Cuban Missile Crisis & Obama/Mccain

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
We also have to understand that 1962 was quite a different time in superpower relations and relative power. At the time missile technology was not that reliable or prevalent and the bulk of the US nuclear arsenal depended upon air force bombers of SAC. And in terms of a bomber fleet, it was a basic USA monopoly as the USSR was hopeless behind at the time. Russia may have been able to hurt the USA but the USA could annihilate the Soviet Union as Kennedy and Khrushchev well knew. And in fact, the USSR spent the bulk of the 1950's basically wildly PR puffing up their offensive capacity which played right into the hands of our military industrial complex.

Post Cuban missile crisis, Khrushchev was sacked and a entire subsequent generation of Soviet leaders wrecked their economy building up their military capacity to prevent such a open humiliation. And now we have wrecked our economy and tied up our military in two large quagmires.

And now technology has moved on and the only question is can either side destroy each other with the press of a button, and if we and they have 5X or 10 X the required overkill. Why don't I feel safer if we go for 15X when Russia can build more missiles cheaper than we can build working ABM's?

Well Pro-Jo could be considered to have a point with the Cuban missile crisis. The other two examples of Afghanistan and 9/11 are laughably wrong, and would only be said by someone who was almost totally ignorant.

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We should also not forget that Kennedy's inexperience caused his first meeting with Khrushchev to be a total disaster that lead the Russians into think they could push Kennedy around.

The missile crisis was created because the Russians didn't think Kennedy would stand up to him the way he did.

We learned the same lesson in the late 1970s when Carter showed the world that he was weak and the result was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And we learned that lesson yet again in the 90s when Clinton ignored terrorist attack after terrorist attack until we finally got hit with 9-11.

I'd argue it was Kennedy's aggression that caused the crisis. He put missiles in Turkey, and for the Soviets to put missiles in Cuba was a logical (and actually not even as aggressive a) response. He also attempted an invasion of Cuba, which I'll admit ended up botched but the fact he tried it made the Soviets worried about losing Cuba and stepped up their efforts to defend the island. I just don't see the line of reasoning that says a weak Kennedy led to the crisis--Khrushchev wanted to maintain the status quo in the Cold War (apart from within-borders military buildups) as best exemplified by his panic during the crisis, and was not some aggressive actor seeking to create an environment to force the U.S.'s hand into attack. Really it seems foolish to me for someone to want a more aggressive President during this time, half (if not more) of the people around Kennedy wanted him to strike first and he was one of the cooler heads in the room who waited to negotiate. I will concede, though, that he was too hot-headed himself and his advisers prevented him from going overboard like he wanted to mid-crisis.

 

[SickBeast]

I sometimes wonder if 3 people control the world:

1. President of the USA
2. Leader of Russia
3. Leader of China

Perhaps Putin is doing Bush a favor to have him re-elected in a sort of way. The timing is interesting.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: woodie1

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We should also not forget that Kennedy's inexperience caused his first meeting with Khrushchev to be a total disaster that lead the Russians into think they could push Kennedy around.

The missile crisis was created because the Russians didn't think Kennedy would stand up to him the way he did.

We learned the same lesson in the late 1970s when Carter showed the world that he was weak and the result was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And we learned that lesson yet again in the 90s when Clinton ignored terrorist attack after terrorist attack until we finally got hit with 9-11.

That's it in a nutshell.

You forgot the "bullsh". Hey, another poster who posts ideological fantasies, great.

Anandtech should charge you for wasting their disk space.

 

[Nebor]

You assume that JFK made the right choices. Not everyone would agree with that. I think he should have struck first. The Soviet Union would have lost, big time. Most of the US would still be intact, the Soviet Union would be out of world politics 25 years early, and Russia never would have invaded Georgia. America would have been the soul superpower, and thus would be ever greater than it is today.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: woodie1

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We should also not forget that Kennedy's inexperience caused his first meeting with Khrushchev to be a total disaster that lead the Russians into think they could push Kennedy around.

The missile crisis was created because the Russians didn't think Kennedy would stand up to him the way he did.

We learned the same lesson in the late 1970s when Carter showed the world that he was weak and the result was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And we learned that lesson yet again in the 90s when Clinton ignored terrorist attack after terrorist attack until we finally got hit with 9-11.

That's it in a nutshell.

You forgot the "bullsh". Hey, another poster who posts ideological fantasies, great.

Anandtech should charge you for wasting their disk space.

I think it would be more fair if everyone was charged the same amount no matter how much they posted (even if they didn't post at all.) I mean, what if someone couldn't afford to post as much as they wanted to? There's a basic human right to post on P&N. /craig

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: woodie1

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
We should also not forget that Kennedy's inexperience caused his first meeting with Khrushchev to be a total disaster that lead the Russians into think they could push Kennedy around.

The missile crisis was created because the Russians didn't think Kennedy would stand up to him the way he did.

We learned the same lesson in the late 1970s when Carter showed the world that he was weak and the result was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

And we learned that lesson yet again in the 90s when Clinton ignored terrorist attack after terrorist attack until we finally got hit with 9-11.

That's it in a nutshell.

You forgot the "bullsh". Hey, another poster who posts ideological fantasies, great.

From the New York Times itself.
link
partial quoted since it is long
The bolded part is Kennedy's own words.

But Kennedy?s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one?s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings ? his Harvard thesis was titled ?Appeasement at Munich? ? he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy?s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: ?Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them??

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting ?old, moribund, reactionary regimes? and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood ?against other peoples following its suit.? Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was ?very unwise? for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy?s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was ?just a disaster.? Khrushchev?s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed ?very inexperienced, even immature.? Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was ?too intelligent and too weak.? The Soviet leader left Vienna elated ? and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy?s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the ?roughest thing in my life.? Kennedy went on: ?He just beat the hell out of me. I?ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I?m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won?t get anywhere with him.?

