Tag: Cuban Missile Crisis

Monday Wake Up Call – Ukraine Edition, February 7, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Winter in the Palouse, near the town of Oakesdale, WA – January 2022 photo by James Richmond Photography

We talk a lot about a nation’s credibility in foreign policy. The US strives to be credible regarding its positions with allies and foes alike. We have often failed. Russia has also proven many times over that it isn’t a credible partner.

Consider a report from Numbers Stations showing that Russia has invaded its neighbors and a couple of distant countries 58 times since 1917. One element of clear credibility for Russia is its willingness to invade others. How does knowing this history inform the current situation between Russia and Ukraine?

The world is well-aware of Russia’s ostentatious military buildup along Ukraine’s border. Putin added to the tensions by making demands requiring a new European security order. He wants Russia to be allowed its own sphere of influence that roughly corresponds to the old Soviet Union. That means NATO should certainly not expand, and possibly should contract.

Let’s look at history between the US and Ukraine:

  • In 1994, President Clinton asked Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. In return, Ukraine got a financial settlement and the Budapest Memorandum which provided non-aggression assurances by both the US and Russia. Ukraine shipped 1700 or so nuclear warheads back to Russia and destroyed the missiles.
  • In 2014, President Obama looked at the big, muddy land called Ukraine and asked if its strategic importance was worth war. Meaning a real war, with an enemy that could fight back. He decided on economic sanctions.
  • In 2020, President Trump attempted to blackmail the Ukrainian president into interfering on his behalf in an American election.
  • In 2022, President Biden rules out military intervention should Russia invade Ukraine, talking mostly about more economic sanctions as the consequence.

Regardless of whether Russia invades Ukraine or not, the US is walking down a perilous path. It faces efforts to divide and neutralize its alliances in both Europe and Asia.

In Europe, Russia wants to bury the post-Cold War order. Putin wants Europe to recognize its sphere of influence in the former Soviet countries. Putin wants to separate Ukraine from NATO permanently. He would like to fracture the European alliance by making Germany a more neutral party as Russia attempts to create its western buffer zone.

Europeans think that Putin won’t invade but will follow a hybrid strategy — keeping a military presence on the border, continuing weaponization of Russia’s European energy supply and increased cyberattacks — which will serve to keep NATO from becoming fully anti-Russian the way an invasion of Ukraine would. From the NYT:

“Before the crisis, Germany was America’s closest ally in Europe, boasted a special relationship with Moscow and was the most important partner for Eastern and Central Europe. Today…Berlin’s relationship with Moscow is fast deteriorating….Germany’s difficulties are a hint of what could come if Mr. Putin continues his brinkmanship, without providing the certainty of an actual invasion.”

The US and Germany aren’t singing from the same choir book right now, so Putin may be on to something.

In Asia, China would like to drive a wedge between the US and some of its Eastern allies. It already has agreed with Russia on the demand for NATO to pull back in Europe.

India tilted toward Russia at the UN Security Council meetings last week. After China and Russia cast “no” votes in the Security Council on whether to hold an official session to discuss the Ukraine crisis, Responsible Statecraft says that India abstained. It was effectively a rejection of the US attempt to hold Russia accountable.

In the Philippines, the front-runner for president says he wouldn’t accept any offer of help from the US in negotiations with China over the South China Sea if elected president in May.

Any person can see what’s coming in cold war 2.0 and should be very wary and worried. We need to learn to navigate in what has become a multi-polar world, one with worthy competitors in Russia and China.

We should remember that during cold war 1.0 in 1962, the stationing of Russian missiles in Cuba let to a great power deal. Russia took its missiles out of Cuba and the US pulled its missiles from Turkey and Italy. Back then, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was willing to consider Kennedy’s fears about Moscow’s missile deployment in Cuba. That became the basis for ending the confrontation.

The enormity of how close the world came to thermonuclear war led to an easing of tensions.  The next 50 years were a period of relative calm in US/Russian relations.

Today’s warlike tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine have most of the same elements present, with the roles reversed. Now, Putin is telling the West that Ukraine should not be allowed to join NATO. He also demands that the US should not place offensive weapons in Ukraine.

