Nuclear power comparison; 1962 Cuban Missile Crises and 2024 Ukraine Crises
Comparing the current crisis with the Cuban crisis would be helpful to make a sound analysis and evaluation on the possibility of a nuclear war; more like, the likelihood of an all out nuclear war or tactical nuclear war.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was over one specific issue and one dimension. The dispute was
about the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal
of U.S. missiles from Turkey.
Ukraine crisis is multidimensional and, in reality, covers many issues related to the economic, political, and military “hegemony” of the US and West over the world. The U.S. hegemony through Neo-Con policy of conflict and destruction through wars, blackmail through imposing unilateral economic sanctions, and finally the proxy war in Ukraine backfired and brought about its collapse. The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decisive, or at least have an important impact, on NATO's status and the mythical “prestige” of
the US.
The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the Soviet Union and the United States dangerously close to a war which could have escalated easily into an all-out nuclear exchange.
The failed Bay of Pigs invasion attempt
by US-supported Cuban exiles sparked the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro turned to
the Soviets for protection against future US aggression. “The Soviets provided
Cuba with nuclear weapons on the condition that the deal would remain secret
until the missiles were fully operational.” (1) Khrushchev claimed that his motivation for
providing Cuba with nuclear weaponry was to safeguard the Cuban Revolution
against US aggression and to alter the global balance of power in favor of the
Soviet Union. (2)
In August 1963, the United
States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed a treaty banning atmospheric
and underwater nuclear testing. Nevertheless, the test-ban treaty failed to
halt the arms race, as Kennedy simultaneously authorized a massive arms buildup
that vastly expanded the US nuclear arsenal and amplified US strategic
superiority in the Cold War. (3)
Arms Control Organization
states that; ” in October 1962, the United States had about 27,000 nuclear
weapons, and the Soviets had about 3,000. In a first salvo of a
nuclear exchange with its intercontinental adversary, the United States could
have launched about 3,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviets about 250.(4)
The total megatonnage in that initial exchange would probably have been
approximately 50,000 to 100,000 times greater than that of the Hiroshima
bomb. Such use of nuclear weapons in 1962 would have imperiled not only the
Soviet and U.S. peoples, but much if not all of humankind. That is 10
times more than the Soviets.”
“At the time of the crisis, the
United States assumed it had significant superiority over the Soviet Union in intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other delivery systems capable of reaching
its main adversary. The U.S. numbers included about 177 ICBMs versus
what was believed, incorrectly, to be about 75 Soviet ICBMs. Soviet information released much later showed that the Soviets
probably had only about 20 to 44 ICBMs. Thus, the U.S.-to-Soviet ratio of
at least 4-to-1 and possibly more than twice that gave the United States a
near-counterforce capability. (5)
In other words, a U.S. first
strike could destroy a very high number of the Soviet land-based ICBMs and
might, according to the then-recent public explanations of counterforce
thinking, make any Soviet retaliatory strike unlikely. Such analysis, with the
continuing large U.S. buildup in missiles under Kennedy, meant that the Soviets
were dangerously behind and that the situation would worsen for them. (6)”
Today, nuclear missile arsenals in many countries are fundamentally different. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were no high-precision missiles. At that time, it was
either nuclear war or conventional war. Today, it is ambiguous, and the possibility of a combination with the use of a “Tactical Nuclear weapon” seems to be justified. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
may be considered examples.
There was constant communication between the US and the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis, whereas in the case of Ukraine, all the communication lines are cut off and replaced by mutual “threats” and “warnings”.
A miscalculation about Soviet nuclear power may have contributed to the agreement. Today,
despite the known facts of the absolute
quantity and quality of nuclear
missiles, any miscalculation could result in war.
One may confuse statistical graphs of “Nuclear Power,” some of which include all nuclear power production–energy–related, while others show nuclear warheads. Although the total count of Nuclear War Head
is important, what more important is the quantity of the “delivery Systems” (intercontinental
ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, heavy bombers etc.),
quantity of deployed ready warheads,
the quantity and size of strategic and non-strategic warheads (tactical-nuclear warheads). Using the
US State Department data of September 2022, Russia deploys 1,549
strategic warheads on 540 strategic delivery systems. As of December
2022, Russia also maintains an arsenal of 1000-2000 non-strategic nuclear
warheads.
United States deploys
1,419 strategic nuclear warheads on 662 strategic delivery systems.
The total number of U.S. “active” and “inactive” warheads is 3,750 as of September 2020. The current military stockpile stands at 3708 warheads, with 1,336 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, leaving 2,372 warheads.
Just to mention China, with a speedy increase in warheads and delivery systems, based on 2022 US Department data, China has approximately 440 nuclear warheads for delivery by land-based ballistic missiles, sea-based ballistic missiles, and bombers. Of that total, they estimate China has approximately 206 strategic
launchers (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched
ballistic missiles.)
When we compare the Nuclear Bomb Arsenal of both countries during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with the current Ukraine crisis, we will see that the power has shifted significantly towards Russia.
One should consider the related
facts in evaluating the “nuclear crisis” and “likelihood” of an “all-out nuclear war” ;
1) Fundamental differences in the
issues
2) Fundamental differences in the
dimension of issues
3) Fundamental differences in the
total Nuclear War capacities of belligerent countries (blocks)
4) Question of who will, actually
can, benefit from an all-out nuclear war.
Is it possible that the US, with its
antagonistic contradictions to a country that it considers as “communist,” does not go for a nuclear war
when it has total superiority over its nuclear power, yet goes for an all-out
nuclear war with a capitalist country with which its contradictions are not
antagonistic and it has no superiority over its nuclear arsenal? It is true
that as long as nuclear bombs exist, nuclear wars are possible. However, there
is a difference between possibility and likelihood at each conditions and
situations.
Erdogan A,
June 25, 2024,
Nepal
Related Articles: On the likelihood of a Nuclear war, Formalizing the alliance of three; Russia-North Korea defense agreement, Unipolar World versus Multipolar World
Notes
(1) Sergo Mikoyan, The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012), 225-226.
(2) Strobe Talbott, ed. Khrushchev Remembers(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970), 494.
(3) The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997).
(4) Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945-2010,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2010, p. 81; Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1989), p. 208;
(5) Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, pp. 202-203, 206-207 (October 27, 1962, estimate on Soviet missile-launcher numbers and the figure of possibly 44 Soviet missile launchers, which was a much later U.S. intelligence estimate). Soviet Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov in 1989 stated that there were only “about twenty” Soviet ICBM launchers in October 1962. Most analysts seem to have accepted Volkogonov’s report, not the U.S. intelligence’s higher number of 44, and have assumed that the number of reported missile launchers indicated the number of Soviet ICBMs in October 1962. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), p. 440.
(6) Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, p. 430.
