No Direct Line Between Washington and Moscow
One important reason the Cold War didn't turn into a hot war was that the U.S. and the Soviet Union threatened each other with nuclear apocalypse. "Mutual assured destruction," or MAD for short, was, paradoxically, the world's guarantee of survival for decades. After all, the first to press the button would be the second to die.
Today, that constellation is a bit more complicated. Ukraine isnt a member of NATO and is thus not under the protection of the alliance's mutual defense pact. But a retaliatory strike by the Americans after a Russian nuclear attack would make NATO a direct party to the war. No one can predict the spiral of escalation that might then be set in motion. Indeed, for the first time in 60 years, fears of nuclear annihilation are once again hanging over the world.
Back then, in October 1962, the world was on the verge of doom because the Soviet deployment in Cuba. The situation was so precarious that bomber pilots at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany slept overnight on the airfield so that they could take off within minutes and drop their nuclear bombs over Soviet cities. The situation was defused only because both U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev were willing to compromise and, at the same time, Robert Kennedy, the U.S. president's brother, engaged in secret diplomacy with Moscow to prevent the worst from happening."
BOOOM 😄
|
Thread abonnieren