Like Cuba in 1962, is Ukraine now the chessboard for these superpowers? Is there a lesson here from that history?

Time to wake up America! You aren’t uniquely qualified to run the world, and there are competitors who will work really hard to prevent you from trying to continue doing so. To help you wake up, listen to Pink Floyd perform “Dogs Of War” from their album “Delicate Sound Of Thunder” at the Nassau Coliseum, NY in 1988. While the singing is a bit muffled, the band sounds fine, and there’s a great saxophone solo by Scott Paige:

Sample Lyric:

Invisible transfers and long distance calls
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can’t stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion

The dogs of war won’t negotiate
The dogs of war don’t capitulate

Still relevant, 34 years later!

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Saturday Soother – March 24, 2018

The Daily Escape:

There are marches today. Get involved if you can.

The Dow looks like it might take a year to recover. But the weekend looks to be a rollicking good time, with marches by high schoolers and their adult supporters, Stormy Daniels on 60 Minutes, and the Sweet Sixteen college basketball tournament.

And don’t forget John Bolton, also known as the “Mustache of War”.

Bolton, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs from 2001 to 2005, was a prime mover behind the Bush II war on Iraq. As you can read here, Bolton rejected intelligence that conflicted with his desire that the US government use the phony claim that Iraq had WMD to justify the war. In fact, senior British officials accurately showed what was happening in their secret “Downing Street” memo to Tony Blair in July 2002 when they reported that:

The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.

Throughout that fall, Bolton knew how the administration was misrepresenting the details of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s WMD to the public. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also documented these distortions in a series of bipartisan reports following the 2003 invasion. Lawfare gives a first-person analysis of Bolton:

First, he’s a masterful bureaucratic tactician. Unlike his predecessors, Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster, Bolton is a very experienced and adept creature of Washington institutions. Similar to former Vice President Dick Cheney, he knows the levers and knobs of the vast national security and foreign policy machinery: how they work, who works them, and how to exert control over them.

That’s also mixed in with the fact that Trump likes to defer to people who can dominate a room, another formidable trait of Bolton’s:

Third, he’s thorough and methodical. Most senior policymakers simply cannot keep up with the details across so many issues….Expect the same diligent readiness from him on issues like Iran and North Korea, but with the added advantage that he’ll face less pushback than he might otherwise because of the fact that so many senior diplomatic posts remain unfilled. His ability to be meticulous and bombastic will probably serve him very well in this White House.

The key takeaway is that Bolton brings to the president’s national security agenda a competence that this White House has lacked. I generally agree with Benjamin Wittes that some of the president’s worst instincts have often been tempered by sheer ineptitude. What makes Bolton dangerous is his capacity to implement those instincts effectively.

He has the ability to put loyalists in key positions while marginalizing those he distrusts. From Booman:

This is the most dangerous moment for humanity since the Cuban Missile Crisis. There’s nothing Congress or the public can do directly to prevent Bolton from taking his post, but all means for resisting his influence must be employed.

Those who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis know that we barely avoided going nuclear, in part because JFK stood up to General Curtis Lemay, and because tactical commanders on both sides failed to follow their respective militaries’ rules of engagement.

Trump may not act like JFK if a similar issue comes up. He once asked three times (in a national security briefing) why we have nuclear weapons if we can’t use them.

Maybe this isn’t a good time to bring up that many Democrats and independents thought that Hillary Clinton was a greater threat to world peace than the Donald. Kinda makes a person long for some good old Obama-style gridlock.

Enough! We gotta just get away, relax and get soothed. Wrongo says this every week, but this weekend, he really, really means it. The daffodils are poking up through the snow, and it is time to brew up a hot vente cup of something caffeinated. This week, Wrongo recommends Hula Daddy Coffee’s Kona Sweet blend ($94.50/lb.), with its silky mouthfeel, and very sweet taste which suggests subtle milk chocolate, according to the roaster. Don’t worry, the stock market is so bad, you might as well blow what you have left on one cuppa joe.

