crisis</a> in 1962 or <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nuclear-close-calls-able-archer-83">nuclear tensions in the early 1980s</a> has the spectre of potential nuclear war loomed so large in the future.</p>
<p>Back in 1962, politicians on all sides ultimately showed their statesman-like qualities and stepped back from their threat to employ nuclear weapons. We can only hope that their successors will do the same over Ukraine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182368/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Hill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The sort of scenarios that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war would require a significant deterioration in Russian fortunes — and greater western involvement in the conflict.Alexander Hill, Professor of Military History, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1819862022-05-05T14:27:59Z2022-05-05T14:27:59ZUkraine war: Russian tests and Putin’s threats recall the nuclear fears of the cold war<p>Russia is reported to have held drills this week simulating “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-just-did-a-dry-run-of-nuclear-capable-missile-strikes">nuclear-capable strikes</a>”. According to a <a href="https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12419904@egNews">statement by Russia’s ministry of defence</a>, forces of the Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad region, conducted training sessions to “deliver mock missile strikes with the crews of the Iskander operational-tactical missile systems”. The Iskander has a range of about 300km, so missiles launched from the Kaliningrad region could strike targets in western Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and even parts of Germany. </p>
<p>The latest drills follow the unveiling, on April 29, of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-tests-new-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-2022-04-20/">Russia’s new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)</a>. The missile can deliver their payloads onto targets in the US up to 18,000km away. </p>
<p>Vladimir Putin said Sarmat “has no analogues in the world and will not have for a long time to come” and would be “food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country”.</p>
<h2>Mutually assured destruction</h2>
<p>I am a researcher at RAF Fylingdales a <a href="http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/roadmap/irm/internet/surwarn/cat/html/bmws.htm">ballistic missile early warning (BMEWS)</a> station on the North York Moors. I have spent the past three years building the <a href="https://fylingdalesarchive.org.uk/blog/">Fylingdales Archive</a>, which charts the station’s 60-year history of watching the skies for signs of nuclear attack by ICBMs. BMEWS was built in response to the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/oct4/ussr-launches-sputnik/">launch of Sputnik</a> in October 1957. Sputnik was the world’s first artificial satellite, launched from the top of the world’s first ICBM, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_Semyorka">R-7</a>. The satellite demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/online/sec200/sec250.htm">place a nuclear weapon on a rocket</a> and strike anywhere on Earth with little warning.</p>
<p>Early in 1958, in response to Sputnik, the US Congress signed into existence measures that form the foundations of modern strategic nuclear deterrence. In addition to BMEWS, Congress also approved the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas">Atlas</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-68_Titan">Titan</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman">Minuteman</a> ICBM programmes. These technologies formed the basis of what became known as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9jpn39/revision/2">mutually assured destruction</a> (Mad), meaning both sides of a potential nuclear conflict have enough firepower to destroy each other and the rest of the world.</p>
<h2>Mistakes and miscalculations</h2>
<p>Deterrence strategies such as Mad depend on a delicate game of psychological poker, the risk being that your opponent’s reaction might be far beyond what was anticipated. </p>
<p>The dangers of this did not take long to materialise. In the early 1960s, the US had its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter">Jupiter</a> intermediate-range ballistic missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy, which Moscow felt could destroy Russia before it had a chance to retaliate. To level up their deterrent posture, Moscow started to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="CIA map of Cuba from the 1962 missile crisis." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flashpoint: CIA map showing the Soviet military presence in Cuba at the time of the 1962 missile crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karolis Kavolelis via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What ensued went into the history books as the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban missile crisis</a> – a standoff between the US and Soviet Union, with, between them, 29,700 warheads (the US had 26,400 to the Soviet Union’s 3,300). Each of these weapons on average was <a href="https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/wenw/note1.html">tens of times more powerful</a> than the weapons used against Hiroshima. Happily, sanity prevailed and none were fired.</p>
<p>Following this crisis, measures were put in place to ease nuclear tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. These included establishing a hotline between Washington DC and Moscow and limiting the number of operational ICBMs. But this period of relative detente proved to be short-lived.</p>
<h2>The war scare and arms control</h2>
<p>The early 1980s marked a period of renewed mistrust between the nuclear superpowers and a growth in the size of nuclear arsenals. By 1986, there were 70,000 nuclear warheads shared almost equally between the US and Soviet Russia. How close the two sides came to confrontation was illustrated by the “<a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous">war scare</a>” of November 1983. Soviet nuclear forces <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1983-military-drill-that-nearly-sparked-nuclear-war-with-the-soviets-180979980/">misinterpreted a Nato exercise called Able Archer 83</a> for the start of a nuclear attack. Soviet nuclear forces in Europe were put on five-minute standby to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.</p>
<p>Once again, constructive dialogues began between Washington and Moscow were renewed, culminating in the historic <a href="https://adst.org/2016/09/the-cold-war-truly-over-1986-reykjavik-summit/">Reykjavik summit</a> between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, widely seen as the beginning of the end of the cold war. </p>
<p>The summit began decades of disarmament, beginning with the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987. The INF eliminated intermediate-range ballistic missiles from US and Soviet arsenals. It also paved the way for the <a href="https://nuke.fas.org/control/start1/chron.htm">Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (Start)</a>, which effectively put a cap on nuclear proliferation, at least between the world’s two big nuclear superpowers.</p>
<p>But the end of the Soviet Union brought an uncertain time for arms control processes as central command structures fragmented. The breakup of the Soviet Union also dangerously increased the number of countries with nuclear weapons. In 1991 <a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/lithuania/">Lithuania</a>, <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/belarus-overview/">Belarus</a> and <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/ukraine-overview/">Ukraine</a> were left in possession of over 2,000 former Soviet warheads. Following the signing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-is-the-budapest-memorandum-and-why-has-russias-invasion-torn-it-up-178184">Budapest Memorandum</a> in January 1994 these weapons were returned to Russia and became subject to disarmament process set out by Start.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-is-the-budapest-memorandum-and-why-has-russias-invasion-torn-it-up-178184">Ukraine war: what is the Budapest Memorandum and why has Russia's invasion torn it up?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These arms reduction regimes were so successful that by 2012, 80% of the US and Russian nuclear peak stockpiles <a href="https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2013/06">had been eliminated</a>.</p>
<h2>Eve of destruction?</h2>
<p>But world leaders appear to have developed a renewed appetite for <a href="https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/uk-nuclear-weapons-in-a-third-nuclear-age/">nuclear weapons</a>. In 2019, countries such as China (US$10 billion – or £8 billion) and India (US$2.3 billion) <a href="https://www.icanw.org/report_73_billion_nuclear_weapons_spending_2020">have made significant invesments</a> in their strategic nuclear forces. Meanwhile, the UK announced in 2021 that it will increase its stockpile <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/15/cap-on-trident-nuclear-warhead-stockpile-to-rise-by-more-than-40">from 180 warheads to 240</a>.</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the historic INF Treaty in September 2019, blaming Russia for deploying cruise missiles that breached the INF agreement, was also a bitter blow for disarmament campaigners.</p>
<p>Putin has used the threat of nuclear war several times in recent years. His movement of the Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad in 2018 was a direct threat to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/08/russia-confirms-deployment-of-nuclear-capable-missiles-to-kaliningrad">Baltic states such as Poland and Lithuania</a>, both members of Nato. And now Russia is demonstrating that, if it wants, they are there to be used.</p>
<p>In the absence of arms control, nuclear weapons maintain their dangerous symbolic allure for leaders such as Putin. But the stark truth is that nuclear weapons have always put the world in catastrophic danger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mulvihill receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council for 'Turning Fylingdales Inside Out: making practice visible at the UK's ballistic missile early warning and space monitoring station' AH/S013067/1</span></em></p>Russia is raising the stakes with upgraded ballistic missiles and blood-curdling threats from the KremlinMichael Mulvihill, Interdisciplinary Research Associate, School of Geography, Politics and Sociolog, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1777652022-02-24T17:49:22Z2022-02-24T17:49:22ZWhy Vladimir Putin won’t back down in Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448351/original/file-20220224-46083-59aiwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C685%2C3752%2C1814&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke and flame rise near a military building after an apparent Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/why-vladimir-putin-won-t-back-down-in-ukraine" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Russia’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60454795">invasion of Ukraine</a> has shocked the world, but in many ways Vladimir Putin has been building up to this for some time.</p>
<p>For Putin and at least some Russians, the villains of the crisis are not only <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/putin-nato-us-war-donbass-minsk-2">Ukrainian nationalists</a>, but also western governments. The West is seen as having one set of standards for itself, and another for countries like Russia. </p>
<p>Understanding this aspect of Putin’s perspective on the world is crucial to understanding why he’s been so unwilling to back down in the face of what he sees as western intransigence and hypocrisy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smoke rises from metallic ruins." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4165%2C2762&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448325/original/file-20220224-46083-1ca5ceq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke rises from an air defence base in the aftermath of a Russian strike in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cuban Missile Crisis</h2>
<p>Russian notions of western hypocrisy have a long history going back well into the period of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. A particularly pivotal event was the <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/08/the-myth-that-screwed-up-50-years-of-u-s-foreign-policy/">Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962</a>. During that crisis, the United States questioned whether it was reasonable for the Soviet Union to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, while at the same time putting its own weapons <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cuban-missile-crisis">close to the Soviet Union in Turkey.</a> </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of Cuban soldiers resting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448346/original/file-20220224-50602-1uvxwzd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this April 1961 photo, members of Fidel Castro’s militia rest after an operation in an invasion zone in Cuba. In 1961, the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion failed to overthrow Soviet-backed Cuban leader Fidel Castro.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time, the U.S. invoked the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1905/04/the-right-and-wrong-of-the-monroe-doctrine/530856/">Monroe Doctrine</a>, first laid out in 1823 and an assertion of American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. politicians said it gave them a free hand to prevent foreign influence in the Americas. </p>
<p>Although Cuban leader Fidel Castro would have liked it, Cuba was never allowed to join the <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/123891">Warsaw Pact</a> — the Soviet equivalent of NATO. The Soviet Union was aware that it would have been extremely provocative to allow Cuba to do so.</p>
<p>The Monroe Doctrine has persisted long after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was reflected in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/01/margaret-thatcher-reagan-grenada-invasion-national-archives">U.S. invasions of Grenada</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/20/united-states-invades-panama-1989-1067072">and Panama</a> in 1983 and 1989 respectively. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1905/04/the-right-and-wrong-of-the-monroe-doctrine/530856/">The U.S. has never formally renounced the Monroe Doctrine</a>, and it remains a part of the American political toolbox when required. </p>
