60 years after Cuba crisis, nuclear war suddenly thinkable again

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An anti-tank "Moon" missile is deployed during the missile crisis of 1962 is displayed at Morro Cabana complex in Havana on October 22, 2022. (AFP)
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Updated 20 October 2022
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60 years after Cuba crisis, nuclear war suddenly thinkable again

  • With Russian President Vladimir Putin brandishing the nuclear option in Ukraine, the threat has come roaring back
  • Sixty years ago, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s motives, while broad, were less rigid than Putin’s

WASHINGTON: For 60 years, the Cuban missile crisis has loomed both as a frightening lesson on how close the world came to nuclear doomsday — and how skillful leadership averted it.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin brandishing the nuclear option in Ukraine, the threat has come roaring back, but this time, experts are less certain of a way to end it.
US President Joe Biden in early October warned bluntly that the world risked nuclear destruction for the first time since 1962, saying that Putin was “not joking” about the use of the ultra-destructive weapons as his military is “significantly underperforming” in its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden said he was looking to provide “off-ramps” to Putin. But there is no sign Putin is eager to take one.
“I think this situation, more than any since 1962, could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons,” said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“I’ve been working in this field for 40 years and this is the most challenging situation because you have a nuclear-armed state, Russia, whose leader has defined a situation as an existential one.”
Unlike in 1962, the world is now facing a number of nuclear flashpoints with signs North Korea is gearing up for another atomic test, tensions still on low-boil between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan and Iran ramping up nuclear work.
But Ukraine poses unique dangers as the conflict pits the world’s two largest nuclear powers against each other. Any Russian strike would be expected to involve tactical nuclear weapons — targeted on the battlefield and not fired between continents — but Biden himself has warned it is difficult not to “end up with Armageddon” once a nuclear weapon is used.
Putin, who has questioned Ukraine’s historical legitimacy, has proclaimed the annexation of four regions and suggested that either an attack on the annexed “Russian” territory or direct Western intervention could lead Russia to use a nuclear weapon.

The brutal war that has already gone on for eight months is substantively different than the Cuban crisis, where the question was how to prevent a Cold War confrontation over the discovery of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island from turning hot.
US president John F. Kennedy, in one of his taped deliberations pored over by historians, said that European allies thought Washington was “demented” by its fixation on Cuba, some 90 miles (140 kilometers) from Florida with a long history of US intervention.




US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is seen leaving a church in Washington DC after attending mass on October 28, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. (AFP)

“Ukraine is significantly more important to America’s allies than Cuba was,” said Marc Selverstone, a Cold War historian at the University of Virginia.
“Putin seems to be willing to rearrange the borders of Europe, and that’s terrifying to Europeans.”
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s motives, while broad, were less rigid than Putin’s, with Moscow in part seeking to close a missile gap with the United States and gain leverage with the West over divided Berlin.
Political stakes were high for Kennedy, who was embarrassed by the failed CIA Bay of Pigs invasion a year earlier to oust communist revolutionary Fidel Castro and was days away from congressional elections.
But Kennedy rejected advice for air strikes and imposed a naval “quarantine” against further Soviet shipments — avoiding the term blockade, which would have been an act of war.
Moscow withdrew after Kennedy promised not to invade Cuba and, quietly, to pull US nuclear missiles from Turkey.
“For Kennedy, the most important thing was to lessen the chance for a nuclear exchange,” Selverstone said.
“I don’t know if that’s foremost in Vladimir Putin’s mind right now. In fact, he seems to be to be upping the ante.”

Both in 1962 and now, the nuclear powers faced an added layer of uncertainty from allies on the ground.
On October 27, 1962, just as Khrushchev and Kennedy were exchanging messages, a US U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba, killing a US pilot.
Kennedy ignored calls to retaliate, surmising — correctly, the historical record proved — that the order to fire came not from the Soviets but from Cuba.
Khrushchev announced a deal the next day, with his son later writing that he feared the situation was spiraling out of control.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to build on momentum and win back all land occupied by Russia.
The United States has shipped billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine but Biden has stopped short of sending missiles that could strike into Russia, saying he will not risk “World War III.”
“Zelensky and Putin have both taken maximalist positions, raising their red lines, whereas in 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchev were lowering them,” Selverstone said.
Perkovich said that Biden, for whom he worked when he was a senator, was as calm and historically well-versed as any US president in handling a crisis.
But he said that 2022 is also a different era. In 1962, Russia agreed to keep Kennedy’s agreement to pull US missiles from Turkey a secret, mindful of the political risks for the president.
“Many crises in history get resolved through secret diplomacy,” Perkovich said.
“Can you imagine now in this media age, with open-source intelligence and social media, keeping a deal secret like that?“
 


A wildfire that reached Marseille is pushed back but not extinguished

Updated 2 sec ago
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A wildfire that reached Marseille is pushed back but not extinguished

