old farts of letsrun - how does this compare with cuban missile crisis?

Hmm, I’m fart for sure but unsure if old enough to answer this question.

Nowhere near as dangerous.

Yet.

You have to be at least 67 to answer this- if you remember it as a 7 year old.

Not even close. We blockaded Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from bringing more missile hardware to Cuba. The Soviets blinked and turned the ships around. Whatever hardware made it to the island was removed. We removed Atlas ICBMs from Turkey.

I was seven at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember my parents being very scared. Part of it was the feeling that WW2 was unfinished business from WW1 and so Cuba was unfinished business from WW2. Also, that was direct USA / Soviet confrontation.

Whereas today the USA is not directly involved. If Ukraine turns into another Afghanistan (or Vietnam) then one nuclear power can just encourage the resistance and watch the other nuclear power grind itself down in the quagmire.

KAL-007

This. It's nowhere near as scary. The Missile Crisis was a direct confrontation between the USSR and USA. It was easy to imagine us shooting at them and vice versa. As of now there is no direct confrontation between us and the Russians. The current situation is not terribly dissimilar to the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, though there was no shooting then, and in 1956 when the USSR invaded Hungary and suppressed that revolution.

At the time, only a few in J.F.K.'s inner circle plus many in U.S. military knew how close U.S.-Soviet Union were to all out war.

> General public at the time did not know USN used depth charges on Soviet subs in Caribbean.

> General public did not know at the time U.S. surveillance planes were shot at and hit buy Soviet anti-aircraft weapons fired from Cuba.

> General public did not know at the time at least one U.S. fighter/bomber crossed over from Alaska/U.S. air space to Soviet air space.

I was not born yet but I served with individuals and talked to individuals about it who were in the middle of it all then.

Wasn't alive. Born in '70. But back then, I think the US and Russia really did consider nuclear war as an option. Both sides built lots of fallout shelters and had plans to govern from bunkers until the fallout subsided. Nuke capabilities back then were fairly limited even though stock piles were significant. In the 80s, the US and USSR had the ability to wipe each other out with the push of a button due to the large arsenals of ICBM. In the 60s, you would have needed bombers, and land and sea based nukes to really blow up the world.

Today, I do not believe that either the US or Russia would launch nuclear weapons. Russia might use a nuke to strike a NATO base if NATO got directly involved in Ukraine. But NATO isn't going to do that and the US won't either. That is because NATO and the US got what they wanted in this conflict. Russia is officially the bad guy and defense budgets will have to double and triple in order to deal with Putin (but without ever actually doing anything because of the nuclear deterrent). And this is the folly of nuclear weapons and modern defense spending. In the end, it is just a wealth transfer to a few politically connected defense contractors. We could build the largest and most powerful armed forces in human history and we will never be able to use it because of the nuclear deterrent.

That's about as bang on the mark as you can get.

I think this answer is pretty close. I didn't realize the danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis at the time, but I did pick up on my parent's tension, and overheard a couple conversations they were having (I was also 7).

Born in 1960, so I do not remember the Cuban missile crisis.

Today is more dangerous simply because the weapons are so much more powerful - and there are several NATO countries that border Russia and Ukraine, providing multiple avenues for hostilities to escalate, be it intentional or unintentional.

Also a 1960 baby. My dad was in the Air Force from 55 to 79. There are several reasons this is more dangerous. First, NATO = US. You can’t separate the two. Second, Cuba was a long way from USSR. With the technology at the time, we had ICBMs in several European countries that put pressure on USSR, while they had nothing on the US. Logistics were quite different in 1960 vs today. It’s much easier to move large armies and necessary support a long distance very quickly (for both the US and Russia). Last big reason is Khrushchev had other close advisors that he utilized. It appears Putin has isolated himself, which makes things a bit more unknown what he will do.

Does that mean WWIII is around the corner? No, not yet. Just like 1960, there’s still a way out of this, even with Ukraine staying independent. But since no one knows the future, we just won’t know until we know.

Actually, the early 80s were pretty tense. This movie, although cheesy by today's standards, had quite an impact (no pun intended):

The missile crisis was way, way worse, at this point. As posters above had stated, you had direct military action between American and Soviet forces. Ché Guevara was urging Castro to nuke Miami before the Soviets took the missiles away. The ability to start WWIII was in Third-World hands.

Precious Roy, I dont remember any fallout shelters. Could you provide a source to your claim?

I do remember "duck and cover" drills at school.

A Soviet sub came close to using a nuke against a US ship. That is way closer than this.

Also, remember the US killed 100 Russians in Syria not that long ago. No nuclear war.

(For the record I am old, but I was not born at the time.)

theguardian.com

Soviet submarine officer who averted nuclear war honoured with prize

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nicola-davis

Vasili Arkhipov, who prevented escalation of the cold war by refusing to launch a nuclear torpedo against US forces, is to be awarded new ‘Future of Life’ prize

Open link

vox.com

US forces reportedly killed more than 100 Russian mercenaries inside Syria

Alexia Underwood

The Syrian proxy war is heating up.

Open link

Not Roy but bomb & fallout shelters started being built here by 1959 at the latest. Probably earlier but it was the H-bomb -- ours & the Soviet's imminent acquisition of it -- that got things going.

Was born in 1984 so I didn't get to experience the Cold War, but I did watch the movie War Games which came out in 1993.

Based on that, I do not think that the current situation is nearly as bad.

Thank you.