Nuclear War Averted, 50 Years Ago This Week

Fifty years ago, the world came to the brink of nuclear war.

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On October 14, 1962, U.S. policymakers learned that the Soviet Union was building missile bases in Cuba, which would have allowed Moscow to attack anywhere in the continental United States within minutes. An international crisis followed, and while the crisis did not end in a nuclear exchange, it is important that U.S. policymakers never forget lessons the crisis taught us. The most important one is that it is very difficult to manage allies once they are nuclear-armed. More...