- “The major lesson of the Cuban Crisis is this: The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.”
Lesson: Nuclear weapons will destroy nations.
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- “Rationality will not save us. I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”
Lesson: We “lucked out” during Cuban Missile Crisis. Even rational individuals can stumble into nuclear war.
The Fog of War, directed by Errol Morris (2003; Sony Picture Classics, 2004), DVD.
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- “The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons carries a very high risk of nuclear catastrophe. There is no way to reduce the risk to acceptable levels, other than to first eliminate the hair-trigger alert policy and later to eliminate or nearly eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States should move immediately to institute these actions, in cooperation with Russia. That is the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Lesson: Only way to avoid nuclear catastrophe is to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.
“Apocalypse Soon,” Foreign Policy, May 5, 2005.
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- “The quarantine had only begun to do its work. There was a lot we could have done with it, if necessary.” (p. 37)
Lesson: Cuban Missile Crisis was far from over: U.S. could have turned up pressure on Cuba.
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- “In their mind, they were taking countermeasures to forestall a possible American preemption. What they were really after was an improvement in crisis stability.” (p. 37)
Lesson: Crises often have roots in misperception i.e. Soviet belief U.S. wanted to invade Cuba.
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- “On the question of world opinion, our concerns that we expressed then were not limited to what the UN might think of what we did, or what the man in the street might think; we were talking about the long-term stature of the U.S. in the world and how our actions would affect that.” (p. 98)
Lesson: In crises, consider all the consequences of your actions, especially long-term.
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- “On your claim that “a little deterrence goes a long way”- that was certainly true as far as our group was concerned, but I don’t know that it’s necessarily true for all groups. Some of our military people, for example, weren’t deterred in the least by what the Soviets had at the time, and it may be that people in future administrations will or will not be deterred by different things.” (p. 98)
Lesson: In nuclear crises, know the groups you are working with. What deters one person may not deter another.
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- “First, you should begin dealing with a crisis with a course of action that is limited, flexible, and reversible….Second, keep open your channels of communication with the other side, and keep the dialogue going. When you stop talking, things can begin to go seriously wrong. Third, make damn you elect the right President of the United States.” (p. 98)
Lesson: Begin crises with limited and flexible actions. Lesson 2: Communicate with the other side in crisis. Lesson 3: Make sure you have the right person at the top.
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- “I don’t think the Cuban Missile Crisis was unique. The Bay of Pigs, Berlin in ’61, later events in the Middle East, in Libya, and so on-all exhibit the truth of what I’ll call “McNamara’s law,” which states: It is impossible to predict with a high degree of confidence what the effects of the use of military force will be because of the risks of accident, miscalculation, misperception, and inadvertence.” (p. 100)
Lesson: You cannot predict the effects of military force.
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- “Managing” crises is the wrong term; you don’t “manage” them because you can’t “manage them”….And that holds whether or not you’re talking about a nuclear crisis.”(p. 100)
Lesson: You can never truly “manage” a crisis.
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- “I really think it is vitally important to have people in top Administration positions who have some prior expertise in national-security matters, and it’s at least as important to have people who understand the Soviets available when you need them.” (p. 101)
Lesson 1: Have people experienced in national security running U.S. national security policy.
Lesson 2: Have experts of the other side readily available.
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- “Each administration, early in its term, should get all the relevant people together to draw preliminary guidelines for the use and non-use of nuclear weapons, first, in retaliation to one’s opponents’ use of nuclear weapons, and second, in all other cases. That would at least help reduce some of the risks of inadvertence.” (p. 101)
Lesson: Each U.S. administration should adapt planning for nuclear weapons to new circumstances of their term.
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- “The risk of inadvertent nuclear war should lead to extreme caution in determining actions that affect that risk or may increase it.” (p. 188-189)
Lesson: Be wary of risks of inadvertent nuclear war.
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- On the American conventional and nuclear superiority solving the Cuban Missile Crisis: “I think that’s absolute hogwash.” (p. 192)
Lesson: Military superiority, even with nuclear weapons, may not solve all crises.
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- “When there’s even a small risk of total disaster, I’m significantly deterred and very anxious to avoid any risk in that direction if I can.” (p. 193)
Lesson: In any international crisis, avoid escalating risk of total nuclear war. Even a small risk is too much.
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- “The nuclear weapons we have, and the Soviets have, are useless militarily. Everything flows from that simple enduring truth.” (p. 196)
Lesson: Militarily, nuclear weapons have no value. Military use of nuclear bomb only ensures total worldwide destruction.
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- “I don’t think we want people in office who either think they know everything or who in fact don’t know anything.” (p. 197)
Lesson: Beware of people in power who are either ignorant or closed to new knowledge.
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- “Mistakes happen. The likelihood of accident and error is very high in a crisis situation, and we must take account of that fact.” (p. 272)
Lesson: Beware of accidents. They can happen very easily in crisis situations and can change things dramatically.
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- “Crisis management is a very uncertain and very difficult thing to do, and therefore, you’ve just got to avoid the crises in the first place. How do you do that? Three things. First, be clear on what your interests are and state them clearly….Second, never leave your adversary in any uncertainty about these interests….Third, over time, we must attack the basic source of friction between our countries: mistrust.” (p. 281)
Lesson: To avoid crises, do three things: (1) be clear on your interests and state them clearly; (2) never leave your adversary uncertainty about your interests; and (3) be open with your adversary in order to lessen mistrust.
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- “We have to recognize that even very small risk of nuclear war must be avoided.” (p. 281)
Lesson: In any international crisis, avoid escalating risk of total nuclear war. Even a small risk is too much.
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- “To improve crisis management, we should first recognize that human beings are fallible, and that we are prone to misjudgment, misinformation, miscalculation, and emotion.” (p. 281)
Lesson: In crises, recognize that everyone is human and has limits. Errors can and will happen.
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- “The responsible official must think in advance of how to deal with crises, especially when they involve even a remote possibility of a nuclear response.” (p. 281-282)
Lesson: Plan ahead for crises.
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- “Provide the president with knowledgeable associates. Draw on the experience of informed people….The real unsung heroes of the Cuban Missile Crisis…were the people who were real students of the Soviet Union.” (p. 282)
Lesson: In crisis, make sure you have people who know the other side well.
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- “Look at the problem from the adversary’s point of view.” (p. 282)
Lesson: Put yourself in your opponent’s shoes.
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- “Don’t force the adversary into a corner– don’t force him into taking some kind of desperate action. Always leave him a way out.” (p. 283)
Lesson: Leave the other side in a crisis room to maneuver and retreat, if necessary.
Cited in James G. Blight and David Welch, On the Brink: Americans and Soviets reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989).
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