Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has created this site as a resource for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, this site not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.

Matthew Waxman

“Security strategy and international law are inseparably entwined…perceived strategic necessities eventually may compel military action even without clear-cut legal authority… but law is itself a factor in that strategic calculus.”

Lesson: In any international crisis, pay attention to international law. It can make or break your decision.

Matthew Waxman, “What the Cuban Missile Crisis Teaches Us about Iran” (CNN, 10/24)