MARSEILLE: A wildfire that reached France's second-largest city and left 110 injured was pushed back overnight but was not yet extinguished Wednesday, authorities said. Marseille's mayor lifted a confinement order for tens of thousands of people.
Mayor Benoit Payan said on broadcaster France-Info that the fire was in ‘’net regression'' Wednesday morning after racing toward the historic Mediterranean port city Tuesday, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate and the population of an entire city district to barricade themselves indoors on official orders.
Spurred by hot summer winds, the fire grounded all flights to and from Marseille and halted train traffic in most of the surrounding area Tuesday. Train, road and plane traffic remained complicated Wednesday.
The mayor said 110 people were treated for smoke inhalation and related injuries.
More than 1,000 firefighters were deployed to tackle the fire, which broke out near the town of Les Pennes-Mirabeau before racing toward Marseille. Some 720 hectares were hit by the blaze, the prefecture said.
The prefecture described the fire as ’’particularly virulent.″ It came on a cloudless, windy day after a lengthy heat wave around Europe left the area parched and at heightened risk for wildfires. Several have broken out in southern France in recent days, including one in the Aude region that has burned some 2,000 hectares and continued to rage Wednesday.
Light gray smoke gave the sky over Marseille’s old port a dusty aspect as water-dropping planes tried to extinguish the fire in the outskirts of the city, which has some 900,000 inhabitants.

Presidents of five African nations to meet with Trump at White House

Updated 09 July 2025
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Presidents of five African nations to meet with Trump at White House

  • The presidents of Senegal, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon will convene at Trump's behest

DAKAR: US President Donald Trump will welcome five African leaders to a White House lunch on Wednesday, with commerce and trade expected to feature prominently among a mixed bag of potential agenda items.
The presidents of Senegal, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon — five nations located along Africa’s Atlantic Coast — will convene at Trump’s behest.
Officials from the countries have told AFP that they expect talks to center on trade, investment and security, among other topics as they meet in the executive mansion’s State Dining Room.
But few concrete details have emerged as to the White House’s intentions.
The meeting comes as the Trump administration is focused on tariffs and trade deals, and as it seeks to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals.
But the five nations lack the extreme mineral wealth of other African countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The gathering additionally takes place just days after the Trump administration celebrated the formal shuttering of the US foreign aid agency USAID, trumpeting the move as an end to the “charity-based model.”
Officials from the five countries who spoke to AFP seemed keenly aware of the White House ethos.
Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai accepted the invitation with an eye on no longer being “solely (an) aid recipient,” his press secretary Kula Fofana told AFP on Tuesday.
“Our interest is to look more to trade and engagement partners who will invest,” she said.
Gabonese presidential spokesman Theophane Biyoghe said the meeting marked a chance for synergies “centered around the industrialization of our economy.”


US arch rivals China and Russia have made major incursions into the region recently, including substantial investments by Beijing in a number of the countries.
Moscow, meanwhile, has lent support to the region’s newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), comprised of junta-led Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The alliance states share borders with several of the counties at Wednesday’s lunch.
Security and drugs could additionally feature on the White House agenda.
In April, Guinea-Bissau said it had turned over four convicted Latin American drug smugglers to the US DEA drug enforcement authority.
The country is often used as a transit zone for moving cocaine from Latin America to Europe and beyond.
Shortly before leaving for Washington, Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo described the visit to the press as “very important” for his country.
“Economically, this is a great opportunity opening for us,” he declared, adding that he hoped his country would also benefit from “the support” the United States provides to other countries.


A number of world leaders have faced brutal political ambushes during White House visits.
Among them are Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who became embroiled in a notorious row with Trump, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
During a visit, Trump showed the South African leader a video of baseless claims of a “white genocide” being committed in his country.
While those episodes happened in front of cameras in the Oval Office, the five African presidents meeting Trump on Wednesday are so far not scheduled to appear before the press.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared few details about the meeting when she told a briefing on Monday only that Trump would “host leaders of five African nations for lunch” in the State Dining Room.
Gabon, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal are among 36 nations that the United States is considering adding to a travel ban barring entry to its territory, according to an internal administration memo last month.


Young Bosnian arrested in Germany over ‘terror’ plot

Updated 09 July 2025
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Young Bosnian arrested in Germany over ‘terror’ plot

  • No details were given about the planned attack, investigation is on going

BERLIN: German police early Wednesday arrested a young Bosnian man and conducted several searches in the west of the country to investigate the financing of an “Islamist terrorist attack.”
The 27-year-old suspect was arrested in an early morning operation by a specialized police unit in the Essen and Dortmund region, local police and the public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
They did not give details about the planned attack, including where or how it was to be carried out, but said the investigation was ongoing.
According to the German daily Bild, the suspect had received military training.
Several searches have been carried out in the region at the homes of other people, who are currently considered witnesses.
The police investigation began due to suspicions of organized fraud, and authorities later determined that the funds collected “were to be used to finance an Islamist terrorist attack,” the statement said.


