Joe Buff
In a reply to a recent article in Global Security Review, which advocated for American escalation dominance, Katerina Canyon, Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project, challenged the importance of escalation dominance, instead advocating for a reduction in nuclear weapons and an increase in domestic spending. Canyon is wrong on three points: the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, who started the nuclear arms race, and the need for nuclear cost cutting.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Canyon begins her article by employing the Cuban Missile Crisis as an example of where diplomacy rather than military force carried the day. Her explanation is simple disinformation and misunderstands how nuclear deterrence works.
Early in the crisis, President John F. Kennedy moved nuclear-armed bombers to Air Force bases in Florida, lining them up wing tip to wing tip, as a visible display of the nuclear hell both Cuba and the Soviet Union would face if Nikita Khruschev did not remove nuclear weapons from Cuba. That signal was seen by the Soviets.
President Kennedy also called the then-recent deployment of Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) his “ace in the hole.” He credited his ICBMs with forcing the Soviets to back down. Minuteman I was very much American escalation dominance that the Soviets could not match.
He also implemented a blockade around Cuba. When the Soviet submarine B-59 attempted to run the blockade, the USS Beale depth charged the submarine. Rather than launching its nuclear torpedoes against the Beale, B-59 retreated.
Contrary to Canyon’s assertion that diplomacy carried the day, it was military strength and nuclear superiority that carried the day. General Secretary Khruschev knew that the United States had a superior nuclear arsenal and backed down.
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