Henry Rowen

• “Most of the time [the Soviet Union and the United States] are competing.  Examples are the 1962 Cuban crisis and the 1973 Arab-Israeli episode.  In the former, the threat of nuclear escalation was explicit, in the latter implicit.  In each case, the two parties were in direct communication with each other, maneuvering for advantage in terms of the local stakes.  These examples illustrate an important defect in much of the recent discussion about crisis management.  There is a tendency to assume that the overriding interest of the parties is to defuse the crisis.  Their objectives are usually more complex.  Considerations may include the immediate outcome (for example, the removal – or not – of Soviet missiles in Cuba or the survival of the trapped Egyptian army); the longer-term regional stakes (for example, the preservation of Castro’s power and his ties to the Soviet Union); the possibility of Great Power conflict and escalation to nuclear war; and the impact on the overall balance of power, what the Soviets call the “correlation of forces.” The balancing of these factors continually shifts during a crisis.  “Crisis management” means more than avoiding nuclear weapons use.  But that goal would certainly be given progressively more weight as a crisis intensified.…Experience shows that states with nuclear weapons behave cautiously toward one another.  This record supports a prediction that as more states acquire nuclear weapons, the probability of their getting involved in conflicts will god own.  However, this factor is not decisive, as the Cuban missile crisis, the Sino-Soviet border clashes, and the U.S.-Soviet confrontation in the Middle East illustrates.”

Lesson: Crises between nuclear-armed states can happen, and when they do, participants want to fulfill their interests in the crisis, not just avoid war. This makes crises all the more dangerous.