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 multi dimensional 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, black mailing through imposing  unilateral economic sanctions, and finally the proxy war in Ukraine backfired and bringing about its collapse. The outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decisive or at least will have an important impact on the status of NATO as well as the mythical “prestige” of the US.

The Cuban missile crisis brought 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 aggressions. “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. It turned out, according to Soviet information released much later, 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)”

The nuclear missile arsenals of today in many countries is fundamentally different. During Cuban missile crises, 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 “Tactical Nuclear weapon”  seems to be justified. Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be considered as an example. However, the possibility of an all out nuclear war  following the use of a Tactical Nuclear Missile on close border of a nuclear country is a likely one.

There was a constant communication between US and Soviets during the Cuban missile crises, where as  in the case of Ukraine, all the communication lines are cut off and replaced by mutual “threats” and “warnings”.

There was a miscalculation on the nuclear power of Soviets that 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 with the statistical graphs of “Nuclear Power” some of which includes all the nuclear power production – energy relate, others show nuclear bomb heads.   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  at 2,372 war heads.

Just to mention China with a speedy increase in the war heads 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 1962 Cuba 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 US with its antagonistic contradictions to a country that 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.