As we approach the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have not been short of reminders that the danger of nuclear war has not gone away. A common theme of commentary on the desperate situation Russia now faces in Ukraine is that this could lead, almost any day now, to a global catastrophe. All it would take would be a wild decision by Vladimir Putin, looking for a way to turn the tide of a war that he now looks likely to lose.
President Joe Biden made the connection between the Missile Crisis and the current war on 6 October when he warned that Putin has brought the world closer to Armageddon than it had been since the Cuban crisis. Speaking at a fundraiser event, he made it clear he took the threat seriously: “He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.” Putin might try a small-yield nuclear weapon in the belief that its impact would not extend beyond the battlefield but Biden expressed his doubts that such weapons could be used “and not end up with Armageddon”.
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