<p>The Soviet Union attempted to introduce something similar, in what became known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Brezhnev-Doctrine">Brezhnev Doctrine</a> after longtime president Leonid Brezhnev. It called on the Soviet Union to intervene in countries where socialist rule was under threat, even if by force.</p>
<p>In the West, this was seen as lacking the same legitimacy as the Monroe Doctrine because the American cause <a href="https://crgreview.com/the-cruel-hypocrisy-of-american-imperialism/">was seen as just and the Soviet one unjust.</a> Putin is now putting his own Monroe — or Brezhnev — Doctrine into effect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd of protesters, one waving a sign of a dark haired man with thick eyebrows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448347/original/file-20220224-33175-12fm1vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators carry a poster depicting Putin as Leonid Brezhnev during a massive protest rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, in May 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Western aggression</h2>
<p>For many in post-Soviet Russia, the West has, until now, a history of routinely flouting international law by invading other states — often on a whim. The best example of this is the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq">2003 invasion of Iraq</a>. Saddam Hussein’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7634313">“weapons of mass destruction” never materialized</a>, and are often regarded as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/9/12123022/george-w-bush-lies-iraq-war">manufactured pretext for western intervention</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/kosovo-disputes-continue-20-years-after-nato-bombing-campaign-113669">NATO intervention in Yugoslavia in the 1990s</a> provides another favourite Russian example of western willingness to flout international boundaries when expedient. The West oversaw the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, where it supported the <a href="https://www.tjsl.edu/slomansonb/2.4_KosSecession.pdf">breaking away of Kosovo from Russian-backed Serbia</a>. </p>
<p>For Putin, the protection of <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-is-the-only-winner-of-ukraines-language-wars/">Russian speakers in Ukraine</a> is as justifiable a reason for intervention as those offered by the West in Iraq and Yugoslavia.</p>
<p>In Russian eyes, the West has been the aggressor up until now, taking advantage of Russian weakness since the collapse of the Soviet Union to support nationalist governments in the former Soviet space. These countries have often had <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6cb4f0a7dcd64278b52840a7dc364127">large Russian minorities within their borders</a>. </p>
<p>NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union has certainly been, from a Russian governmental perspective, a betrayal of western commitments at the end of the Cold War to <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-is-vladimir-putin-right-a-bf318d2c-7aeb-4b59-8d5f-1d8c94e1964d">limit NATO expansion to a united Germany</a>. It’s also been seen as part of a growing threat to Russia’s security — right in its backyard.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Large flames are seen as a line of armed soldiers walk by." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448350/original/file-20220224-13-gaum9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2004 photo, U.S. Marines burn their fortifications on front-line positions in Fallujah, Iraq, as they pull out of the city.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Moore)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Arming Ukraine</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-gets-weapons-west-says-it-needs-more-2022-01-25/">The West’s arming of Ukraine</a> has undoubtedly been seen by the Russian government as providing Ukrainians the means to finally crush pro-Russian separatist forces in the east without having to grant them the sort of autonomy that was suggested in the now-defunct <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2021-12-06/">Minsk Protocols of 2014-15</a>. These agreements were designed to end a separatist war by Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-why-a-negotiated-settlement-on-donbas-will-be-tough-to-achieve-176826">Ukraine: why a negotiated settlement on Donbas will be tough to achieve</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For Putin, the only solution in the face of a lack of progress on the Minsk Protocols and western unwillingness to take Russian demands seriously has been to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/ukraine-putin-decide-recognition-breakaway-states-today">recognize the breakaway republics</a> and move from covert to overt military action.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man and woman stand in a playground looking at fragments of military equipment." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3607%2C2365&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448342/original/file-20220224-33175-106oq1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man and woman stand next to fragments of military equipment on the street in the aftermath of a Russian strike in Kharkiv in Ukraine, on Feb. 24, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Marienko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The western approach to diplomacy with Russia and other powers that aren’t “one of us” has played a role in bringing the crisis to its current and tragic point. </p>
<p>When a parent disciplines a child, that discipline is usually more effective if it’s not a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” Vladimir Putin’s resulting meltdown will undoubtedly cost thousands of lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Hill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A western ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach has helped provoke Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.Alexander Hill, Professor of Military History, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757892022-02-18T13:05:44Z2022-02-18T13:05:44ZThe Cold War, modern Ukraine and the spread of democracy in the former Soviet bloc countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446013/original/file-20220211-19-1p0g3a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=476%2C147%2C5003%2C3261&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-attends-the-opening-news-photo/1238182556?adppopup=true">Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Russia masses forces and equipment on Ukraine’s border, international tensions over a possible invasion intensify almost daily. Ukraine has emerged as ground zero of what some pundits have dubbed <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/21/russia-ukraine-invasion-nato-future-europe/">a new Cold War</a> between Russia and the West. </p>
<p>In my view <a href="https://hls.indiana.edu/faculty/de-groot-michael.html">as a Cold War historian</a>, this comparison distorts the Cold War and misrepresents the stakes of the current crisis. </p>
<p>Yet reviewing the Cold War is important because its legacy shapes Russian President Vladimir <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2021-12-28/what-putin-really-wants-ukraine">Putin’s policy toward Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>While Ukraine was a Soviet republic during the Cold War, it has become the front line of a post-Cold War tug-of-war between Russia and the West. By insisting on NATO’s withdrawing its forces and weapons from former Soviet bloc countries, Putin would like to turn back the clock to the mid-1990s, before NATO expanded into Eastern Europe.</p>
<p>From my reading of public accounts, Putin views NATO as a relic that retains its Cold War purpose of containing Russia. In response to NATO expansion, Putin seeks to carve a buffer zone of his own, much as former Soviet leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin">Joseph Stalin</a> did in response to American assistance in Europe after World War II, and consolidate a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.</p>
<h2>What was the Cold War?</h2>
<p>The Cold War was a global struggle of the United States and democratic capitalism against the Soviet Union and communism. It erupted in the mid-1940s after both nations emerged from World War II as superpowers and viewed each other as existential threats. </p>
<p>During World War II they had cooperated to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan. After the war, both agreed to occupy Germany jointly with <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_160672.htm">Britain and France</a> and wanted to continue the alliance once the fighting stopped. </p>
<p>But irreconcilable disagreements about the postwar international order rose to the surface.</p>
<p>The Soviet Union asserted <a href="https://europe.unc.edu/the-end-of-wwii-and-the-division-of-europe/">control over Eastern Europe</a> – the nations of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania – which the Soviet Army had liberated from the Nazis. Stalin supported local communists and intimidated their opponents, and the countries rarely held free elections. U.S. President Harry Truman’s administration accused Stalin of betraying an agreement at the <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-yalta-conference-at-seventy-five-lessons-from-history/">wartime Yalta Conference</a> to respect European democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a military uniform stands next to a man dressed in a business suit and both are smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446016/original/file-20220211-21-19r3mn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Premier Joseph Stalin and President Harry S. Truman smile during the 1945 Potsdam Conference, where they negotiated terms for the end of World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/premier-joseph-stalin-and-president-harry-s-truman-smiling-news-photo/640468033?adppopup=true">Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet what terrified U.S. officials most was the possibility that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-the-Soviet-Union">Soviet ideology</a> would resonate with the Western European and German people who were struggling to recover from the war. <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare">U.S. policymakers</a> feared that the desolate masses might elect communist governments that would ally with the Soviet Union against the United States.</p>
<h2>Winning hearts and minds</h2>
<p>In one of the turning points of the early Cold War, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-C-Marshall">U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall</a> announced an economic assistance initiative for Europe in June 1947. Congress authorized the program in April 1948. <a href="https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/history-marshall-plan/">The Marshall Plan</a>, as it became known, provided more than US$12 billion to aid European reconstruction during its three years of operation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two women are walking on a street with an overturned car and devastated building in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446017/original/file-20220211-19-y7wgm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Berlin residents walk through the ruins of the city in May 1945 near the end of World War II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/berlin-residents-walk-through-the-ruins-of-the-city-after-news-photo/170973703?adppopup=true">Sovfoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the Marshall Plan’s logic worried the Western Europeans. Fresh off two traumatic wars against a belligerent Germany, Western Europeans feared any effort to <a href="https://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/germany-1945-1949-a-case-study-in-post-conflict-reconstruction">rebuild western Germany</a> and place it on the path to statehood. </p>
<p>Breaking a long-standing tradition of avoiding entangling alliances, the <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_162350.htm#:%7E:text=On%2025%20July%201949%2C%20President,a%20founding%20member%20of%20NATO.">United States joined</a> the <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a> in April 1949 to guarantee Western Europe’s security against West Germany, which <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/West-Germany">became independent</a> the following month. </p>
<p>Alarm bells flashed in Moscow. The <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war">Soviet Union had lost 27 million</a> soldiers and civilians during the Second World War. And the United States wanted to rebuild postwar Germany. </p>
<p>In response, Stalin ordered the Eastern European communists to crack down on their domestic rivals. Moscow also <a href="https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/east-germany/">created East Germany</a> to counter West Germany. It now had a buffer zone of loyal communist countries to protect itself from the West.</p>
<p>The Cold War began in Europe, but it soon spread to <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/proxy-wars-during-cold-war-africa">Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2015/04/27/a-cold-war-that-boils/">Asia</a> and <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766581/obo-9780199766581-0104.xml">Latin America</a>. Each superpower feared that a setback in a developing country could give the other the advantage in the Cold War. </p>
<p>Although their forces did not square off directly, the United States and Soviet Union confronted each other through proxies in bloody conflicts such as <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war">the Korean</a> and <a href="https://www.historynet.com/the-vietnam-war-a-history-of-americas-controversial-war.htm">Vietnam wars</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men in military uniforms meets in an office with another man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446019/original/file-20220211-17-1v637oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President John F. Kennedy discusses the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 with Gen. Curtis LeMay and other military leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/1960s-cuban-missile-crisis-october-1962-president-john-f-news-photo/620069728?adppopup=true">Charles Phelps Cushing/ClassicStock/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The high stakes of the Cold War also brought the world close to nuclear annihilation. The <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nuclear-close-calls-cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban Missile Crisis</a>, for example, erupted in October 1962 when <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis">the Kennedy administration</a> discovered that the Soviets had deployed missiles in communist Cuba. The United States and Soviet Union averted nuclear war after striking a bargain: The Kennedy administration promised never to invade Cuba and to withdraw American missiles in Turkey in exchange for the Soviet removal of the weapons from Cuba. </p>
