Cuba: much ado about nothing

Translated from La dissuasion nucléaire : Manuel d’emploi, 
L'Harmattan publisher

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Double misunderstanding: misperception of what is unbearable for the other, cumulative missteps, cat-and-mouse games, the expected Apocalypse and finally much ado about nothing. Such was the Cuban crisis.
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A double misunderstanding

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The Cuban crisis was caused by mistakes and errors in both the West and the East:
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• West
  • the United States, which sees the American continent as a colonial space where only complacent and, for the most part, corrupt governments are accepted. The United States is therefore incapable of understanding and tolerating the Cuban revolution.
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  • John Kennedy, who lets himself be persuaded that Moscow can agree to abandon Cuba, an international beacon of communism. He doesn't realize that he's lost the plot after the failed Bay of Pigs aggression,
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  • An American General Staff that can't imagine the Soviet Union seeing any symmetry between the installation of rockets on the territory of one of their long-standing adversaries, Turkey, and the installation of missiles in Cuba
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• To the east,
  • the misguided Soviet Union imagined that deploying missiles in Cuba was of the same nature as deploying missiles in Turkey. In reality, for the United States, rockets in Cuba are simply unthinkable,
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  • Nikita Khrushchev did not realize that his aggressive attitudes and rodomontades were counter-productive: not only did they alarm the West, but they masked the limits of his resources,
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  • The Soviet General Staff imagined that it was taking the United States by storm and presenting them with a fait accompli.
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  • And which does not take into account the American warnings, in particular John Kennedy's statement of September 4. The President had no knowledge of the presence of offensive missiles, but was careful to add : if this were not the case, the most serious consequences would ensue

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For once, the Soviet General Staff had sprinted. This was revealed by photos taken by American reconnaissance aircraft. They show how quickly the missile sites were set up. Two shots were taken two months apart.

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Only for the United States, Cuba is communism on their doorstep, and Cuba is under the closest surveillance. From the very first days, the sites, teeming with Soviet experts, must have looked suspicious. From the state of progress of the construction work in the photos, it's clear that these were not the first shots, and that the USA had waited for the right moment to trigger the crisis.
John Kennedy had been prepared for this, and in September 1962 took care to secure a vote in the US Congress authorizing the use of military forces in Cuba if American interests were threatened.  The moment chosen to reveal the Soviet enterprise proved well chosen. The program had become indisputable, without creating a situation that would be difficult to reverse.
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The United States has the initiative

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It was up to the United States to act to stop the inconceivable.
What were the options?

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• do nothing,
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• an air attack on the missiles,
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• a military invasion,
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• the naval blockade of Cuba

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by General Curtis LeMay , believed that the hard way was the way to go. And that the Soviet Union would not try to stop the United States from retaking Cuba. Detailed attack plans had been drawn up, envisaging a landing followed by an occupation of the island, preceded by massive air attacks. These large-scale operations were to meet stiff resistance from Cuba and Russia (49,000 advisors were present on the island), with American losses expected to total at least 1,000 men.

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Opposing Curtis LeMay, a more factual McNamara could point out that Russian S-4 missiles would not alter the strategic balance. This was based on the presence of Russian intercontinental missiles, which were already threatening major U.S. conurbations, and on the fact that U.S. nuclear warheads outnumbered Soviet warheads several to one. Well-informed or more perceptive, he could assert that the Soviets would not seek confrontation. He could rely on a CIA report from July, which stated: "In the military data reviewed for this study, we found no indication that the USSR deliberately intends to take direct military action against the West. At no time, other than under threat of imminent attack from the West or in response to attack from the West."

Faced with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Kennedy remained cautious and skeptical. He no doubt remembered the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Added to this, since the beginning of the crisis, has been a concern of another kind: in the event of confrontation, the Kremlin could take a pledge from Berlin. They can't let all this happen without reacting, any more than we can. After all they've said, they can't allow us to liquidate their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they don't react in Cuba, they'll certainly react in Berlin.