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that ?a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.? The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to ?throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam?s pants?: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna ? of Kennedy as ineffective ? was among them.

Yes, Kruschev made *assumptions* about Kennedy and at first treated him in a way based on those assumptions. It wasn't just Kennedy though, they were about the US too.

Kruschev had said he didn't think the US had the stomach, with its culture, for the hard battles.

That's not the same thing as Kennedy *being* inexperienced, and performing badly at the conference to cause Kruschev to do things.

When Kennedy said Kruschev 'beat the hell out of him', he didn't mean beat as in defeated, he meant beat as in pounded on, rather than having a dialogue.

That hugely changed, and Kruschev developed a huge respect for Kennedy, and saw him as a partner for peace in the future.

He said in his memoir that had kennedy remained president the two of them would have had historic progress on peace.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Farang

I'd argue it was Kennedy's aggression that caused the crisis. He put missiles in Turkey, and for the Soviets to put missiles in Cuba was a logical (and actually not even as aggressive a) response. He also attempted an invasion of Cuba, which I'll admit ended up botched but the fact he tried it made the Soviets worried about losing Cuba and stepped up their efforts to defend the island. I just don't see the line of reasoning that says a weak Kennedy led to the crisis--Khrushchev wanted to maintain the status quo in the Cold War (apart from within-borders military buildups) as best exemplified by his panic during the crisis, and was not some aggressive actor seeking to create an environment to force the U.S.'s hand into attack. Really it seems foolish to me for someone to want a more aggressive President during this time, half (if not more) of the people around Kennedy wanted him to strike first and he was one of the cooler heads in the room who waited to negotiate. I will concede, though, that he was too hot-headed himself and his advisers prevented him from going overboard like he wanted to mid-crisis.

Of course, it was the policy pre-dating Kennedy for both the Turkey Missiles and the Bay of Pigs, though Kennedy allwed those policies to be enacted.

I'm not sure what you're referring to in your last sentence. Almost none of Kennedy's advisors was more 'dovish' than Kennedy; it was Robert who put the brakes on the invasion planning, with his famous note passed to JFK during the discussion that he knew how Tojo felt planning Pearl Harbor.

While I think you're largely right on Kruschev regaring the missile crisis, I think you are understating Kruschev's level of aggression overall - he had said that he was going to give Kennedy only two choices - withdraw from Berlin or war, by the end of 1961. A sample of his private language to Kennedy's representative was that 'it's been a long time since the US could spank them like a little boy - now the USSR can spank your ass'.

 

[Lemon law]

The other question is, what will Poland now do? It can't feel too great being the little pawn the two big boys are squabbling over. During the Cuban missile crisis, a larger and closer US navy could effectively blockade Cuba, and now a US Navy can't very well blockage the huge common Russian Polish border. Worse yet, the US army is otherwise engaged. And for the Soviet Union with its massive tank forces, Poland is just a days drive away in ideal terrain for tank operation.

If I were Poland, I might be well saying thanks but no thanks to basing missiles on my soil because it makes Poland ground zero. And historically, Poland has been some of the most squabbled over land on earth.

 

[XZeroII]

Obama would simply raise taxes and allocate 80 billion dollars to fixing the problem.

 

[Infohawk]

My worry is that McCain woud have started a nuclear war. Obama probably would have done less than Kennedy which is fine. After all, the idea that cuban missiles were a monumental problem was silly when we had the Turk sites.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Oh, I did wander into P&N. I was wondering why ATOT had become a shithole.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Oh, I did wander into P&N. I was wondering why ATOT had become a shithole.

You're right. Hurry, ATOT needs you to help them discuss the next Batman villain!

 

[CallMeJoe]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Oh, I did wander into P&N. I was wondering why ATOT had become a shithole.

Go back to OT, read the latest CasioTech thread, then try to say that again with a straight face.

 

[sportage]

Whether or not you agree with JFK's actions, one thing he realized and I doubt GW or Mccain would have realized, is the longer the Cuban crisis continued the more risk there was of WWIII. Its like having a wild animal running the streets in ones neighborhood. The longer the animal runs, the more of a risk someone will get attacked or killed.
Or driving the wrong way on a freeway. The longer you drive, the higher the risk you will hit head on with another car.

If the Cuban crisis happened under GW's watch, and Turkey was the key to a peaceful conclusion, I doubt our cowboy "stay the course" president would have agreed to toss or consider Turkey in the mix of solutions.
The crisis would have continued and continued until someone made the wrong judgment or something as simple as an tactical error occurred, and there you have it... WWIII.

The Cuban crisis was certainly a situation that could "only" be solved with wisdom and correct judgment. It had to be shut down now, with not a second to spare. There was no room for playing shoot-em up cowboy, or flag waving for that matter. JFK was looking at preserving human life on earth, something that transcends flags and politics.

Ok, my point with this whole "what if" test is who do you trust to run the country for the next four to eight years?
Elections are not like marriages. If you make a bad/wrong choice in a marriage, you have divorce or separation as a solution. If you pick the wrong president, your stuck with it for a long time of hurt.
Considering GW's approval rating is in the 20 or 30% range, 70% are unhappy with his leadership. You don?t want to continue that with another president like
Mccain who agrees with Bush 90% of the time, or votes with him 90% of the time, or
supports 90% of Bush decisions in running the country.
Why in Gods name would you want to continue with that?

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: XZeroII
Obama would simply raise taxes and allocate 80 billion dollars to fixing the problem.

That's an appalling amount of ignorance with which you keep yourself jailed from the truth.

Your counterpart on the left might say Bush/McCain would nuke to see the big explosions.