<h2>Soviet Ukraine</h2>
<p>Ukraine joined Russia, Belarus and Transcaucasia, a federation consisting of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as the Soviet Union’s founding republics in December 1922.</p>
<p>Ukraine suffered greatly under Stalin’s rule in the 1930s. A famine in the early 1930s, <a href="https://holodomor.ca/resource/holodomor-basic-facts/">known as the Holodomor</a>, killed close to 4 million Ukrainians. Today, many Ukrainians refer to the event as <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor">an act of genocide</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, when the <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-the-soviet-union-june-1941">Nazis invaded the Soviet Union</a> in June 1941, many Ukrainians initially welcomed them. The <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/19/in-ukraine-stepan-bandera-s-legacy-becomes-a-political-football-again">nationalist Stepan Bandera</a> collaborated with the Nazis with the aim of establishing an independent Ukrainian state. </p>
<p>In a move whose significance contemporaries could not foresee, the presidium of the Supreme Soviet transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954. Crimea was important because the Soviet Union’s Black Sea Fleet had headquarters there. </p>
<p>The Soviet Union stationed one-third of its nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil. When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, Ukraine ranked as the third-largest nuclear state. </p>
<p>Ukraine transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia in the mid-1990s in exchange for Russian promises to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty. The United States and Britain were also parties to this agreement, known as <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/">the Budapest Memorandum</a>.</p>
<h2>After the fall of communism</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/reagan-and-gorbachev-how-the-cold-war-ended">Cold War ended</a> more than three decades ago, when West Germany and East Germany unified and communism collapsed across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>NATO has since expanded to 14 countries that had been part of the Soviet bloc. This number includes three former Soviet republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which border Russia. </p>
<p>NATO declared at its <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm">2008 Bucharest Summit</a> that Ukraine and Georgia, also former Soviet republics, also would become members sometime in the future. </p>
<p>Where NATO has expanded, membership in <a href="https://op.europa.eu/webpub/com/eu-what-it-is/en/">the European Union</a> has usually come as well. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soldiers watch a forklift load a crate of weapons onto the back of a truck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446046/original/file-20220212-25052-8b1pk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On Feb. 11, 2022, Ukrainian servicemen load a truck with America anti-tank missiles at the airport in Kyiv, Ukraine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-servicemen-load-a-truck-with-the-fgm-148-javelin-news-photo/1238379293?adppopup=true">Sergei Supinsky/ AFP via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my view, Putin fears Ukraine’s joining NATO and becoming a springboard for the United States to destabilize his regime. It is also my view that Putin believes Washington already uses the current Ukrainian government as a proxy for American interests. </p>
<p>The Russians annexed Crimea in March 2014, reversing what they claimed was a historical injustice. They have supported Ukrainian separatists in the eastern part of the country, which is known as the Donbass. These moves help prevent Ukraine from joining NATO because countries are not permitted to join the alliance if they have unresolved territorial disputes.</p>
<p>Putin’s fears are not without basis. The momentum of a democratic, prosperous and secure Ukraine could spill over into Russia and empower domestic challenges to Putin’s hold on power.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/11/ukraine-crisis-biden-warns-things-could-go-crazy-quickly-and-warns-americans-to-leave">By precipitating a crisis</a> over Ukraine, Putin wants to make sure that never happens. </p>
<p>[<em>More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael De Groot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During World War II, the US and USSR fought together to defeat the Nazis. When the war ended, the two superpowers began fighting each other.Michael De Groot, Assistant Professor, International Studies, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1666882021-08-24T14:08:48Z2021-08-24T14:08:48ZHow ordinary people are convinced to become spies<p>A new film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8368512/">The Courier</a>, tells the story of the salesman, Grenville Wynne, caught up in the murky world of espionage during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This follows recent news that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/briton-accused-spying-russia-kept-himself-to-himself-david-smith">David Smith</a>, a 57-year-old and apparently normal security guard at the British embassy in Berlin, has allegedly been spying for Russia. So why do seemingly ordinary people become spies?</p>
<p>In 1988 the KGB defector, Stanislav Levchenko, described an American mnemonic, Mice, which stands for “money”, “ideology”, “coercion/compromise” and “ego”. Susceptibility to these factors, he claimed, was a target’s key weakness that could be exploited.</p>
<h2>Money</h2>
<p>Officials in debt are ripe targets for recruiters. For instance, in 1935, <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11050136">Captain John Herbert King</a>, a cypher clerk for the British Foreign Office, had a problem. He was estranged from his wife, harboured expensive tastes, had a son and mistress to maintain, and only took home a small salary – and no pension. As such, he proved a ripe target for recruitment by Soviet intelligence. He was approached by Henri Pieck, a Soviet spy, who pretended to be a businessman and high-society flyer. Pieck convinced the cypher clerk that, if he wished to support his family, money was required.</p>
<p>King agreed to supply Foreign Office secrets, which he was led to believe would be used to provide Pieck and a Dutch bank a stock market advantage. King was promised a share of these profits amounting to £100 a month. The arrangement came to an end in 1937, when his handler was recalled to Moscow during Stalin’s purges. King was arrested in 1939 and sentenced to ten years in prison.</p>
<h2>Ideology</h2>
<p>Some people are willing to risk life and limb for their beliefs. One such individual was <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m_0qDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage">Donald Maclean,</a> who attended the University of Cambridge. Maclean already had left-wing views which grew into an ideological belief in the justness of the Soviet’s communist cause. </p>
<p>In his final year, in 1934, he was recruited by the NKVD (a Soviet secret police agency, a forerunner of the KGB) and instructed to give up on his political activism and enter the British establishment. He soon sat the civil service exams and joined the Foreign Office, where he acted as one of the most damaging spies of his generation.</p>
<p>Maclean was not alone, he was a member of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/spies_cambridge.shtml">Cambridge Ring of Five</a>, which included Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. Each of whom was recruited into Soviet service during or shortly after their time at Cambridge. As a result of their orthodox, respectable Cambridge educations, each was able to enter the most sensitive areas of the British state, not least the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (GC and CS at the time). In 1951, with the net closing in, Maclean and Burgess escaped to Moscow.</p>
<h2>Coercion or compromise</h2>
<p>In 1946, John Vassall took a job as the assistant to the naval attaché in Britain’s Moscow embassy. He was, however, harbouring a secret. Vassall was a gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. Those convicted of homosexuality faced custodial sentences. </p>
<p>The KGB discovered <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Great_Parliamentary_Scandals/8u7obxZ7MawC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=vassall&pg=PA147&printsec=frontcover">Vassall’s secret</a> and orchestrated several compromising photographs to use as blackmail. Shortly after, in 1956, Vassall was transferred back to London and into naval intelligence.</p>
<p>From there he could provide a steady stream of secret information, including technical secrets regarding radar and weapons. This arrangement, for which Vassall was well remunerated, lasted until 1962 when Vassall was arrested following the defection of the KGB officer, Anatoli Golitsyn. In 1962, following a massive scandal that rocked the <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/may/07/vassall-case-tribunals-report">Macmillan government</a>, Vassall was sentenced to 18 years in prison and was released in 1972.</p>
<h2>Ego</h2>
<p>For some, espionage is an opportunity to secretly manipulate people around them and to prove their superiority. An FBI agent and Soviet spy from 1976 to 2001, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Spy_Next_Door/5Z41AQAAQBAJ?hl">Robert Hanssen</a> clearly fit that category. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="portrait photo of Robert Hanssen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417589/original/file-20210824-17-1h0mh48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Hanssen was a double-agent for the US and Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen#/media/File:Robert_Hanssen.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hanssen seemingly enjoyed an ordinary life as a happily-married suburbanite yet lived a double life as a spy – complete with an affair with an exotic dancer whom he lavished with expensive gifts. He also secretly filmed his sex life with his wife and invited others, without telling her, to watch.</p>
<p>Money was an initial motive, Hanssen received $1.43 million (£1 million) in cash and diamonds from his handlers. However, he was an attention-seeker who felt snubbed by an FBI which, in his estimation, failed to recognise his abilities. His two-decade career as a double agent, which included revealing the identities of at least nine US assets in the Soviet Union, was an opportunity for excitement and to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/07/10/with-hanssen-a-few-clues-but-no-solution-to-the-mystery/12880c86-e624-4d44-a3f2-1a84de758504/">demonstrate</a> his superiority over his colleagues in the FBI.</p>
<p>Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences and his espionage has <a href="https://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/websterreport.html">described by the US Department of Justice</a> as “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history”.</p>
<p>While we might imagine James Bond or Jason Bourne when we think of espionage, real spies are ordinary people – albeit often with unusual problems and psychologies. Though a crude tool, Mice provides us with some insight into what motivates such dangerous and extraordinary behaviour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>American intelligence has recognised there are four reasons why a ‘normal’ person might be convinced to spy.Chris Smith, Lecturer in History, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1590022021-04-19T21:27:51Z2021-04-19T21:27:51ZWhat’s next for Cuba and the United States after Raul Castro’s retirement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395771/original/file-20210419-19-ve9yk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C6%2C4285%2C2854&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With Raul Castro's resignation as first secretary of the Communist Party, the Castro era is officially over in Cuba.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cuban-first-secretary-of-the-communist-party-and-former-news-photo/1189655929?adppopup=true">Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cuba’s Castro dynasty has officially ended. </p>
<p>On April 16, 2021, Raul Castro – younger brother of longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro – <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article250465321.html">relinquished his position as first secretary</a> of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most powerful position in Cuba. </p>
<p>Castro, 89, became Cuba’s president in 2008, after his brother’s incapacitation, and took over the first secretary role from Fidel in 2011. Fidel Castro died in 2016. </p>
<p>Just as Fidel’s death did not <a href="https://theconversation.com/castros-conundrum-finding-a-post-communist-model-cuba-can-follow-81242">suddenly transform antagonistic U.S.-Cuban ties</a>, neither does Raul Castro’s departure.</p>
<p>Cuban <a href="https://theconversation.com/cubas-new-president-what-to-expect-of-miguel-diaz-canel-95187">President Miguel Díaz Canel</a>, who took office in 2018 after Raul Castro stepped down as president, has resisted calls for democratic reforms and has <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-cuba-raul-castro-resigns-20210416-5atqyx5infhmra6fptoneoabpa-story.html">pressing economic issues</a> to manage, as well as a pandemic. </p>
<p>So does his American counterpart, President Joe Biden. The White House <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article249826558.html">recently said Cuba policy</a> is “not a top priority.”</p>
<p>Neither leader is likely to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-04-16/white-house-says-shift-in-policy-on-cuba-not-one-of-bidens-top-priorities">risk his political future</a> with bold diplomacy. But younger Cubans continue to separate themselves from the policies and priorities of their government, creating a basis for a different relationship with the U.S.</p>
<h2>No longer a threat</h2>
