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THE STRATFOR WEEKLY
20 October 2003

by Dr. George Friedman

The Cuban Missile Crisis: Parallels in History



Summary

The Cuban missile crisis under President John F. Kennedy holds
some apt parallels to the challenges currently facing U.S.
President George W. Bush.

Analysis

October always reminds us of the Cuban missile crisis. This is
the 41st autumn since the defining moment that ended the first
phase of the Cold War. In 2003, the memory of the missile crisis
is, we believe, particularly apropos. Americans in general tend
to think that everything the country is facing at a particular
moment is unprecedented. Americans tend to think in extremes.
Everything is either worse or better than ever before. Leaders
are more corrupt, more perfect, more brilliant or more stupid
than they have ever been. Americans lack nothing more than a
sense of proportion. It is therefore interesting to look at what
historian Barbara Tuchman called a distant mirror to compare the
current situation with circumstances the United States faced in
the past. This is not intended to either praise or condemn the
current administration or the Kennedy administration. It is meant
simply to gain some perspective on the current state of affairs.

The Cuban missile crisis started in a series of intelligence
blunders that began under one administration and continued into
the next. U.S. intelligence under Dwight Eisenhower misunderstood
the nature of Fidel Castro's insurgency and miscalculated the
likelihood of his victory. Eisenhower responded by initiating a
covert war against Castro that suffered from Eisenhower's desire
that it not only work, but that the war be completely deniable.

The result was the Bay of Pigs plan, which had little chance of
working in the first place and no chance of working once U.S.
President John F. Kennedy tinkered with it. The entire plan was
based on a misreading of the mood of the Cuban people. It was
based on the assumption that Cubans would welcome an invasion and
that, in addition, they would be in a position to rise up against
Castro. Whatever the true reason for the failure of the Cubans to
rise, U.S. intelligence was wrong: There was no rising.

Intelligence under Kennedy also miscalculated the Soviet Union's
intentions toward Cuba. That was an intelligence failure, but it
was also a failure on Kennedy's part to appreciate how Soviet
leaders viewed him. Kennedy came to power in part over his
persistent claim that the Soviets were ahead of the United States
in strategic nuclear capability -- what was called the missile
gap. In fact, the strategic balance heavily favored the United
States, and Kennedy knew it. He hammered the issue because it was
a strong plank in his electoral platform.

From Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's point of view, however,
the victory of a man who did not seem to grasp the realities of
the nuclear balance opened up interesting possibilities.
Khrushchev's meeting with Kennedy in Vienna left him with the
conclusion that Kennedy was inexperienced, poorly informed and
timid. The Bay of Pigs fiasco simply confirmed to Khrushchev that
Kennedy was out of his league. Indeed, years of hagiography
notwithstanding, Kennedy had little grasp of the international
reality when he took office or in the following year.

Khrushchev understood what he thought Kennedy did not, which was
that the United States, with missiles in Germany and Turkey and a
large intercontinental bomber fleet, could devastate the Soviet
Union. The Soviets, on the other hand, could hardly touch the
United States. Khrushchev's decision to put missiles into Cuba
was a desperate attempt to rectify the balance of power. He
assumed, based on Kennedy's abysmal performance to date, that
U.S. intelligence might miss the missiles until after they were
operational and that, even if they were detected, Kennedy would
not have the nerve to take decisive action.

Three things led to the Cuban missile crisis:

1. Consistently poor U.S. intelligence.

2. A prior administration that failed to react to the threat in a
timely fashion and in essence passed on the Cuban problem to its
successor.

3. A new administration whose president struck his adversaries --
and allies -- as a deer frozen in the headlights.

We will allow our readers to draw the obvious parallels to the
current situation.

In spite of these defects, Kennedy recognized that the Soviet
move represented a fundamental challenge to U.S. security. He
understood that it was much preferable, from the U.S. point of
view, for American nuclear weapons to be menacing the Soviet
Union rather than have Soviet missiles threatening the United
States. While ethically shaky -- if we assume that the basis of
ethics is equal treatment -- the view was practically sound for
an American president. Thus, in spite of global criticism that he
was threatening nuclear war, Kennedy understood that
geopolitically he had no choice.

It is interesting to recall that Kennedy -- caught between those
who wanted an invasion of Cuba and those who wanted to take no
action that might trigger a nuclear war -- chose a compromise
path in which the United States announced its commitment through
a quarantine policy, without unleashing an invasion. It is also
interesting to note that there was a tremendous global uproar
over Kennedy's actions. Many allied governments, while publicly
supportive, were privately appalled by what they saw as an
overreaction. Crowds in European cities -- not to mention the
communist world -- demonstrated against U.S. aggression and
portrayed Kennedy as a simplistic cowboy, irresponsibly playing
with the lives of millions.