Quarantine" (more diplomatic than blockade, which is an act of war) was therefore chosen. The threat of retaliation against the Soviet Union was solemnly made public by John Fitzgerald Kennedy on October 22 in a carefully measured radio and television message. Cautious, since he ruled out the option of a nuclear commitment a priori, envisaging an American nuclear strike only in response to a Soviet initial strike. "Such will be our policy if a missile is launched from Cuba. against a nation in the Western Hemisphere, in the same way as an attack launched by the Soviet Union on the United States, demanding in response total retaliation against the Soviet Union."
A landing is out of the question, as it could be seen as an attack on the vital interests of Communism, justifying a move to nuclear scale.  And JFK, concludes, if we land, probably within ten days, some of their missiles will be launched from their bases against American targets. .
But the American President can make the Soviet side believe that he could be overwhelmed. He was going to pull out all the stops. His spokesman, Robert Kennedy, warned his interlocutor, the Soviet ambassador, Anatoli Dobrynine. Even if the President was personally opposed to going to war over Cuba, a chain of irreversible events could force him to go against his will. If the situation were to persist, the President is not sure that the army would not seek to overthrow him and seize power. The Army could then be out of control. . This warning is all the more credible given that Nikita Khrushchev is under similar pressure.
On October 24, he himself sent an unequivocal message to Westinghouse chairman William Knox: "I'm not looking for the 'destruction of the world'; that's your choice if you really want us all to meet in hell.   He warns William Knox that the Guantanamo naval base will disappear the day after the invasion of Cuba. Hit by 14 kt cruise missiles now known to exist on the island.

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Fidel Castro, the only head of state to have wanted nuclear war

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Because the risk of nuclear war did exist. Such a conflict was even called for by a proponent of pre-emptive nuclear war: Fidel Castro!
Fidel believes that in the event of nuclear war, socialism could emerge, triumphant from among the ruins. . On October 26, he writes to Nikita Khrushchev. . "I am telling you this because I believe that the aggressiveness of the imperialists makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they were to invade Cuba - a brutal act, in violation of universal law and morality - then this would be the moment to remove this danger forever by a perfectly legitimate act of self-defense. This solution is harsh and terrible, but there is no other." He is even more insistent and precise, in a telegram dated October 27, when he proposes that the USSR take the initiative for a first strike.

Nikita Khrushchev's reply is worth remembering, as it reflects the Soviet position in the face of a proven nuclear risk: to consider launching a first strike is suicidal and irresponsible. "In your dispatch of October 27, you proposed that we should be the first to launch a nuclear strike against enemy territory. You realize, of course, what that would have led to. It would not have been a simple strike, but rather the start of a thermonuclear world war.
Dear Comrade Fidel Castro, although I understand your motivation, I consider your proposal to be incorrect. We have just gone through one of the most serious moments in which a global nuclear war could break out". And he reminded him that nuclear war would result in immense losses on both sides and the annihilation of Cuba: "Obviously, the United States would suffer very great losses, but the Soviet Union and the entire socialist camp would also suffer greatly. As far as Cuba is concerned, it is difficult to say, even in general terms, what this would have meant. First and foremost, Cuba would be burnt, ravaged by the fires of war.

To get to the crucial statement that sets the limits of atomic bargaining and constitutes the definitive refusal of nuclear war. "We do not fight imperialism to die.  "There is no doubt that the Cuban people would have fought bravely or died heroically. But we are not fighting imperialism to die, but to take advantage of all our assets, to lose less than imperialism, gain more, overcome the ordeal and ensure the victory of communism.

Nikita Khrushchev went even further. Horrified by Fidel Castro, he decided, as a precautionary measure, to immediately withdraw the strictly defensive tactical nuclear missiles present in Cuba, of whose presence the United States may or may not have been aware. Cuban President Fidel Castro wanted to keep the short-range tactical nuclear weapons, rockets and aircraft bombs. When the crisis was over, the Soviet Defense Minister ordered his troops to train Cubans in their use. But Nikita Khrushchev, horrified that Castro would ask him at the height of the crisis to launch strategic missiles against the United States, ordered that all tactical weapons be withdrawn as quickly as possible.

