![]() ![]() The current situation is not remotely like that. But the Cuban missile crisis was the high point for those tensions. Tuesday night at the Fletcher School, Victoria Nuland, the former assistant secretary of state and current CEO of the Center for New American Security, referenced the current period of relations as “Back to the Future,” meaning it echoes Cold War tensions. I am not saying that things are great between Russia and the United States right now. The reason that the Putin administration repeatedly brings up nukes is that it is one of the few areas where Russia is still a superpower. Indeed, this more closely echoes the rather dangerous deployment of Russian troops to Pristina at the end of the Kosovo war than Cuba.īut what about the explicit Russian invocations of Cuba? Well, of course the Russians will compare this to the Cuban missile crisis. Russia likes to reference Cold War-era clashes because it reminds everyone that it has lots of nuclear weapons and there was a time when it was considered a real rival to the United States. The conflict in Syria lacks the tight coupling between initial clash and escalation to full-blown nuclear war that the Cuban missile crisis did. and Soviet forces in Cuba would escalate into a nuclear exchange very quickly. That made sense at the time, because it seemed that any clash between U.S. The Cuban missile crisis was serious enough to force the United States to put Strategic Air Command at Defcon 2, the only time that happened during the Cold War. Am I Cuban-missile-crisis worried? Heck no. ![]() On Wednesday morning the president of the United States tweeted this out: Furthermore, this is coming at a time when the hawks have clearly wrested control over the national security machinery of the Trump administration. So this sounds pretty bad! Indeed, this is what I fretted about in 2015 when the Russians initially deployed in Syria. when it launches strikes against Damascus?” “The only question on my mind: will Russia hit back at the U.S. and Russia are now closer to a direct collision between their military forces than at any time since the cold war,” Dmitri Trenin, the head of the Carnegie Moscow Centre and a former Soviet military officer, wrote on Monday. strike on Syria threatened Russian military personnel. The chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces said last month that Russia would shoot down incoming missiles and attack their launching platforms if a U.S. One Russian politician involved in defence policy called it the most dangerous moment in U.S.-Russian relations since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Russian officials and analysts have warned of the dangers of a military clash with the United States if Donald Trump orders a military strike in Syria in response to the chemical attack in rebel-held Douma at the weekend. McFaul linked to a Guardian story by Andrew Roth that had a hell of an opening: ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |