[networkid]

In 1962, Kuba has been blocked from determining it's own destiny. US didn't like the Soviet missiles placed by Soviets right on their border. The peace has been saved only because USSR took a step back.

Todays Ukraine is "Kuba" for Russia. The presence of NATO near its borders is threatening its security. What America should do? Maybe revenue its aggressive military presence? Think about Ukrainian people not only on its interest across the ocean.

[ZeroGravitas]

Theres some interesting parallels here:

Cuba was run by a corrupt dictatorship that worked with a mafia and oligarchs.

When Castro wanted to overthrow them, he went to his neighbour America and asked them for help.

Unfortunately, the dictator, mafia and oligarchs were seen as more useful allies by the US government than the people of Cuba, so they took their side.

Cuba then had to look further for help in what many observers saw as a just cause.

Possibly the USSR only got involved to annoy the US, but I'd like to hope they at least partly were motivated by some sense of justice abd it wasnt totally black and white.

And on the American side, JFK, generally positively reviewed by the American people but hated by some, was elected in part due to his father's mafia ties. The same mafia that ran Cuba.

(In this very stretched metaphor, Haiti could be Cechnya?)

[cafard]

I'm fascinated to hear of the mafia ties. Does your research extend beyond "The Irishman"?

[networkid]

Dictatorship / democracy is a business of the people and ONLY people who populate a territory. Nobody can use this kind of argument to justify war. Neither Russians, neither Americans, nobody!

[RichardHeart]

As the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, you basically have the power to do nothing. You can't order anyone to do anything . "NATO is an alliance of 30 sovereign nations but their individual sovereignty is unaffected by participation in the alliance. NATO has no parliaments, no laws, no enforcement, and no power to punish individual citizens. As a consequence of this lack of sovereignty the power and authority of a NATO commander are limited. NATO commanders cannot punish offences such as: failure to obey a lawful order; dereliction of duty; or disrespect to a senior officer.[155] NATO commanders expect obeisance but sometimes need to subordinate their desires or plans to the operators who are themselves subject to sovereign codes of conduct like the UCMJ. A case in point was the clash between General Sir Mike Jackson and General Wesley Clark over KFOR actions at Pristina Airport.[156]" from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

Basically everyone just does whatever they want, quite similar to what they would do if they weren't in NATO.

[korantu]

In 1962 rockets were vulnerable and could be preemptively destroyed as they were above ground. Therefore MAD was affected by very close rocket location.

These days Russia has rockets in Siberia silos, in submarines all over the world, and in trains moving around ready to fire. No meaningful change to MAD doctrine can be brought from Europe.

[networkid]

*review