<p>Raul Castro’s retirement coincided with the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?510599-1/bay-pigs-60th-anniversary">60th anniversary</a> of Cuba’s military triumph over the U.S. at the Bay of Pigs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white image of militiamen with weapons in a field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395779/original/file-20210419-23-1rhxoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cuban troops use Soviet-made anti-aircraft artillery to thwart a U.S.-supported invasion at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/picture-dated-april-1961-of-cuban-troops-using-soviet-made-news-photo/504769636?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On April 17, 1961, Cuban nationals aided by the CIA <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs">began an invasion</a> designed to overthrow Fidel Castro. The Cuban army quickly defeated them, humiliating the Kennedy administration. </p>
<p>Cuba soon allied itself with the Soviet Union, then America’s greatest enemy. The U.S. responded with a <a href="https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/">rigorous trade embargo</a>. </p>
<p>In the six decades since, U.S.-Cuban relations have alternated between hostile and icy, with a <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2016/03/18/cuban-thaw-a-history-of-us-cuban-relations">brief thaw</a> under President Barack Obama. </p>
<p>Fidel Castro’s Cuba supported <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-and-cold-war/">leftist insurgencies and Soviet allies</a> across Latin America and the world, from Nicaragua to Angola. In 1962, Castro permitted <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">Soviet missiles</a> to be set up in Cuba and aimed at the U.S., about 100 miles away, leading the U.S. and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. </p>
<p>Today Cuba is still communist and it remains on the State Department’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/">list of countries</a> that support terrorism, alongside Iran and North Korea. But bereft of <a href="https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/0708capstones:137/datastream/PDF/view">patrons like the Soviets</a>, it presents no danger to the U.S. mainland or its allies. </p>
<p>Cuba can do little more than irritate U.S. presidents by supporting Latin American leaders who resist American power, like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cuba-sanctions/u-s-slaps-sanctions-on-cuba-defense-minister-over-support-for-venezuelas-maduro-idUSKBN1Z11IM">Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro</a> and Bolivia’s ousted former leader <a href="https://cubasi.cu/en/cuba/item/14625-bolivian-president-evo-morales-greets-raul-castro-on-social-media-praises-cuba-s-solidarity">Evo Morales</a>.</p>
<h2>Entrepreneurship, Cuban-style</h2>
<p>The Cuban people have changed just as much, according to my <a href="https://today.appstate.edu/2016/01/26/gonzalez">two decades of research on and travel to the island</a>. </p>
<p>Unlike their parents and grandparents, Cubans in their 20s, 30s and 40s <a href="https://theconversation.com/fidels-cuba-is-long-gone-120271">never enjoyed a sustained, functional contract with the regime</a>: We provide you a living, and in exchange you give us support, or at least acquiescence. </p>
<p>Cubans who came of age during or after the so-called “Special Period” of the 1990s – when Cuba faced <a href="https://cubaplatform.org/special-period">economic collapse</a> – rely on the government to deliver certain services, primarily health care and education. But they know it cannot feed, clothe and house its people in any but the most basic way. </p>
<p>Young Cubans have to <a href="https://theconversation.com/fidels-cuba-is-long-gone-120271">hustle to survive</a> – or “<a href="https://medium.com/@d.yau/cubas-resolver-mentality-makes-it-the-next-startup-hub-2f10ea2096a0">resolver</a>,” a Spanish verb that means “to resolve” but which in Cuba refers to providing for one’s family. </p>
<p>And the Cuban hustle has a capitalist bent.</p>
<p>In 2008 <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2012-12-27-sns-rt-cuba-economyreforml1e8nq23a-20121227-story.html">Raul Castro’s government cut</a> public payrolls and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-politics-castro-changes-explaine/explainer-the-state-of-raul-castros-economic-reforms-in-cuba-idUSKBN1HO0CL">allowed Cubans to earn private incomes</a>, hoping Cubans would earn more money and generate more tax revenue. Previously, all jobs in Cuba were government jobs, whether you were a grocer or an architect, with government-regulated salaries. </p>
<p>Today, official statistics say about a <a href="https://oncubanews.com/en/cuba/economy/the-private-sector-generates-32-of-employment-in-cuba/">third of Cubans</a> are privately employed. But the real proportion is almost surely higher. Almost all the adult Cubans I know have their own business – whether cutting hair or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_particular">renting their home as a bed and breakfast</a> – along with a traditional government-regulated job. </p>
<h2>Cuban resolve</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the government has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/cuban-reforms-reduce-subsidies-and-raise-costs/av-56263057">begun to eliminate</a> the subsidies that long defined Cuban life. Ration books for staple foods are disappearing and with them, subsidized prices.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An elderly person wearing a face mask walks along a street of Havana, holding a grocery bag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395789/original/file-20210419-21-18d1tw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Food prices have gone way up in Cuba, and lines at government-run markets can be long.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-elderly-person-wearing-a-face-mask-walks-along-a-street-news-photo/1232189703?adppopup=true">Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Food and clothing costs have doubled or tripled in Cuba in the past year. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-economy-analysis/analysis-cubas-looming-monetary-reform-sparks-confusion-inflation-fears-idUSKBN29418I">Utility prices have increased</a> by factors of four or five.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cuba-announces-increase-wages-part-economic-reform-n1024451">Cuban state salaries have risen</a> since economic liberalization, but not that much. </p>
<p>Consequently, many Cubans operate outside of the law, trading in everything from clothing to scrap metal or gasoline stolen from the state. Cubans call people with illegal businesses “<a href="https://www.spanishdict.com/answers/163581/what-does-bisnero-mean-appears-in-a-cuban-text">bisneros</a>.”</p>
<p>Whether legal restaurateur or black-market bisnero, Cubans operate businesses not to become rich but to “<a href="https://medium.com/@d.yau/cubas-resolver-mentality-makes-it-the-next-startup-hub-2f10ea2096a0">resolver</a>.” They hope to improve their lots modestly, allowing their families to eat a wider range of fresher foods, or to save for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2018/oct/12/teens-tiaras-quinceanera-celebrations-cuba-havana-diana-markosian-in-pictures">child’s birthday party</a>. </p>
<p>Cuba “forces us to be criminals just to make a living,” said 26-year-old Carlo Rodríguez, a server at a Havana restaurant. </p>
<h2>Generational divide</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/CUNY-Graduate-Center/PDF/Centers/Bildner%20Center%20for%20Western%20Hemisphere%20Studies/Publications/Strug6_000.pdf">Older Cubans remain</a> faithful to the Castros’ vision of Cuba as an anti-imperialist, anti-American outpost. But revolutionary slogans like “socialismo o muerte” – “socialism or death” – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-56606748">do not resonate</a> with young Cubans. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white photo of Castro, in his traditional revolutionary beret, driving a horse-drawn sleigh in the snow, surrounded by Russians in traditional dress" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395785/original/file-20210419-13-2hdjer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fidel Castro visits Moscow, Russia, in 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/moscow-ussr-cuban-revolution-leader-fidel-castro-at-a-news-photo/522502032?adppopup=true">TASS via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Young Cubans also want more free speech. While Cubans <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/cubans-are-using-social-media-to-air-their-grievances--and-the-government-is-responding-sometimes/2019/07/07/01b3cba2-912e-11e9-956a-88c291ab5c38_story.html">can and do complain</a> privately, the Cuban government has long restricted civil liberties. Journalism is mostly state sponsored, and the country’s few independent newspapers run into trouble when stories criticize the regime.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-50823142">Social media</a> only recently became legal and relatively widespread in Cuba. </p>
<p>Last year, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cuba-cracks-down-on-artists-who-demanded-creative-freedoms-after-unprecedented-government-negotiations-152073">dissident artists movement</a> organized via WhatsApp and gained enough popular support to force the government into unprecedented negotiations about expanding freedom of expression in Cuba. A crackdown followed, with some dissidents jailed. But calls for free expression persist among <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/opinion/cuba-san-isidro-movement.html">younger Cubans</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Most Cubans also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/poll-shows-vast-majority-of-cubans-welcome-closer-ties-with-us/2015/04/08/6285bfe4-d8c3-11e4-bf0b-f648b95a6488_story.html">want closer ties</a> to the U.S., according to a 2015 poll. Since the adoption last year of <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/12/16/cuba-ends-its-dual-currency-system">a single currency pegged to the U.S. dollar</a>, American money is “like gold” on the island, my friend Tony, a shopkeeper, told me. </p>
<p>It is the U.S. embargo and former president <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-nods-to-cuban-exiles-rolls-back-ties-experts-react-79559">Donald Trump’s tightened restrictions on travel to the island</a> – not the Cuban government – that prevent Americans from spending their dollars on the island. </p>
<p>Cubans know this, and they resent the <a href="https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/">embargo</a> for making their lives miserable. But younger Cubans recognize Cuba’s <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-16/raul-castro-to-stand-down-as-head-of-cuba-s-communist-party">ailing centrally planned economy</a> as a problem, too. </p>
<p>Cuban Americans, on the other hand, largely <a href="https://cri.fiu.edu/research/cuba-poll/2020-fiu-cuba-poll.pdf">supported Trump</a>. Recent <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/frustration-over-lack-of-democratic-reform-in-cuba-fuels-growing-support-for-u-s-trade-embargo-among-south-florida-cuban-americans-poll">polling showed</a> about 45% support keeping the embargo, up 10 points from two years ago. </p>
<p>Such sentiments make it more difficult for Biden to initiate his own Obama-style “thaw.” But they cannot stop the changes at work in Cuban society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph J. Gonzalez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just as Fidel Castro’s 2016 death did not transform US-Cuba ties, his brother Raul’s exit from politics is unlikely to do so. But Cuba itself is changing. Eventually, Havana and Washington will, too.Joseph J. Gonzalez, Associate Professor, Global Studies, Appalachian State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474002020-10-02T16:42:40Z2020-10-02T16:42:40ZA brief history of presidents disclosing – or trying to hide – health problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361414/original/file-20201002-13-1t53w8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C40%2C5197%2C3494&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows speaks to reporters about President Trump's positive coronavirus test outside the White House on Oct. 2, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/white-house-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-speaks-to-reporters-news-photo/1228846131?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump went directly to the public and announced via Twitter early on Oct. 2 that “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1311892190680014849">Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19</a>. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”</p>
<p>The president’s straightforward announcement was unlike many presidents in the past. My research has focused on how politicians dodge questions. I have co-authored an entry in the <a href="http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/encyclopedia-of-deception">Encyclopedia of Deception</a> with scholar <a href="http://com.miami.edu/profile/michael-beatty">Michael J. Beatty</a> about how rampant deception is when it comes to presidential health. </p>
<p>It’s one of the most common types of political deception perpetuated against journalists and the public. </p>
<p>And in a presidential campaign, public opinion polls have suggested that <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2016/most_want_to_see_clinton_trump_tax_returns_medical_records">voters want to know details</a> about the candidates’ health. </p>
<p>I will be watching with interest how the White House, the Trump campaign and the news media handle the president’s COVID-19. Here’s a roundup of how other U.S. leaders and their administrations have handled information about presidential health problems.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1311892190680014849"}"></div></p>
<h2>Lie early and often</h2>
<p>At a press briefing in 1893, President Grover Cleveland’s secretary of war told inquiring journalists that their speculations about the president having surgery were wrong. </p>
<p>The nation was in a recession, and <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/07/06/137621988/a-yacht-a-mustache-how-a-president-hid-his-tumor">Cleveland feared</a> that his economic plan would be doomed if the public knew that his doctor thought he could have cancer. Cleveland had surgery secretly on a yacht, the tumor was removed, but the nation continued spiraling into an economic depression. </p>
<p>During President William McKinley’s second term in office, which began in 1901, his health plummeted. He had eye trouble. He was bedridden with the flu. And he was near death from pneumonia. Yet his spokesman tamped down media speculation, telling journalists that reports of the president being ill were “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mf9p-2K-CX8C&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=William+McKinley%E2%80%99s+eye+trouble+flu+foolish+stories+pneumonia&source=bl&ots=IhADBZCTkx&sig=nTih1z4yvvRkZbLKRyaGSq2DuQ4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiry9S02ozPAhWq7YMKHc3kDlgQ6AEIHjAB#v=onepage&q=William%20McKinley%E2%80%99s%20eye%20trouble%20flu%20foolish%20stories%20pneumonia&f=false">foolish stories</a>.”</p>