Now, settle in and listen to a selection from George Winston’s “Winter into Spring”, recorded in 1982. This video adds terrific sights and sounds of spring in northern Idaho to Winston’s soundtrack. Some might think it distorts Winston’s art. You be the judge:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 27, 2016

Are you sick of all the winning yet?

You have probably heard that Fidel Castro died yesterday. Wrongo was in college in October 1962, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. We were glued to TV waiting for a nuclear attack that never came.

That Castro survived JFK by 53 years is remarkable, particularly since at least two American Presidents tried to kill him. At the time, Kennedy offered two things in exchange for Soviet removal of the Cuban missiles: (1) the US would pledge never to invade Cuba and (2) the US would secretly withdraw missiles from Turkey. The removal of the nukes from Turkey was delayed several months, so that the US would not appear weak in the face of the Cuban missile threat. The Soviet Union accepted this offer the next day.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, their archives of the Missile crisis showed that Castro wanted the USSR to fire the missiles at the US. Khrushchev came to regard Castro as a lunatic, bent on war. We came very close to invading Cuba, and the Soviets never fully trusted Castro again.

In most ways, Castro’s death is anticlimactic. He retired, and appointed his brother Raul to head the government years ago, and recently, the Obama administration has been effective in improving relations with Cuba. Had Fidel died during a period of greater tension, it might have signaled the possibility of a positive change in relations between our two countries. Sadly, it is probable that the next great change in Cuban/American relations will move us backward under a Trump Administration.

Onward to cartoons. Thanksgiving and Trump’s staffing plans dominated the week.

Many avoided politics at the family repast:

cow-i-survived

Democrats weigh their strategy with Trump:

cow-turkey-talk

Trump meets with the New York Times, tells them how to cover the news:

cow-trumpy-times

Our Orange Decider has yet to decide a few things:

cow-the-decider

Paul Ryan is locked and loaded for 2017:

cow-paul-ryans-targets

Many who voted for Trump have little or no retirement savings, or regular savings for that matter. Ironically, a majority of them will be reliant on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in later life. Sadly, they can’t seem to connect the dots between Ryan’s Ayn Randian dreams of privatization, and how it will affect their lives. It may be too late for many of them.

Deficits are part of the Art of the Deal:

cow-white-house-puppy

Those “responsible Republican deficit hawks” wanted to restore earmarks the week after the election, but Ryan is making them wait until the new Congress is seated. That way, they won’t destroy the PRETENSE of budget deficits mattering.

The GOP really can’t wait to take off the debt girdle:

cow-deficit-girdle

 

 

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Friday Music Break – December 19, 2014

Today, a little more about Cuba. In January, while on a US government-sanctioned trip to Cuba, Wrongo met and became friendly with an award-winning author who also teaches at a local college in Havana. He is not a member of the Cuban Communist Party. Yesterday, I sent him a congratulatory email. Here is his reply:

What a great day for the future of this country, thanks to everyone´s support. We are starting a new path and I hope the future is prominent for all who genuinely dreamt of this great opportunity. Personally I will keep up the fight to bring both countries even closer. We all deserve it.

He is representative of many of the people I met during the week in Cuba. Many struggle to put food on the table, many are entrepreneurial, holding down 2 and sometimes 3 private sector jobs. And all were optimistic about the future, despite most being cash-poor.

A diplomatic thaw is a hopeful opening for both countries. Time will tell if the governments can match the willingness of their people to create an atmosphere of peace and cooperation.

Wrongo was a freshman in college when JFK gave what some call the “scariest speech ever”. We were playing cards in a dorm room, using a bed for a table as Kennedy spoke. Everyone in that room was frightened, and subsequently, all were drafted, or volunteered for military service after graduation.

Here is a short reminiscence about the times and the reactions in Washington and the Kremlin in 1962:

To help celebrate the end of belligerence between our two countries, here is Phil Ochs with “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” from 1965. It was about Vietnam, but it works for our 55-year disagreement with Cuba as well:

Sample lyric:
Now the labor leader’s screamin’
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it “Peace” or call it “Treason,”
Call it “Love” or call it “Reason,”
But I ain’t marchin’ any more,

Phil, we could really use your voice now. The fight isn’t over.

See you Sunday.

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