Tactical nuclear weapons were indeed present on the island. To wit:
80 nuclear warheads for FKR-1 Meteor cruise missiles,
6 407N warheads gravity-dropped by Il-28 bombers,
12 901A4 warheads for R-13 SSMs short-range missiles.
Did the American services know about them? Their presence was only revealed after the fall of the Communist system. More than the strategic missiles, it was these weapons that carried the greatest risk, since according to the doctrine of Weak to Strong, in the event of the victorious deployment of American forces , they were the ones that were to be launched. Nikita Khrushchev implicitly mentioned this on October 24.
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Lessons from the crisis

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In fact, on October 28, the Cuban crisis was over. This is what the letter to Fidel Castro reveals. Our message of October 27 to President Kennedy settles the matter to your advantage, keeping Cuba safe from invasion and preventing war from breaking out. Kennedy's reply, which apparently you already know, offers the assurance that the U.S. will not invade Cuba and will not allow its allies to launch an invasion. Thus, the President of the United States responded positively to my messages of October 26 and 27

Let's forget what we've been dwelling on: the
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• Kennedy's master stroke. He returned the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs to the archives of history. He asserted himself as a solid statesman in the face of communism,
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• On the other side of the world, Khrushchev was humiliated, forced to turn back his missiles and dismantle the firing sites under construction.

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That's not the point, and it's not accurate.
The most important thing is that the limits of nuclear power have been recognized. As a weapon, the atom can only be used as a last resort. Without realizing it, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev gave nuclear forces a new purpose: to maintain strategic balances. Nuclear crises reveal disruptions in equilibrium. They must therefore give rise to a rebalancing diplomatic process that stops the escalation. It was to John Kennedy's great credit that he recognized this and opted for a political solution.

A solution that cost the United States dearly. This is what General Charles Ailleret suggests: "The presence on the island of some forty Soviet medium-range nuclear weapons - an infinitesimal quantity compared to American potential - was enough to provoke a veritable panic in the United States. This panic resulted in the United States agreeing to renounce any intervention against Fidel Castro.  In fact, the acceptance of a Communist presence on the American continent. A breach in the Monroe Doctrine that never closed again.

Because he negotiated, the First Secretary is the winner. At the cost of a retreat of no real consequence:
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• he obtained a guarantee that Cuba would not be attacked and that a communist state would remain on the American continent. "The measures that have been agreed have made it possible to achieve the objective we had in mind when we decided to send missiles to Cuba. We extracted a commitment from the United States that it would not invade Cuba. We did it without a nuclear war. And we succeeded  
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• but more than that, it has been granted a state of strategic parity with the United States. A parity that does not exist. In every respect, Soviet strategic forces are and will remain far behind American systems. But that doesn't matter: nuclear power crushes power hierarchies.

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In fact, the two heads of state facing each other were convinced that a nuclear exchange would be disastrous and should be avoided at all costs. Sufficient conditions were in place to prevent the crisis from escalating.
The Cuban crisis could only be what it was: a gritty tragi-comedy built around a secondary character: Cuba.
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What we didn't see

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On the American side, we have to admit that John Kennedy and his team were unable to analyze the Soviet position in depth:
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• Khrushchev, speaking on behalf of the Soviet people, explicitly rejected war. He showed that nuclear escalation was out of the question, and implicitly renounced the idea of upsetting the world's major political balances,
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• it was possible to talk of peace, détente and disarmament,
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• the American mistake was to see in the negotiation phases only a short-term search for appeasement, or even capitulation, when there was an opportunity to deepen the concept of peaceful coexistence and limit atomic arsenals in the long term.

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Nuclear order has been restored, but to ensure that in future crises the strategic plateau will be tilted to the right side, the United States will multiply the number of its missiles of all kinds. Naturally, the Soviet Union followed suit and started building missiles off the assembly line. It would be more than twenty years before the two countries turned back the clock.
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Edouard D Valensi