<p>When Woodrow Wilson became gravely ill from what was <a href="https://www.historynet.com/how-woodrow-wilsons-hidden-illness-left-america-with-no-president-for-over-a-year.htm">rumored to be syphilis</a>, his spokesman issued press statements that the president was recovering <a href="http://ahsl.arizona.edu/about/exhibits/presidents/wilson">from fatigue</a>.</p>
<p>For the entirety of his service to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Press Secretary Stephen Early tried to hide the president’s paralysis caused by polio by having the press snap photos of the president in ways that hid his wheelchair. Even after FDR died, Early released <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=A_liTKBNOR4C&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=Franklin+Delano+Roosevelt,+FDR+press+secretary+Stephen+Early+pronounced+organically+sound&source=bl&ots=lAqqswCF5r&sig=aK5HXgni0xqHZk3kRLFjckDan3E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjpiM-o3YzPAhWB5oMKHXcYBVoQ6AEIODAE#v=onepage&q=Franklin%20Delano%20Roosevelt%2C%20FDR%20press%20secretary%20Stephen%20Early%20pronounced%20organically%20sound&f=false">a statement</a> that “the president was given a thorough examination by seven or eight physicians” and “he was pronounced organically sound in every way.” </p>
<p>Dwight Eisenhower was hospitalized with a heart attack, but his press operation initially told reporters <a href="http://www.ozy.com/flashback/president-eisenhowers-14-billion-heart-attack/65157">he had an upset stomach</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="FDR in a wheelchair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361417/original/file-20201002-20-32j32a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An unusual photo of FDR in a wheelchair – his press secretary tried to avoid images of the president in his wheelchair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-president-franklin-d-roosevelt-poses-with-his-dog-news-photo/137822922?adppopup=true">Margaret Suckley/PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is even precedent for presidential staffers lying about their own health. </p>
<p>William Howard Taft’s press spokesman, Archie Butt, was sickened from stress and fatigue. He flew to Rome to escape and get rested. Rather than admit that he was exhausted – which would seem reasonable for a person working in such a high-stress position – he told the press corps that his trip was to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mf9p-2K-CX8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=taft%20pope&f=false">meet with the pope</a>.</p>
<p>Sometimes presidents lie about medical conditions to distract from other, non-health issues. When John F. Kennedy was holding secret meetings dealing with the Soviet Union and the <a href="http://jfklibrary.tumblr.com/post/33959482484/october-20-1962-day-5-of-the-cuban-missile">Cuban Missile Crisis</a>, Press Secretary Pierre Salinger told reporters that the president’s schedule changes and lack of public appearances were due to a cold. He even released the president’s symptoms and temperature. </p>
<p>Perhaps proving that he wasn’t talented at deception, Salinger used the same cold excuse to explain Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mf9p-2K-CX8C&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=salinger+Vice+President+Lyndon+Johnson+flight+from+Hawaii+to+the+White+House+at+the+same+time.&source=bl&ots=IhADBZDThy&sig=ndBfAN_AVOD69evAXLp-QcJd9os&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj56_aD3ozPAhWky4MKHeicB2EQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=salinger%20Vice%20President%20Lyndon%20Johnson%20flight%20from%20Hawaii%20to%20the%20White%20House%20at%20the%20same%20time.&f=false">impromptu flight</a> from Hawaii to the White House at the same time. The Washington Post’s editor suspected the colds were awfully coincidental, but Salinger refused to comment. </p>
<p>As the political public relations adage goes: <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/09/12/krauthammer_clintons_incapable_of_telling_the_truth_another_case_of_coverup_being_worse_than_the_crime.html">The cover-up is worse</a> than the crime. </p>
<h2>Trump, Nixon and candidate debates</h2>
<p>In 2016, both U.S. presidential candidates <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-panel-devolves-into-shoutfest-over-trumps-taxes-medical-records/">Donald Trump</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/us/politics/hillary-clinton-campaign.html">Hillary Clinton</a> were caught deceiving the public about their health. Each candidate <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-health-doctor-490836">accused the other</a> of lying about medical conditions.</p>
<p>Questions may now arise as to whether Trump gave a subpar performance in the debate because of his health, although presumably he and his wife and staff were tested for COVID-19 prior to the debate.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it is worth noting that in the most famous televised debate in U.S. history, the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-kennedy-nixon-debate">Sept. 26, 1960, Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon</a> showdown – after which many voters said they decided to vote for Kennedy – Nixon was ill and unrested. Nixon had been in the hospital a couple of weeks earlier and looked a little gaunt from having recently lost five pounds. </p>
<p>Nixon had been campaigning intensely and did not prepare for the debate. He held a campaign event that morning with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, and never met with his staff and didn’t even take their calls. Meanwhile, Kennedy had been fiercely preparing with his advisers at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago.</p>
<p>Similarly, Trump had held several public events prior to the debate and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/trump-debate-prep/index.html">did not spend time preparing in private</a> for it, as Biden did. </p>
<p>After an initial announcement with remarkable transparency, it remains to be seen whether Trump will continue in that vein or adopt the more traditional practices of presidents who were less than open about their health.</p>
<p><em>This story has been corrected to clarify that it was rumored that President Woodrow Wilson had syphilis.</em></p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-presidents-lying-about-their-health-65393">an article</a> originally published on September 13, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147400/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E. Clementson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Trump was direct in announcing he had COVID-19. But presidents in the past have been very good at deceiving the public about the state of their health. Which direction will Trump go now?David E. Clementson, Assistant Professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of GeorgiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1050312019-01-23T11:48:48Z2019-01-23T11:48:48ZPersonal diplomacy has long been a presidential tactic, but Trump adds a twist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254413/original/file-20190117-32828-12d9wm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump's historic meeting with North Korea dictator Kim Jung Un on June 12, 2018, in Singapore. Trump recently told a crowd that the two leaders 'fell in love.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/China-North-Korea/68a4e903345f414189b7ab7b7c5736b0/29/0">Evan Vucci/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump plans a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/politics/trump-kim-summit.html">second meeting</a> with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in February in what will be another example of Trump’s personal diplomacy efforts. </p>
<p>In September, Trump told the crowd at a rally that he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump/we-fell-in-love-trump-swoons-over-letters-from-north-koreas-kim-idUSKCN1MA03Q">“fell in love”</a> with Kim after the two exchanged letters. Many were critical of the statement, including allies of the president like Sen. <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/lindsey-graham-donald-trumps-love-kim-jong-un-must-stop/">Lindsey Graham</a>. While Trump later admitted that his profession of love was <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-interview-60-minutes-full-transcript-lesley-stahl-jamal-khashoggi-james-mattis-brett-kavanaugh-vladimir-putin-2018-10-14/">“just a figure of speech</a>,” the comment puts a spotlight on his relationships with foreign leaders. </p>
<p>In Trump’s first two years in office, he’s met with many world leaders both at <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/visits/2017">home</a> and <a href="https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/president/trump-donald-j">abroad</a>. Several of these interactions grabbed headlines, often for the wrong reasons: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/trump-macron-handshake/533688/">aggressive handshakes</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/26/breaking-down-trumps-shove-the-internet-debates-and-montenegros-leader-shrugs/?utm_term=.dd67400300bc">shoving</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619223217/friend-or-foe-trump-takes-on-allies-as-he-warms-up-to-north-korea">insulting allies</a>, and what some critics consider <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-egypt-sissi-white-house-love-fest-578531">fawning love fests</a> with dictators like Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>With such a record, would American interests be better served if Trump stayed away from world leaders? The truth is that even if the answer were yes, he couldn’t. The president is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Diplomat-Chief-President-at-Summit/dp/0275920402">diplomat-in-chief</a>. Personal diplomacy is part of the job. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pZxjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT157&lpg=PT157&dq=6+%22One+Picture+May+Not+Be+Worth+Ten+Thousand+Words,+but+the+White+House+Is+Betting+It%E2%80%99s+Worth+Ten+Thousand+Votes%22&source=bl&ots=GmdJKeYaDR&sig=P2TfBZd1rFGhNUENPIpyrJo8gSU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-3ZnthJreAhVSuVMKHVlLBukQ6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=6%20%22One%20Picture%20May%20Not%20Be%20Worth%20Ten%20Thousand%20Words%2C%20but%20the%20White%20House%20Is%20Betting%20It%E2%80%99s%20Worth%20Ten%20Thousand%20Votes%22&f=false">I study personal diplomacy</a> and I know the centrality of the practice to the presidency in the post-WWII era. Despite what his critics say, Trump’s use of personal diplomacy is a continuation of past presidential practice. It’s his style and approach that break from past tradition. </p>
<h2>Personal diplomacy is part of the presidency</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254411/original/file-20190117-32831-bfhxu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Trump’s Florida residence Mar-a-Lago in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Koreas-Tension-Trump/5ff75a577d3f43b99975678ff478a5a2/15/0">Alex Brandon/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This wasn’t always the case. Not until Franklin D. Roosevelt did <a href="https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu//available/etd-07212016-113731/">personal diplomacy become increasingly common</a> in the presidency. Technological advancements in communication and travel, America’s rise to global preeminence, the growth of presidential power, and increasing domestic incentives made the practice appear attractive and often necessary to White House occupants. </p>
<p>Professional diplomats have long complained about political leaders engaging in personal diplomacy. Writing in 1939, British diplomat <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=I6W-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=should+not+be+encouraged.+Such+visits+arouse+public+expectations,+lead+to+misunderstanding+and+create+confusion.&source=bl&ots=2mc5BkPn8v&sig=X2-ClvSDVLDqz05pxTNpGmMT6W0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjkyovyqJneAhWnh1QKHZ4mApgQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=should%20not%20be%20encouraged.%20Such%20visits%20arouse%20public%20expectations%2C%20lead%20to%20misunderstanding%20and%20create%20confusion.&f=false">Harold Nicolson put it like this</a>: Frequent meetings between world leaders “should not be encouraged. Such visits arouse public expectations, lead to misunderstanding and create confusion.” </p>
<p>Professional diplomats are generally better informed <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=I6W-DAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=diplomacy+at+the+highest+level&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIoqCFtPrfAhVvuVkKHZcvANgQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=professional&f=false">than political leaders</a> on international issues. They also are experienced negotiators, possess linguistic expertise and are knowledgeable of diplomatic protocol. They are also usually less influenced by domestic politics. They tend to stay out of the media spotlight and work behind the scenes.</p>
<p>But history provides us with many examples of the value of leader-to-leader diplomacy. Franklin <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Winston-Intimate-Portrait-Friendship/dp/0812972821">Roosevelt’s connection</a> with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill played a central role in the Allied victory during WWII. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Days-September-Dramatic-Struggle/dp/0804170029/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540219648&sr=1-1&keywords=13+days+in+september">bond</a> between Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was crucial to Egyptian-Israeli peace. And Ronald <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Gorbachev-How-Cold-Ended/dp/0812974891">Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s relationship</a> was key to the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>Presidents themselves have recognized the importance of leader-to-leader diplomacy. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7VWZRVvoE0MC&pg=PA195&lpg=PA195&dq=%22I+placed+a+high+priority+on+personal+diplomacy.+Getting+to+know+a+fellow+world+leader%E2%80%99s+personality,+character,+and+concerns+made+it+easier+to+find+common+ground+and+deal+with+contentious+issues.%22&source=bl&ots=6psW36jfsl&sig=8aCf-wum3E79FdkJRgYvp45lMdw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw0aSVqZneAhUT_1QKHQyQBCQQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22I%20placed%20a%20high%20priority%20on%20personal%20diplomacy.%20Getting%20to%20know%20a%20fellow%20world%20leader%E2%80%99s%20personality%2C%20character%2C%20and%20concerns%20made%20it%20easier%20to%20find%20common%20ground%20and%20deal%20with%20contentious%20issues.%22&f=false">George W. Bush wrote in his memoir</a>, “I placed a high priority on personal diplomacy. Getting to know a fellow world leader’s personality, character, and concerns made it easier to find common ground and deal with contentious issues.”</p>
