Like 1962 All Over Again? The Russians have denied that they plan to base their Tupolev 160 bombers in Cuba, in retaliation for our construction of anti missile defenses in Eastern Europe to counter a possible Iranian threat. Whew! Crisis averted….
     Do you remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962? CIA recon aircraft spotted the Soviets building launch bases for medium-range ballistic missile on Cuba. The news was leaked from Senator Kenneth Keating’s (R-New York) office and was shortly confirmed by the U.S. government.
     President Kennedy addressed the nation to underscore how serious a threat the missiles were and it began to look like the United States would have to use force –air strikes or perhaps a ground invasion—to neutralize those bases. JFK ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba. For a few tense days lit looked like the crisis would grow into a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the USSR. College students came home to die with their families. People stocked up canned goods in the basements of their homes.
     Suddenly, behind the scenes, a deal was struck. Nikita Khrushchev, then the Chairman of the Soviet Communist Party, backed down. He ordered his missile and nuclear weapons back home, and we secretly withdrew our own medium range missiles from Turkey.

     It won’t happen again and here’s why: The United States and Russia have no conflicting interests to fight over.
     Until 1991, you’ll remember, it wasn’t Russia, it was the Soviet Union we faced as an adversary –an ideological adversary. The government in Moscow not only had the usual nationalistic motives driving policy, but it had motives of political ideology that dictated policy. The governing class had a positive duty (they believed) to advance the cause of communism and the eventual worldwide proletarian revolution –the patrimony given to them by Lenin.
     Therefore if some emerging country in West Africa declared itself the socials brothers of the Soviet Union, the Soviets would flood that nation with arms, advisors and economic aid. Our side might up the ante with aid to the democratically inclined people of the next country over, or our side would assist the freedom-loving anti-government rebels. In another region the opposite may be true, with the central government enjoying U.S. backing, while the rebels and socialist brothers in the neighboring country benefited from Soviet largesse. Vietnam springs to mind. Win or lose, back in the USSR Moscow housewives still had to stand in lines to buy bread and meat (when available). As for us, we always had guns and butter…
     The bottom line was that it was too expensive for the USSR to prop up regimes in Eastern Europe, Africa, Cuba and Asia with economic and military aid. When Ronald Reagan opened an arms race with the Soviets in the 1980’s, the Soviet economy collapsed. The Soviets pulled out of all their international adventures and even out of some of the USSR’s federated republics like Kazakhstan, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine.
      Communism fell around the world. The government in Moscow now thought of itself as Russian, not communist.
      And as Russians, what strategic interests do they have that conflict with the United States? Our systems do not prevent either country from competing in any regional marketplace; there are no barriers to trade. We are not competing for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, the Angolans or the El Salvidorans, which saves Russia and the United States a lot of money in military aid. For the great powers of the world, the issues in the Third World are poverty, food and public health, especially AIDS prevention and treatment –not whether the economy is centrally planned or free market.
     As for the traditional reasons for aggression, what do the Russians have that we would go to war to obtain? Before you say “oil,” please remember that it would be much, much less expensive to buy Russian energy than to fight for it.
     In other words, any dispute between Russia and the United States has to be contrived, because there is no natural or logical point of conflict between the two countries.
     So why are the Russians so upset about missile defense in Poland?
     It is part of the Russian national character to be paranoid about the intentions of its neighbors. When you consider the Crimean War, the invasion by Germany in World War I and the devastatingly close call the Russians had with Nazi Germany in World War II, you can better appreciate Russia’s paranoia.
     It is also important to remember that the Russians have not been exactly giddy with joy over losing their status as a superpower. The Russians feel humiliated, even at this late date, and blame the Americans, who were the “main enemy” since the days of Lenin. Telling the people that the United States is the author of all their problems is just good old-fashioned domestic politics in Russia.
     Thus, even a solely defensive system is seen as “aimed” at Russia. Our job is to convince them that it is not a threat, by any and all diplomatic means. We don’t want the Russian government actually believing its own propaganda
    There may be other friction points in the future, but none of them will amount to a logical reason for Russians to shoot at Americans.