Khrushchev's perception was quite different. Realizing that he
had miscalculated, he sought a line of retreat. Khrushchev
realized too late that however unsophisticated Kennedy might have
appeared in Vienna and Berlin and during the Cuban missile
crisis, there was no escaping the physical threat that Soviet
missiles in Cuba posed to the United States. The physical danger
to the United States, more than any other factor, focused
Kennedy's mind. Kennedy knew that there was room for error on
everything but the physical security of the country. He
understood that, geopolitics aside, Khrushchev had crossed a
threshold when he introduced the threat, and crossing that
threshold changed the entire equation. That Europeans thought him
a cowboy was immaterial once the direct security of the United
States was at stake.

Kennedy's actions were seen as extreme and disproportionate to
the threat. He struck many in the world as reckless and
incautious. Countries worldwide pointed at the nuclear threat the
United States posed to the Soviet Union and argued that the
Soviets were simply balancing things. Kennedy didn't want the
threat to be balanced. He wanted the Soviets to remain at risk
and the Americans to be safe. As he famously said in connection
to other matters, "Life is unfair." It wasn't great philosophy,
but it made sense to Americans.

The United States threatened overwhelming force but actually used
very little. In the end, Kennedy negotiated a settlement with
Khrushchev and then lied about it. In a private deal with the
Soviets, the United States agreed to exchange its missiles in
Turkey for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Kennedy's rationale for
this was sound. The missiles were obsolete. However, he also
understood that -- given his record of weakness in foreign
affairs -- he needed to appear to win even if he only tied.
Therefore, holding open the possibility of invasion and even
nuclear war as the threat, he extracted a concession from the
Soviets that made the withdrawal of the Turkish missiles a secret
part of the agreement, which would be void if it were publicly
revealed.

In other words, Kennedy lied about the letter and nature of the
agreement. He lied explicitly when he asserted that there had
been no quid pro quo over the missiles. He then lied in spirit
when he made it appear that the Soviets had capitulated in the
face of his resolute courage. In fact, there had been a quid pro
quo and -- though the United States certainly came out ahead in
the immediate deal -- Washington had to give up its own missiles
and guarantee that it would not support attempts to overthrow
Castro. The United States stopped the missiles. The Soviets
secured Cuban communism.

It is interesting to see these parallels:

1. Both Kennedy and current U.S. President George W. Bush were
widely perceived as inexperienced in foreign affairs. Their foes
perceived them both as bunglers.

2. Both focused intensely on anything that physically threatened
the United States.

3. The rest of the world regarded both presidents as overreacting
and as cowboys, risking world security on minor provocation.

4. Both were casual with the truth when it suited the national --
or their political -- interests.

It is not clear how much deeper these parallels run.

Kennedy's missile crisis ended in a temporary stalemate. It also
triggered a massive Soviet commitment to increase its strategic
nuclear capabilities and led to the construction of a massive
ICBM force able to threaten the United States from within the
Soviet Union. By the end of the decade, the Soviets achieved the
strategic nuclear parity they had sought in Cuba. In that sense,
Kennedy simply bought a few years -- which was not trivial, but
not decisive.

However, Kennedy's next decision -- to increase the U.S.
commitment to Vietnam while supporting the overthrow of the Diem
government -- proved disastrous. Some claim that Kennedy wanted
to withdraw from Vietnam. Perhaps, but we note two facts. No
withdrawal took place while he was alive and, more important, it
was Kennedy's foreign policy team (including Dean Rusk, Robert
McNamara and McGeorge Bundy) who engineered the Vietnam War under
former President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy could have fired them
all and built a new team, but we suspect he also would have
retained them and followed their advice. They were the winning
team in Cuba, after all.

At the decisive moment, Kennedy set the stage for the decline in
the second phase of the Cold War. Cuba represented a push. It was
a punctuation mark, not a definitive solution to anything. On the
contrary, it was an intermediate peak to which the United States
would not return until the end of the Cold War. Bush has not yet
had his Cuban missile crisis. He has not yet been able to
maneuver the war to its decisive moment. He is facing an
adversary that is committed to avoiding any decisive moment.
However, the danger that a Cuban missile crisis poses is that of
an illusory solution.

All of that is intended to be thoughtful and deep. The point of
this essay is simpler however. Americans tend to think of each
moment as extraordinarily unique and the present leaders as
particularly incompetent. Those who opposed President Bill
Clinton thought he was particularly venal, and those who oppose
Bush think him uniquely incompetent. It is useful to look back on
moments like the Cuban missile crisis, which we tend to see
through the prism of time as a particular moment of U.S. courage
and decisiveness. Like the current circumstance, it was a moment
born of failure, ineptitude and dishonesty, and it ultimately
gave rise to the things it was intended to prevent. The president
that presided over the crisis is revered today. There are few who
were alive in September 1962 who would have thought that Kennedy
would be remembered for his strategic acumen. And there are many
historians who still wonder what the shouting was about.

Bush's critics should take note of this. And Bush should remember
that the kind of victory he gains -- if he gains one at all -- is
as important as the victory itself.
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