<h2>Dangers lurk</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255044/original/file-20190122-100270-ms7e8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President John Kennedy, right, meets with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, June 3, 1961.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there are risks as well.</p>
<p>Leaders don’t always get along. Miscalculation and tension may be as likely as understanding and cooperation. </p>
<p>In 1961, U.S.-Soviet relations went from bad to worse after John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev met. Khrushchev came away thinking the president was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HrQtrP3MOIYC&pg=PA36&dq=%22too+intelligent+and+too+weak.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_hMm9t_rfAhUR1VkKHSlwBt4Q6AEIQDAE#v=onepage&q=%22too%20intelligent%20and%20too%20weak.%22&f=false">weak and inexperienced</a>. Within months, the Soviet leader ordered the building of the Berlin Wall. The following year, Khrushchev put <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">nuclear missiles in Cuba</a> capable of reaching almost every corner of the continental United States. </p>
<p>George W. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bush-saw-putins-soul-obama-wants-to-appeal-to-his-brain/2015/12/01/264f0c7c-984b-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.30b975e24109">Bush thought</a> he could trust Russian leader Vladimir Putin because he “looked the man in the eye” and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” But by the end of his presidency, it was clear that Bush had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14georgia.html">seriously misjudged</a> the Russian leader.</p>
<h2>Trump’s approach</h2>
<p>In his two years in office, Trump has shown himself both following in his predecessors’ personal diplomacy footsteps but also breaking from established norms. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-says-he-would-get-along-very-well-putin-n401051">candidate Trump</a>, he boasted that he would get along with Putin. And since becoming president, he has continued to promote his personal relationships with world leaders. </p>
<p>This is normal presidential behavior. Where Trump differs from his predecessors is in the relationships he promotes and the way he approaches personal diplomacy.</p>
<p>One of the most striking things about Trump’s personal diplomacy is his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526520042/6-strongmen-trumps-praised-and-the-conflicts-it-presents">praise of dictators</a>. While past American presidents also sought to form personal bonds with <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwimt8_pspreAhUQrFMKHZ1kDxoQFjABegQICBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fwp%2F2018%2F06%2F12%2Fother-presidents-have-met-with-dictators-they-didnt-then-praise-them%2F&usg=AOvVaw1el1bkdom-xpJ9XoRn1M3M">unsavory leaders</a>, none so publicly embraced and praised brutal authoritarians such as Kim, Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as Trump has done.</p>
<p>This has a cost. Personal diplomacy is a form of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Theatre_of_power.html?id=SOyOAAAAMAAJ">“theater</a>.” It sends signals to domestic and international audiences. The leaders a president decides to meet with, praise or attack is a statement of American values and policy. By effusively embracing dictators, Trump’s personal diplomacy is at odds with traditional American foreign policy, and critics argue that it <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-embrace-dictators-creating-climate-emboldens-all-despots-ncna918126">emboldens dictators</a>.</p>
<p>Trump also differs from past presidents by appearing indifferent to the risks of personal diplomacy. “You have nothing to lose and you have a lot to gain,” <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1030902046520696832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1030902046520696832&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newindianexpress.com%2Fworld%2F2018%2Faug%2F19%2Fmeeting-with-foreign-leaders-not-a-bad-thing-us-president-donald-trump-1859815.html">he said</a>. </p>
<p>Personal diplomacy is a tool presidents use to advance American interests. And because of the risks, careful preparation and a clear strategy are vital. </p>
<p>But Trump is impulsive and prone to rely on <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/09/trump-north-korea-summit-meeting-one-minute-kim-jong-un-635004">“touch” and “feel</a>.” </p>
<p>Politics is deeply personal for him. While disagreement is a natural part of international politics, he often views it as a personal affront. Before he fell in “love” with Kim Jong Un, he called the North Korean dictator a <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911175246853664768">“madman”</a> and mocked his <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/929511061954297857">height and weight</a>. </p>
<p>Trump has even attacked allied leaders. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated his country wouldn’t be pushed around, the president felt betrayed and lashed out, calling Trudeau <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/world/americas/donald-trump-g7-nafta.html">“very dishonest and weak</a>.”</p>
<p>Leader-to-leader diplomacy is inherently personal. But presidents are best served when they don’t take it too personally. Former Secretary of State Henry <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=npJBDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=%22America+has+no+permanent+friends+or+enemies,+only+interests.%22&source=bl&ots=d8Zaw1FM49&sig=ACfU3U2edrSZv9Vjq3x8dwOgWrxMOpmOzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj_je2C3YHgAhUxmuAKHfa7ACg4FBDoATAEegQIBhAB#v=onepage&q=%22America%20has%20no%20permanent%20friends%20or%20enemies%2C%20only%20interests.%22&f=false">Kissinger once said</a>, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” So even if leaders form personal bonds, it doesn’t mean two nations will always agree. And that’s OK. It’s a natural part of international relations, not a personal insult to the president. </p>
<p>When presidents engage world leaders, the stakes are raised and mistakes amplified. So a clear assessment of the risks and benefits of personal diplomacy is essential. As former Secretary of State <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=I6W-DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA257&lpg=PA257&dq=%22when+a+chief+of+state+or+head+of+government+makes+a+fumble,%22&source=bl&ots=2mc5CdJn5r&sig=mr-_9Of400gpRDYnTzCgtO2bKBY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-8u6VgpreAhXD3FMKHTw-CeIQ6AEwAnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22when%20a%20chief%20of%20state%20or%20head%20of%20government%20makes%20a%20fumble%2C%22&f=false">Dean Acheson cautioned</a>, “When a chief of state or head of government makes a fumble, the goal line is open behind him.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tizoc Chavez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Meeting with heads of state has become routine for presidents, but Trump’s way with words and gestures rattles many in the diplomatic community. The biggest concern is his sweet talk to dictators.Tizoc Chavez, Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/771432017-05-04T22:14:34Z2017-05-04T22:14:34ZWhat makes Kim Jong Un tick?<p>Kim Jong Un is a “smart cookie,” President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39764834">said</a> earlier this year of North Korea’s leader.</p>
<p>“He’s 27 years old,” Trump <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-exclusive-idUSKBN17U04E">mused</a>. “His father dies, [he] took over a regime. So say what you want but that is not easy.”</p>
<p>Kim, who has assassinated his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/12/12/kim-jong-un-just-had-his-own-uncle-killed-why/?utm_term=.6bf07a33db7f">internal rivals</a> using <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-30/kim-has-two-officials-killed-by-anti-aircraft-gun-joongang-says">anti-aircraft guns</a> and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent/">chemical weapons</a>, seeks to develop a nuclear missile that can <a href="http://38north.org/2016/09/shecker091216/">reach</a> the United States. These actions may provoke a “major, major conflict” with the U.S., <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/28/donald-trump-hopes-kim-jong-un-rational-warns-major-major-conflict/">Trump has said</a>: “I hope he’s rational.”</p>
<p>In <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2iPIu00AAAAJ&hl=en">my research</a> on political leaders, I’ve found that different people have different definitions of rationality. The core question – “What is my best move?” – is often answered by a leader’s idiosyncratic beliefs, rather than by an immediately obvious logic of the situation as seen by external observers. </p>
<p>The history of dealing with inscrutable foreign leaders is instructive: From Hitler to Saddam to Khrushchev, understanding the other is the most urgent challenge of national security decision-making for the U.S.</p>
<p>To influence Kim’s behavior, we must ask: What is his particular vantage point? </p>
<h2>Lessons of the past</h2>
<p>In the spring of 1943, the director of the first centralized U.S. intelligence agency, Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684527.2013.834217">sought help</a> in understanding Hitler. Donovan wanted to give President Franklin D. Roosevelt a sense of “the things that make him tick.” </p>
<p>Donovan called Walter C. Langer, a psychoanalyst helping with the war effort, in for a meeting: “What do you make of Hitler? If Hitler is running the show, what kind of a person is he? What are his ambitions?” </p>
<p>Langer combined the scant intelligence on Hitler with insights from Freudian psychoanalysis into a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_mind_of_Adolf_Hitler.html?id=8AZoAAAAMAAJ">study</a> on Hitler. He accurately predicted that Hitler would commit suicide rather than be captured by Allied forces. But his insight was largely irrelevant to the military strategy for defeating Germany. The report took so long to produce that the war was nearly over by the time it was delivered to Donovan.</p>
<p>More recently, the former top U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer and I <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_00045">studied</a> what made former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein tick. For several years, Duelfer was the senior point of contact between Iraq and the U.S. After the regime fell, he produced the definitive <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/">report</a> on its weapons programs.</p>
<p>Looking for logic in Saddam’s decisions, we found instead a morass of idiosyncratic thinking. Most astonishing was his misreading of President George W. Bush’s June 2002 <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html">speech</a> to the West Point Military Academy. Intending to warn Saddam that he must comply with U.N. demands or face war, Bush struck a stern tone. The “gravest danger to freedom,” he said, was “unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction.” Later in the speech, Bush praised President Ronald Reagan for standing up to “the brutality of tyrants.”</p>
<p>What Bush said and what Saddam heard were <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/ISEC_a_00045">two very different things</a>. </p>
<p>Saddam did not see himself as unbalanced, and he knew that he did not have weapons of mass destruction. And U.S.-Iraq relations had been excellent under President Reagan, Saddam recalled. The United States had tilted toward his side during the Iran-Iraq war. Things started to deteriorate only under the Bushes, in his view. </p>
<p>Our analysis showed that Saddam believed Bush could not have been talking about him. Instead, Saddam concluded he must have been threatening North Korea, not Iraq. Kim Jong Il, father of Kim Jong Un, possessed the nuclear weapons that the Iraqi president desired but did not have.</p>
<p>Bush was dumbfounded by the lack of Saddam’s response to his threats. Later he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7VWZRVvoE0MC&pg=PA269&lpg=PA269&dq=How+much+clearer+could+i+have+been?+Bush+saddam&source=bl&ots=6oxZ75jixi&sig=giV3I_p8CNxx3HmnZz1LxZ0sRRI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwji3-XW5szTAhUNx2MKHUndBmkQ6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=How%20much%20clearer%20could%20i%20have%20been%3F%20Bush%20saddam&f=false">asked</a>, “How much clearer could I have been?”</p>
<p>Duelfer and I had the academic luxury of malleable deadlines in studying Saddam. Langer spent many months on his Hitler study. Scholarship on Kim Jong Un may be too slow for the current crisis. Major decision-makers may instead need to rely on their intuition.</p>
<h2>Empathize with your enemy</h2>
<p>Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara spoke about intuition in a 2003 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0suadZ6AmM">documentary</a> about his role in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. McNamara revealed crucial new details about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had smuggled nuclear missiles into Cuba, threatening 90 million Americans. President John F. Kennedy’s first reaction was that he must destroy them with a massive air strike. This would have courted war with the USSR.</p>
<p>Seeking the widest possible range of advice, Kennedy asked Llewellyn “Tommy” Thompson, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, to supplement his foreign policy team during the crisis. Thompson had come to know Khrushchev well and had stayed at his house in Moscow. </p>
<p>“Mr. President, you’re wrong,” McNamara recalls Thompson saying of the air strike plans. “I think Khrushchev’s gotten himself in one hell of a fix.” The former ambassador knew that Khrushchev could be impulsive and later regretful. He imagined a terrified Khrushchev, in awe of the events he had set in motion. Thompson suggested that Kennedy help the Soviet leader find his way out of the crisis. Kennedy decided on a naval blockade rather than an air strike, and Khrushchev backed down.</p>
<p>The lesson McNamara drew? Empathize with your enemy, and intuit how the world looks to them. “We must try to put ourselves in their skin, and look at ourselves through their eyes,” he said. </p>
