On the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world is closer than ever to nuclear apocalypse, with the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine.
Historian and political scientist Aaron Good joined Multipolarista host Ben Norton to discuss the important lessons to learn from this dangerous historical episode.
Sources
“US Nuclear Forces Chief Says ‘the Big One Is Coming’,” Antiwar.com, Dave DeCamp, November 6, 2022
The US Department of Defense reported on November 3, 2022:
The current conflict in Ukraine is not the worst that the U.S. should be prepared for. Around the corner, said the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, the U.S. must be prepared for much more.
“This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup,” Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard, commander of Stratcom, said. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested a long time.”
“US to send hi-tech nuclear weapons to Nato bases amid rising tensions with Russia,” The Telegraph, October 27, 2022
“Finland May Allow NATO to Place Nuclear Weapons on Border With Russia,” Newsweek, October 26, 2022
“US Air Force to deploy nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia as tensions with China grow,” ABC News, October 30, 2022
“US general on rare visit to nuclear-armed sub in Arabian Sea,” Associated Press, October 19, 2022
In October 2022, Ukraine’s NATO-backed leader Zelensky called for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia:
Neoconservative pundit Anne Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic magazine: “Fear of Nuclear War Has Warped the West’s Ukraine Strategy: Leaders shouldn’t give in to Putin’s nuclear rhetoric”
The US Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wanted to drop nuclear bombs on China and Vietnam: “When Ike Was Asked to Nuke Vietnam,” Washington Post, 1982
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the United Nations General Assembly in September stressed that “China is the only country in the world that pledges to keep to a path of peaceful development in its constitution,” and “is the only one among the five nuclear weapons states [the permanent members of the UN Security Council] that is committed to no first use of nuclear weapons”: