60 Years Later, We Are Closer to Nuclear War Than the Cuban Missile Crisis

Original Content by David Krayden

When we are contemplating nuclear war, it really doesn’t matter if Putin lacks the convenient validation of international law or the proper moral right to annex portions of Ukraine – what matters is to seek a peaceful solution before a “tactical” or nuclear strike quickly becomes a “strategic” nuclear exchange and New York City suddenly becomes a target in a once distant war. Putin may act like Adolf Hitler but that doesn’t mean we can arrest his foreign policy like the West could have stopped Nazi Germany. Hitler did not possess nuclear weapons.

Sixty years ago, in October 1962, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. U-2 spy planes had discovered that Cuba was preparing to install Soviet-made nuclear missiles on the communist island. For President John Kennedy – or for any president of that Cold War era – it was a challenge that was both provocative in the extreme and completely unacceptable. This was not just a gross violation of the Monroe Doctrine that claimed the Caribbean a…