The deployment of US-made missile systems in eastern Europe eerily mirrors the Cuban missile crisis of 1962
There’s a long and winding road that leads to Vladimir Putin’s military action in Ukraine. Unlike the road to hell, this one isn’t paved with good intentions. In the complex mix of motivations, reasons, events and consequences that have brought matters to the apparent beginning of a military conclusion, the deployment of US-made missile systems in eastern Europe eerily mirrors the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
As far as Putin is concerned, the deployment of the US-made Aegis Ashore system with its attendant Mk-41 rocket launching tubes in Romania and Poland as part of the NATO missile defence initiative is a red line beyond which is the red-hot line of Ukraine becoming the next staging ground for US strike capabilities.
First, the Cuban reflection. The Cuban missile crisis was a month-long faceoff between the two great nuclear powers – the US and USSR- that took the world to the brink of a global nuclear war before it was resolved by the two opposed principals of the Cold War. Spanning October and November of 1962, the crisis practically coincided with the India-China war of 1962.
Then, as now, the crisis was sparked by an unacceptable (to the US) deployment of missiles. The Soviet Union parked medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Communist Cuba, practically at America’s doorstep, and the greatest showdown of the Cold War between the US and the erstwhile USSR unfolded over more than a month. With nuclear war seemingly a push of a button away, US president John F Kennedy reached an agreement with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev; doomsday was avoided, or put off.
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Then, as now, the Cuban missile crisis was a tipping point as the Cold War heated up. JFK had become president in January 1961. The Bay of Pigs invasion – a CIA operation to land armed Cuban exiles on Castro’s shore and ‘take out’ the Communist regime – had been the mother of all failures in April 1961. The Berlin wall started going up in August that year even as the CIA continued its attempts at subversion in Cuba with Operation Mongoose, an orchestrated series of terror attacks and covert operations that JFK authorised in November 1961.
Port Casilda, Cuba, is captured by an RF-101 pilot with the 363rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing on 6 November 1962, while the aircraft itself casts a shadow over the port. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
An emotive part of the American presidential campaign of 1960 was the ‘missile gap’, the postulation that the USSR was far ahead in the development and deployment of nuclear missiles. This Cold War fear shadowed the presidency and was an important factor in the run-up to the 1962 crisis. Gary Powers, who had taken off in a U2 reconnaissance plane from Peshawar on 1 May 1960, had been shot down by a Soviet missile in the Urals region. His trial in the USSR as a spy had also ratcheted up the Cold War hysteria.
In July 1962, Castro and Khrushchev reached an agreement on the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Then, as now, mid-term elections loomed on the horizon, and a cornered Kennedy downplayed the threat. By 16 October, the evidence of the Cuba danger had become an elephant in the room that could not be ignored, as pictures taken by high-flying U2s showed Soviet missile facilities barely 150 km from the Florida coastline.
Kennedy responded with a naval blockade of Cuba on 22 October. The world held its breath as tense negotiations followed, finally culminating in the Soviet missile withdrawal from Cuba and the lifting of the US blockade on 20 November.
Then, as now, global perceptions of the crisis were shaped by the Western media, depicting the Soviet Union as the evil empire that wanted to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. What gets glossed over in the retelling of the crisis is that the missiles behind the Cuban crisis were American, not Soviet.
In October 1959, the US and Turkey agreed on the five-site deployment of a squadron of Jupiter missiles, 15 in all. The Jupiter was a squat, liquid-fuelled missile, like India’s Prithvi, and could carry a 1.44 megaton nuclear warhead. With similar deployments in Italy before the Turkey move, NATO’s southern flank had been N-ringed. To put the offensive capability of the Jupiter in perspective, the Hiroshima bomb was a TNT equivalent of about 16 kilotons, meaning the Jupiter’s lone warhead was worth 90 Hiroshimas.
The Soviets were, understandably, enraged. The Cuban missile move was, in part, a response to the Italy and Turkey deployment of Jupiter missiles. Underscoring this is the fact that the removal of these missiles was used by Kennedy as a bargaining chip to get the Soviet ones out of Cuba.
Cut to present. There’s no need to make inferences or deduce motives, for Putin has said it loud and clear. Calling Nato’s military infrastructure “a knife to our throat”, Putin laid it all out in his 21 February speech recognising the breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, the precise point at which the Russian response to the Ukraine crisis became operational. Here’s are some excerpts from what he said:
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“The Alliance and its military infrastructure has reached Russia’s borders. This is one of the key causes of the European security crisis; it has had the most negative impact on the entire system of international relations and led to the loss of mutual trust.“
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“The situation continues to deteriorate, including in the strategic area. Thus, positioning areas for interceptor missiles are being established in Romania and Poland as part of the US project to create a global missile defence system. It is common knowledge that the launchers deployed there can be used for Tomahawk cruise missiles – offensive strike systems.“
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“I will explain that American strategic planning documents confirm the possibility of a so-called pre-emptive strike at enemy missile systems. We also know the main adversary of the United States and NATO. It is Russia. NATO documents officially declare our country to be the main threat to Euro-Atlantic security. Ukraine will serve as an advanced bridgehead for such a strike.“
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“… after the US destroyed the INF Treaty, the Pentagon has been openly developing many land-based attack weapons, including ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 5,500 km. If deployed in Ukraine, such systems will be able to hit targets in Russia’s entire European part. The flying time of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Moscow will be less than 35 minutes; ballistic missiles from Kharkov will take seven to eight minutes; and hypersonic assault weapons, four to five minutes. It is like a knife to the throat. I have no doubt that they hope to carry out these plans, as they did many times in the past, expanding NATO eastward, moving their military infrastructure to Russian borders and fully ignoring our concerns, protests and warnings…“
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“I want to say clearly and directly that in the current situation, when our proposals for an equal dialogue on fundamental issues have actually remained unanswered by the United States and NATO, when the level of threats to our country is increasing significantly, Russia has every right to take retaliatory measures to ensure its own security. That is exactly what we will do.“
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All this is in the backdrop of the US, and then Russia immediately after, junking the Gorbachev-Reagan 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019.
History, and Putin, make it clear that the Ukraine crisis is not rocket science, but has a lot to do with missiles.
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