Why North Korea is reminiscent of the Cuban crisis

If there is a classic case study of nuclear confrontation, it is the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, the world came closer to Armageddon than at any time in history.

For 13 days, the United States, led by John F. Kennedy, challenged the Soviet Union over its secret deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba.

The Soviets, led by Nikita Khrushchev, denied and demurred. At any moment of this frightful fortnight, a misstep could have triggered a nuclear war.

We did not know how close we came until the 1990s, when the Soviets revealed that their field commanders in Cuba had control over tactical nuclear weapons, which they could have launched had the Americans bombed or invaded the island. It was the kind of preemptive attack favoured by hawks in the White House.

Fifty-five years later, it is alarming to compare Cuba to North Korea, where its deputy ambassador to the UN warns: “Nuclear war could break out at any moment.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, among others, says the world is closer to nuclear confrontation than at any time in more than a generation.

Polls show 82 per cent of Americans fear a nuclear war.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved its doomsday clock to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, the closest since 1953.

It’s paranoia to think that the threat of a nuclear exchange is real.

Korea is not Cuba. But Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are two impulsive, callow, untutored leaders. Now they find themselves in a dangerous game of name-calling and oneupmanship.

There are differences, similarities and lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1962, the United States had an overwhelming superiority in nuclear weapons, but knew that the Soviet Union could destroy its cities with a first strike. It was called mutual assured destruction, or MAD. Today, we don’t know if North Korea’s missiles could reach the United States, but they may be able to hit South Korea, Guam, Japan and Taiwan.

In 1962, the United States knew and respected its adversary; indeed, Kennedy and Khrushchev had met each other two years earlier. Both were rational. Today, we know little of North Korea. We do not know if Kim or Trump are stable; there is reason for doubt.

We now know that Kennedy should not have found himself facing down Khrushchev in Cuba, given that the U.S. had its own arsenal of missiles, albeit obsolete, in Turkey. In managing the crisis, though, Kennedy was cool, poised, judicious and a model of restraint.

He would have found Trump’s volleys of threats and taunts incendiary.

JFK knew he had to take measured steps against Khrushchev, and did, beginning with shrinking the naval quarantine encircling Cuba, giving Soviet ships carrying more nuclear arms there time to turn back. They did.

Ultimately, Kennedy agreed to a secret exchange of the missiles in Cuba for those in Turkey. The deal would not become public for years.

Kennedy knew history. The previous summer he had sent Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, chronicling the start of the First World War, to U.S. missions around the world. He wanted diplomats to know how that conflict began — and how it could have been avoided.

Unlike Trump, Kennedy, a decorated naval officer, distrusted his generals. He was repulsed when Curtis LeMay urged him to bomb Cuba. Ironically, today we look to the generals to restrain a blustering commander-in-chief.

At the end of the crisis, Kennedy forbade any expression of victory. “I don’t want to rub Khrushchev’s nose in it,” he said, understanding the need for his adversary to save face.

Seared by Cuba, Kennedy and Khrushchev began a search for peace, which produced the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, first of the arms control treaties.

Radically, they thought less of winning the Cold War than ending it.

When Khrushchev learned of Kennedy’s assassination a year after the crisis, he wept.

Then he went to the U.S. embassy in Moscow to sign the book of condolences.