<p>History tells us that to influence Kim, we must empathize (note: not sympathize) with him. To figure out what makes him tick, Trump and his advisers must first understand how we look to the North Korean leader, peering at us from his very particular vantage point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Benedict Dyson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar who has profiled the likes of Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin says there is a method to understanding the madness.Stephen Benedict Dyson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400572015-04-13T05:32:20Z2015-04-13T05:32:20ZObama-Castro handshake ties up Kennedy’s loose ends at last<p>A handshake and four simple words – “those days are past” – signalled a new era of diplomacy between the United States of America and Latin America. The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-32273750">handshake</a> between presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro at the opening of the Summit of the Americas was not the first (the two met at <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/nelson-mandela/10508506/President-Barack-Obama-shakes-Raul-Castros-hand-at-Mandela-memorial-service.html">Nelson Mandela’s funeral</a>), but it is certainly the most significant.</p>
<p>There is still a long way to go before US-Cuba relations are truly normal, with mutual <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-meeting-with-castro-infuriates-gop-presidential-candidates/2015/04/11/e95cf1d0-dfbd-11e4-a500-1c5bb1d8ff6a_story.html">suspicion</a> and anger still running high. But the pressure to make the thaw work is greater and the diplomatic rebuilding is genuinely underway at last.</p>
<p>Cuba’s isolation is an anachronism, sustained more by the internal politics of the US (Florida in particular) than global politics. It is a loose end left by history – and it is rather satisfying to see a Democratic president tying up one left by another. </p>
<p>John F Kennedy’s presidency was defined by Cuba, first in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, then in the stand-off with Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis.</p>
<h2>Global crisis</h2>
<p>The extent to which the crisis had transfixed America’s western allies is perhaps best illustrated in the memoirs of a prominent British observer, the Guardian editor of the time, Alastair Hetherington, which are held in the archive of the London School of Economics. </p>
<p>Britain, like the rest of the world, was a bit player during the missile crisis. As Peter Thorneycroft, Harold Macmillan’s defence minister, <a href="http://www.totalpolitics.com/print/326527/macmillanand39s-secret-role-in-the-cuban-missile-crisis.thtml">said</a>: “We were all bystanders.” Macmillan offered support and a shoulder to cry on, but Kennedy was circumspect; this was the United States’ game. Britain may have had a special relationship, but like the rest of the world, Kennedy let Macmillan’s government know only what he wanted it to know.</p>
<p>The Guardian, which had opposed Eden on Suez, was just as concerned about the United States’ intentions against Cuba and opposed direct action. Hetherington, a former major in the Intelligence Corps, had been scarred by the reaction to his newspaper’s opposition to Suez and, as US-Cuba relations deteriorated ever further, he saw history repeating itself, but with much more serious - and more global – consequences.</p>
<p>A Guardian editorial on October 27 1962 addressed the issue of a possible attack on Cuba:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is the United States about to bomb or invade Cuba? This is now the question. Worse, there is even talk of a possible nuclear attack on Cuba. This is reliably reported as under consideration because the authorities in Washington are so troubled by the rapid approach to readiness of the intermediate range bases on the island. It would be madness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An American attack on Cuba, he wrote: “would seem to most of the world to be as much a piece of aggression as the British and French attack on Suez.”</p>
<p>The October 27 Guardian leader told Macmillan: “The British Government should make it clear that it must vote against the United States in the United Nations just as the Americans voted against us at Suez.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77691/original/image-20150412-4078-vohusf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fraught relationship: Nikita Kruschev and John F Kennedy in 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Kennedy,_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961.jpg">US Department of State</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Six weeks later, Hetherington met Kennedy in his study in the White House. The president talked for 40 minutes from his rocking chair. Hetherington’s note of their discussions, held in the archive of the London School of Economics, gives an insight into the mind of an editor whose views had been proved wrong by events, and a president who felt his allies had let him down.</p>
<h2>On the brink</h2>
<p>In the retained memo, Hetherington writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I began by saying I thought we ought to apologise for some of the things we’d said – for our misjudgements – at the time of the Cuban crisis. We’d been critical because we thought Kennedy was walking into a trap. We thought that the Russian objective was to establish the missile bases in Cuba as a bargaining counter against which they would try to trade all the American bases in western Europe and Britain. We also thought that the reaction would come with a new blockade of Berlin to balance the blockade of Cuba.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The president was magnanimous: “Kennedy laughed off the apology, and said that perhaps our analysis hadn’t been so far out. But there had been a bit of difficulty with the British press. He hadn’t had the backing he’d expected.”</p>
<p>As Hetherington records it, Kennedy said there were three things about Cuba. There was “deliberate bad faith” on the Russian side. Khrushchev had given “a personal assurance to Kennedy that there would be no offensive missiles in Cuba”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77692/original/image-20150412-4087-9508bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fidel Castro and Nikita Kruschev in 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castro-kruschev.jpg#filehistory">Superdominicano via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If the US had given in, its allies would have doubted its willingness to defend them in any future crisis. “This, the president said, was more important than the military effect of the missiles in Cuba… The Russians had brought about an open alteration in the balance of nuclear power. This had to be resisted.”</p>
<p>Kennedy told Hetherington: “Our intelligence had said that the Russians would never put offending missiles in Cuba. They would be too exposed… but their intelligence had obviously told Khrushchev that the Americans would not react.”</p>
<p>The most frightening thing about the crisis was just how far the two sides were from understanding each other. Hetherington writes: “Such misunderstanding could easily lead to nuclear war. This was what [Kennedy] found most frightening about the Cuba affair.”</p>
<p>In a statement Kennedy was fated never to see tested, he gave Hetherington his assessment of the likelihood of nuclear conflict: “How, he asked, can we get through the next ten years without nuclear war? He was not sure that we could do so.”</p>
<p>Asked whether there would be more progress on talks to ease tensions, Kennedy said he thought not. “It wasn’t possible to take their word for anything,” he said of the Russians.</p>
<p>The president then proceeded to lecture the editor on his editorial stance. “He thought the greatest flaw in what The Guardian had been writing was our failure to realise that the Russians were expansionist.”</p>
<p>He was dismissive about the need for a European nuclear deterrent. It would be too costly and the issue of political control was too complicated. “The bomb is great until you’ve got it,” Kennedy told Hetherington. National deterrents such as Britian and France’s, in his view, were unnecessary and dangerous.</p>
<h2>Latin lessons</h2>
<p>Kennedy told Hetherington that America would welcome economic competition with the Russians: “It was a challenge that the Americans would like to meet,” Hetherington reported.</p>
<p>Kennedy’s view was apparently that if the two powers competed economically rather than militarily, the world could benefit. In an exchange that resonates with the agenda for the 2015 Summit of the Americas, Kennedy talked Hetherington through the challenges facing Latin American states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kennedy said that yesterday he had been entertaining the president of Honduras, 60% of whose people were illiterate. The day before he had had a long talk with the ambassador of Brazil, where the country was almost bankrupt, and the day before that he had seen another Latin American ambassador, half of whose people were either undernourished or near starvation. </p>
<p>It would be much more profitable if the Russians and the Americans competed in trying to raise standards in these countries. But unfortunately the Soviet Union was not prepared for this kind of peaceful competition. It had the urge to expand.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We live in a different world today. Instead of gauging a president’s attitude to nuclear war, The Guardian is reporting on the beginnings of a real <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/11/obama-castro-handshake-us-cuba">Cuban-American thaw</a>. </p>
<p>The Castros still bear intense antipathy towards Washington and its machinations and it will be a while before an American president goes walkabout on the streets of Havana. But as relations between the two nations start to normalise, with an inevitable exchange of ambassadors, it might not be too long before some fine cigars are at last on their way to the White House in diplomatic bags.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a candid 1962 conversation with a Guardian editor, President Kennedy unpacked his views on Cuba, the Soviet Union, and nuclear war. What can Obama learn from him?Tom Collins, Professorial Teaching Fellow, Communications, Media and Culture, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/356482014-12-18T01:42:05Z2014-12-18T01:42:05ZCuba and US: the long, twisted tale of two countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67559/original/image-20141217-31049-1k8zn4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fidel Castro during a visit to Washington in 1959.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fidel_Castro_during_a_visit_to_Washington.jpg">U.S. Department of State</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context of the cold war with communism and the Soviet Union but in the run-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion. That invasion, by anti-Castro Cuban exiles armed, equipped, organized, trained and financed by the US government (i.e., the CIA and Pentagon), had been approved in principle by Eisenhower in March 1960 but was carried out under the new president, John F. Kennedy, in April 1961. </p>
<p>That operation failed disastrously; and contrary to claims by some, it’s far from likely it would have succeeded had JFK ordered direct air support which he refused to do. Castro’s armed forces and militia far outnumbered the invaders. </p>
<p>The Kennedy administration concentrated on trying to organize and strengthen Cuba’s diplomatic, political, and economic isolation in hopes of weakening Castro’s regime. The administration hoped he could be overthrown and/or his survival would be such an economic burden to Moscow that it could not be sustained. The Kennedy administration combined those measures with covert operations (code-named “Operation Mongoose”) and continued assassination plotting. Despite exacerbating Cuba’s myriad economic failures, the range of US anti-Castro efforts failed to cause his downfall and instead helped him to pose as a nationalist defender of the island against the “Yankee colossus” to the north. </p>
<h2>And the freeze continues</h2>
<p>LBJ scaled back the covert anti-Castro campaign after JFK’s murder, but he and his successors – until today – left the essential diplomatic impasse in place, despite a few furtive, abortive efforts to overcome it through secret exchanges that were <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/author_page?title_id=3537">derailed for various reasons</a>. (These took place under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, against the backdrop of detente with the Soviet Union.) </p>
<p>For more than two decades after the cold war ended with the collapse of the Soviet empire and then the USSR itself in 1989-91, the policy persisted. This was not due to any evident success in helping Cubans obtain greater freedoms or inducing Fidel Castro (or his brother) to institute reforms. Quite the contrary. It was simply due to US domestic politics, that is, the perceived influence of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami and south Florida to swing elections. Yet for some years, amid generational shifts, that community has become far less monolithic in its rigid opposition to normalizing relations, and the political consequences far less clear. </p>
<p>From the start, the policy of non-recognition – echoing the idea promulgated by Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson in refusing to recognize the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria in the early 1930s – reflected a mistaken notion that simply transacting normal diplomatic business with a government that controlled its national territory (for better or worse) conferred some sort of moral approval of its conduct. If it did, the US probably wouldn’t recognize scores, if not more, of other countries. Like sanctions, non-recognition can be a device for striking poses on the domestic or (less important to US politicians) international stage, rather than a practical policy. </p>
<p>Now, however, when US-Cuban relations truly normalize, we will finally get a test of what some analysts think will be a process far more likely to produce positive change for the Cuban people. </p>
<p>Rather than relying, through inertia, on an anachronistic and increasingly ineffective policy of isolation, let Cuba be flooded with US ideas, products, dollars, and tourists. It worked wonders for helping to end the cold war (as I learned by visiting the Soviet Union and its East-Central European allies in 1988-91). Let’s see if the new reality can enhance prospects for a peaceful transition as well in Cuba.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James G. Hershberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The action by President Obama to move toward the normalization of US-Cuba relations is long overdue. The US ruptured ties with Cuba in early January 1961, under President Eisenhower, not only in the context…James G. Hershberg, Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/166372013-08-05T05:34:13Z2013-08-05T05:34:13ZOut of sight, out of mind: a nuclear legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28576/original/9k72nv4s-1375454492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Terrible beauty: Operation Castle – British test on Bikini Atoll, March 1954</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was a key moment in the Cold War: 50 years ago, on August 5, 1963, US and the Soviet Union signed the <a href="http://www.armscontrol.org/documents/LTBT">Limited Test Ban Treaty</a> banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space (but not underground). The treaty has since been signed, if not ratified, by most countries around the world and remains in force to this day. </p>
