[cygwin98]

Nuclear missles or "90000 tons of diplomacy" are both certain kinds of deterrence, nothing more, nothing less. If US does not have those carrier combat groups, China wouldn't care either.

[run4yourlives2]

Instant destruction that you can't defend against is not the same as an annoying ship floating around off your coast.

The proper comparison to cuba is Star Wars type missile shields. And USSR/Russia has long been quite opposed to that, for good reason.