Lessons From the Cuban Missile Crisis in Dealing With Putin's Nuke Threats

Russian forces in Ukraine have suffered a string of defeats over the past six weeks, being routed in the northern Kharkiv region and losing ground in the south around the strategically important city of Kherson.

This has led some commentators to speculate that a desperate Vladimir Putin could deploy part of Russia's enormous nuclear arsenal either to intimidate Ukraine, or to change the military situation on the ground.

After announcing Russia had annexed four Ukrainian provinces in September, Putin threatened to use "use all defense methods at our disposal" to hold the territory, in a possible allusion to nuclear weapons.

Those concerned about the war turning nuclear include Tesla boss Elon Musk, who said it was "a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome" of the conflict when justifying his controversial Ukraine peace plan on Twitter.

Newsweek spoke to a number of historians with expertise in the Cuban missile crisis, to find out what that previous near-brush with nuclear conflict can tell us about the current situation.

In 1962, the USSR tried to base nuclear weapons in Cuba, after American Jupiter missiles were placed in Italy and Turkey, sparking fury in the U.S.

President Kennedy turned down a plan, proposed by National Security Council members, to respond with military action and eventually negotiated a settlement with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that saw the missiles removed.

Weber State University professor Eric G. Swedin, author of Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, told Newsweek that the 1962 dispute shows the importance of avoiding direct conflict between nuclear-armed states.

Swedin said: "The No.1 lesson from the Cold War is that under no circumstances should nations which are both equipped with nuclear weapons get in a direct war. That limits escalation. Wars between nuclear powers should be fought by using proxies. This sounds coldhearted, even brutal, but the logic is inescapable.

"Wars sometimes start accidentally. Wars often start when one side overestimated their own abilities or failed to appreciate the abilities of their enemy. Putin has fallen into both of those traps.

"Now we must be concerned about the war expanding. Wars too often spiral out of control and tend to overflow their boundaries into neighboring countries," said Swedin. "I am worried that Putin is being backed into a corner on Ukraine as his armed forces face defeat. He could easily choose to lash out with tactical nuclear weapons in a desperate attempt to change the outcome."

Swedin argued if Putin does use nuclear weapons, the most likely targets are cities in western Ukraine.

He said: "My suspicion is that he will not make a demonstration strike, as some have proposed because a demonstration strike just shows that you are unwilling to use your nuclear weapons.

"Using tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield is difficult and require well-trained soldiers to exploit the use of such weapons; the Russians are not in any position to take advantage of such strikes."

Swedin said: "The most likely use of the weapons would be to hit a half-dozen cities in western Ukraine, damaging the ability of weapons and supplies to flow in from Poland or Romania."

Villanova University Professor David M. Barrett, who, along with Max Holland, wrote Blind Over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis, says the U.S. needs to find a way of ensuring Putin is defeated but can also "save face" to avoid nuclear escalation.

He told Newsweek: "As JFK [John F. Kennedy] understood, it's important to think through how an adversary (Khrushchev) can back down without totally losing face.

"In the announced resolution of the crisis, Khrushchev was given a certain assurance that the U.S. would not invade Cuba in the months to come," said Barrett.

"How can Putin lose this war and somehow save face? Biden and associates need to think this through; what can they to do facilitate this?"

Professor David Barash, an expert in human aggression who teaches psychology at the University of Washington, told Newsweek that the Ukraine situation would be more dangerous if Donald Trump were still president.

He said: "The Biden administration has been pitch-perfect so far: using direct avenues of communication to make it clear that there would be extremely severe consequences if Putin uses a nuclear weapon, but not announcing in public exactly what they would be.

"This will ideally make it easier for Putin to refrain, without making it seem that he is succumbing to Western threats."

Barash said: "Were Trump president, he almost certainly would be making this all about himself, uttering loud and irresponsible boasts and threats, and thereby making it more likely that Putin would feel pressured to prove that 'this is not a bluff.'"

Correction 10/7/22, 12:34 p.m. ET: This article was corrected to state that Villanova University Professor David M. Barrett is the author of Blind Over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis and not 140 Days to Hiroshima.