Trump’s tariffs may cast a pall over Rubio’s first official trip to Asia

Updated 09 July 2025
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Trump’s tariffs may cast a pall over Rubio’s first official trip to Asia

  • State Department officials say tariffs and trade will not be Rubio’s focus during the meetings
  • However, Rubio may be hard pressed to avoid the tariff issue that has vexed some of America’s closest allies and partners in Asia

WASHINGTON: Sweeping tariffs set to be imposed by President Donald Trump next month may cast a pall over his top diplomat’s first official trip to Asia this week — just as the US seeks to boost relations with Indo-Pacific nations to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Trump on Monday sent notice to several countries about higher tariffs if they don’t make trade deals with the US, including to a number of Asian countries. The move came just a day before Secretary of State Marco Rubio planned to depart for a Southeast Asian regional security conference in Malaysia.
Top diplomats and senior officials from at least eight countries that Trump has targeted for the new tariffs, which would go into effect on Aug. 1, will be represented at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in Kuala Lumpur that Rubio will attend on Thursday and Friday.
State Department officials say tariffs and trade will not be Rubio’s focus during the meetings, which the Trump administration hopes will prioritize maritime safety and security in the South China Sea, where China has become increasingly aggressive toward its small neighbors, as well as combating transnational crime.
However, Rubio may be hard-pressed to avoid the tariff issue that has vexed some of America’s closest allies and partners in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, which Trump says would face 25 percent tariffs absent a deal. Neither of those countries is a member of ASEAN but both will be represented at the meetings in Kuala Lumpur.
Rubio’s “talking points on the China threat will not resonate with officials whose industries are being battered by 30-40 percent tariffs,” said Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific during the Obama administration.
“In fact, when Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last week said ASEAN will approach challenges ‘as a united bloc’ — he wasn’t talking about Chinese coercion, but about US tariffs,” Russel said.
Among ASEAN states, Trump has so far announced up to 40 percent tariffs on at least six of the 10 members of the bloc, including the meeting host Malaysia, which would face a 25 percent tariff mainly on electronics and electrical product imports to the United States.
Southeast Asian countries not yet targeted by the US include Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, which recently agreed to a trade deal with Trump. The Trump administration has courted most Southeast Asian nations in a bid to blunt or at least temper China’s push to dominate the region.
In Kuala Lumpur, Rubio also will likely come face-to-face with the foreign ministers of two of America’s biggest adversaries: China and Russia. US officials could not say if meetings with either are planned for the short time — about 36 hours — that Rubio will be in Malaysia.
Russel noted that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is a veteran of such gatherings and “fluent in ASEAN principles and conventions,” while Rubio “is a rookie trying to sell an ‘America First’ message to a deeply skeptical audience.”
Issues with both countries remain substantial, particularly over Ukraine.
Trump on Tuesday expressed his exasperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying, “I’m not happy with him, I can tell you that much right now” as Moscow ramps up attacks in Ukraine amid the American leader’s push for a peace deal.
Trump also announced that the US would resume providing Ukraine with defensive weapons after the Pentagon announced a surprise pause in some deliveries last week.
US officials continue to accuse China of resupplying and revamping Russia’s military industrial sector, allowing it to produce additional weapons with which it can attack Ukraine.


Japan starts deploying Osprey fleet at a new base to beef up southwestern defense

Updated 09 July 2025
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Japan starts deploying Osprey fleet at a new base to beef up southwestern defense

  • Japan’s accelerating military buildup, especially in the southwest in recent years, serves as a deterrence to China’s increasingly assertive maritime actions in the area

HIROSHIMA: The Japanese army on Wednesday began deploying its fleet of V-22 Ospreys on a newly-opened, permanent base in southwestern Japan, the country’s latest move to beef up its defense amid growing tension in the region.
The first of the fleet of 17 Ospreys safely arrived at its new home base of Camp Saga, Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force said Wednesday.
The move is part of Japan’s accelerating military buildup, especially in the southwest in recent years, as a deterrence to China’s increasingly assertive maritime actions in the area.
The tilt-rotor aircraft have been temporarily based at Camp Kisarazu, near Tokyo, since 2020 during construction of the base and other necessary facilities. The rest of the fleet is scheduled to complete its relocation in mid-August, the JGSDF officials said.
With the full, permanent deployment at Camp Saga, Japan plans to operate the Ospreys more closely with the country’s amphibious rapid deployment brigade at Ainoura, in the nearby naval town of Sasebo, as part of the ongoing plan to reinforce the defense of southwestern remote islands, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters Tuesday.
“The security environment surrounding Japan has been increasingly severe, and it is our pressing task to strengthen our island defense capabilities,” he said.
Camp Saga ground forces also work with 50 helicopters based at another nearby camp, Metabaru, as well as with air force and navy personnel based in the area.
The use of the V-22 remains controversial in Japan, especially in southern Japan, due to a series of accidents involving the aircraft.
In November 2023, a US Air Force Osprey crashed off Japan’s southern coast, killing eight people. In October 2024, a Japanese army V-22 Osprey tilted and hit the ground while attempting to take off during a joint exercise with the US military, and an investigation has found human error was the cause.