<p>Before the treaty, testing nuclear weapons had been common practice. According to <a href="http://www.senat.fr/rap/o97-179/o97-1798.html">a report compiled by the French senate</a>, there have been more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests since 1945, more than 1,000 carried out by the United States, 715 by the Soviet Union, 45 by the UK and 46 by China, all causing significant radioactive contamination, mostly in African countries and the Pacific. France, which didn’t sign the treaty, continued underwater tests until the mid-1990s, carrying out a total of 210.</p>
<p>For 13 days in October 1962, less than a year before US president John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev signed the agreement, they had faced each other during the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/kennedy_cuban_missile_01.shtml">Cuban Missile Crisis</a> when the world only narrowly escaped nuclear war. The two sides had also faced each other in Berlin in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/24/berlin-crisis-standoff-checkpoint-charlie">August 1961</a> when East Germany started building a wall through the middle of the already divided city.</p>
<h2>Two empires clash</h2>
<p>The story of how the treaty came into being reveals a highly complex and paradoxical mixture of hard-core power politics and idealism. In a <a href="http://www.american.edu/jfk/">speech at American University</a> on June 10, 1963, Kennedy pointed out that, in the nuclear age, “total war makes no sense” and expressed his desire to start negotiations on a test ban treaty. Kennedy’s case was supported by a change in world opinion which was linked to the testing of new hydrogen devices. These were far more powerful than the atomic bombs that the US had used to flatten the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. </p>
<p>While these weapons had been seen as substitutes for conventional aerial bombings, the sheer power of the H-bombs made such interpretations increasingly implausible. In 1954, the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon came too close to an H-bomb test in the Pacific and suffered severe radiation damage. Subsequently, several campaigns, many of them sponsored by scientists, alerted the world to the dangers of nuclear weapons - perhaps the most famous of which was <a href="http://www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm">the manifesto</a> issued by Nobel laureate and scientist Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell in July 1955 which urged people to “remember your humanity, and forget the rest”.</p>
<p>In the UK, young mothers began to worry about the quality of their milk, as <a href="http://archive.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/radioact/radfallout.htm">higher than normal doses</a> of the radioactive element Strontium-90 were found in the atmosphere as a result of British tests in the Pacific. Researchers had, by the mid-1950s, <a href="http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/cancer-among-military-personnel-exposed-to-nuclear-weapons">unequivocally confirmed</a> a direct link between exposure to radioactivity and cancer. </p>
<p>Several tests went awfully wrong: <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_3666000/3666785.stm">in October 1961</a>, the Soviet Union tested a weapon that was so huge that it could never have been used and essentially turned a significant stretch of Siberia into a radioactive desert. In <a href="http://www.ctbto.org/specials/infamous-anniversaries/9-july-1962starfish-prime-outer-space/">July 1962</a>, the US detonated a device in outer space, almost 300 miles above the Pacific Ocean: the results were substantial power and communication failures on Hawaii. </p>
<h2>Cold War poker</h2>
<p>Plans for a treaty had been discussed between the US and the Soviet Union since the mid-1950s. There had even been various attempts at a moratorium on tests between 1959 and 1961. The Soviet Union had wanted to tie a test ban to a general arms limitation treaty as it felt that it was beginning to lag behind. The US, on the other hand, felt that it was ahead in the race and was keen to separate the issues of arms control and testing. </p>
<p>In the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union gave up this linkage: Krushchev needed a success in order to compensate for his climbdown over Cuba. And one of the key geopolitical stumbling blocs for an agreement had now disappeared - the division Europe and the Berlin Wall had now largely been accepted by both sides.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=689&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=689&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/28577/original/kn4wnpmd-1375454622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=689&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Key moment: Kennedy signs the Partial Test Ban Treaty, October 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mixed legacy</h2>
<p>The treaty’s legacy is therefore mixed: while it prevented further radioactivity from being released in the atmosphere, it also helped entrench a number of key assumptions about the Cold War world, some of which are still with us today. Removing direct visual evidence of the nuclear arms race created a situation in which many people came to forget about the dangers that nuclear weapons posed, until a new wave of protests <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-futures-how-20th-century-atomic-science-played-on-our-hopes-and-fears-13882">based on a different understanding</a> of the environmental damages of nuclear energy, emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s. </p>
<p>It is therefore no surprise that anti-nuclear-weapons activism sharply declined immediately after the Test Ban Treaty had been concluded, although the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trident-time-to-rethink-britains-nuclear-future-13762">nuclear arms race</a> continued unabated.</p>
<p>A key legacy of the treaty was that it set in motion a process that enabled many Americans and Europeans to live with nuclear weapons, outsourcing the problems to other parts of the globe. But to get the real picture about the harrowing - and lasting - legacy of nuclear testing, look at the people of the Bikini Atoll, where many the US had carried out many tests. They went back home when they were told it was safe. After many of the women experienced stillbirths, miscarriages and infant deformities, they realised it wasn’t. The island still feels the <a>consequences</a> to this day.</p>
<p><em>This article is part of a collaboration between BBC Learning and The Conversation. You can read more at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Knowledge-Learning-Product">http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Knowledge-Learning-Product</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holger Nehring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was a key moment in the Cold War: 50 years ago, on August 5, 1963, US and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space (but…Holger Nehring, Professor in Contemporary European History, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101042012-10-16T03:12:39Z2012-10-16T03:12:39ZAustralia’s untold reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16549/original/3x84r7ky-1350346002.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C303%2C1397%2C789&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A United States Air Force RF-101 Voodoo aircraft pilot photographs a Russian ship loaded with missiles while the aircraft itself casts a shadow in Port Casilda, Cuba, Nov. 6, 1962.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Defense Imagery</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war over Soviet missiles in Cuba. Since then, the Cuban Missile Crisis has been recognised as one of the most <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137679/graham-allison/the-cuban-missile-crisis-at-50">definitive moments</a> of the 20th Century.</p>
<p>In the past twenty years, declassified government records have revealed indeed how close the parties came to nuclear conflict. More records continue to be declassified. The Woodrow Wilson Center’s <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/program/cold-war-international-history-project">Cold War International History Project</a> in Washington D.C., for example, recently announced the release of 500 previously classified documents, offering further insight on the crisis and responses to it from across the globe.</p>
<p>What has not been greatly explored to this point, however, is Australia’s reaction to this crisis. </p>
<p>On 23 October 1962, Prime Minister Robert Menzies addressed parliament and declared Australia’s support for the United States. He welcomed the US decision to bring the matter before the United Nations and pledged his Government’s support for its UN resolution. The US State Department acknowledged that Menzies’ statement was “the first one received”. While this did not pre-date the privately expressed support of the British, it was clearly a swift and therefore significant response.</p>
<p>Australia’s pledge of support for its American ally is not surprising. Australia was positioned on the west of the Cold War’s ideological divide and our great and powerful friend faced, as Menzies <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19621024&id=EDpVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RpUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4182,3712254">put it</a>, “a very grave threat, at close quarters”. In a letter to Menzies in the days following his address, Kennedy said Australian support was “no surprise”.</p>
<p>However, a close examination of declassified government records illustrates that the Menzies Government’s response was more calculated than this statement suggested, and the Kennedy Administration perceived. Behind closed doors, the government, particularly officials in the Department of External Affairs — now the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade — were concerned about the implications of the crisis for Australia.</p>
<p>On the same day that Menzies declared Australia’s policy, the Minister for External Affairs, Garfield Barwick, and his Department Secretary, Arthur Tange, discussed the potential effect of the crisis on future Australian-American cooperation over missile bases. </p>
<p>In their view, Australia had “a distinct interest in preserving the right of powerful allies to put bases and offensive weapons in Australia if we want them”. That is, in October 1962, there was a desire to host American nuclear weapons and bases on Australian soil. The likely reasoning would have been to secure American interest in Australia’s region and enhance Australia’s defence capabilities. </p>
<p>But Barwick and Tange were acutely aware of the complexity and difficulties of this position. In effect, but not intent, Australian desires aligned with Cuban objectives. Just as Cuba wanted their ally’s weapons on their soil, so did Australia. Barwick and Tange agreed that this could not interfere with the government’s policy on the Cuban crisis at the expense of the American alliance on which Australia so heavily relied for its defence.</p>
<p>The perceived threat of communism in South East Asia amplified Australian anxieties over regional security. In January 1962, the all-important Defence Committee <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/strategicbasis/pdf/1962.pdf">stated in its paper</a>, Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy, that “Australia cannot defend herself unaided against the military power of the communist nations”. </p>
<p>Australia depended on US assistance for its defence. As the Cuban crisis reached almost two weeks’ duration and tensions over Berlin simultaneously increased, External Affairs officials asserted Australia’s “need to prevent a situation arising which would concentrate US attention on the Caribbean and Europe, and thus reduce her capability to take effective action, if necessary in South East Asia”. The Menzies government was mindful of the consequences the crisis could have had in our region; a region which Britain and America advised was vulnerable.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16556/original/9nnb7pzq-1350347618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies had a more nuanced response to the crisis than was previously known.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Uncertainty over implications for Australian defence ambitions, the legality of US actions, Australia’s obligations to its ally, and potential regional repercussions were all factors given serious consideration by the Menzies government during the crisis. Such concerns and anxieties explain the deliberate nature of its policy. Support for America’s UN resolution, for example, would have given American actions legitimacy where it was otherwise absent.</p>
<p>Even then, however, the government’s support was conditional: Australia was not, and still isn’t, a member of the Security Council. So formal support for the American resolution depended on it being put before the General Assembly. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Australia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, James Plimsoll, worked feverishly to garner support for the US position from the non-committed states. He was well-respected within the UN and had a close working relationship with the American delegation. </p>
<p>While publicly Australia was perceived as a faithful American ally, declassified government records reveal that the Menzies Government developed a calculated policy, carefully managed the American alliance given Australia’s defence needs, and kept Australia’s national interests in sharp focus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/10104/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Stanley holds an Australian Postgraduate Award (Australian Government) scholarship.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war over Soviet missiles in Cuba. Since then, the Cuban Missile Crisis has been recognised as one of the most definitive…Laura Stanley, Doctoral Candidate, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.