North Korea’s recent ICBM test implies a level of nuclear risk witnessed only once before: the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The question is whether today’s leaders will show the same degree of strategic thinking that enabled the Kennedy administration to defuse that threat.
NEW YORK – On January 2, then-President-elect Donald Trump, referring to North Korea’s effort to develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, assured his Twitter followers, “It won’ t happen!” But it has.
On July 4 – Independence Day in the US – North Korea gave Americans an unwanted birthday present, successfully testing the Hwasong-14, an intercontinental ballistic missile that analysts say has the capacity to reach Alaska. All that is left now is for the North to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to be deliverable by such an ICBM – a milestone that is thought to be not more than a few years off.
The North’s latest ICBM test has transformed the theater of diplomacy and war in Asia, and possibly the world, as it implies a level of nuclear risk witnessed only once before, with the Soviet Union in 1962. Indeed, we are now witnessing a slow-motion repeat of the Cuban missile crisis. The question is whether today’s leaders will show the same level of strategic thinking that enabled US President John F. Kennedy to defuse the threat in Cuba.
The Cuban crisis began on October 16,1962, when National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy presented to Kennedy photographs showing that the Soviet Union, then led by Nikita Khrushchev, had placed on the island – just 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida – ballistic missiles capable of launching nuclear weapons at major US cities. Suddenly, the world was on the precipice of a nuclear exchange that could lead to global annihilation.
Kennedy moved quickly to discuss his options with key advisers and experts. Those deliberations were secretly recorded (known only by Kennedy and maybe his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) . The transcripts, released 35 years later in the book The Kennedy Tapes, reveal applied game theory at its best.
To secure the immediate removal of the Soviet missiles, the US considered two main strategies: a naval blockade or an air strike. Applying a form of reasoning common to game theory, Kennedy recognized the need to put himself in his opponents’ shoes – and the likelihood that his opponent was doing the same.
