The NORK Missile Crisis - Nothing New

For those of us who are old enough to recall the Cuban Missile Crisis, the current situation with North Korea has some aspects which are familiar, while others are different. Let's examine a few of them for the sake of those who weren't around back in the early '60s. (The following is my understanding and recollection of the incident. For more official detailed sources, please use this link, or do your own search.)

The Soviet Union - it was under communist rule then, with Nikita Khrushchev as its leader and the cold war was full on - had secretly made a deal with Castro's Cuba; a satellite of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). In exchange for financial aide from the Soviets, Cuba's Castro agreed to build and place nuclear tipped missiles within Cuba; only 90 miles away from Florida and potentially giving Kruschev the ability to hit any major city in the U.S.

The newly elected President Kennedy(D) - who today, based on his economic policies, would be considered a conservative - learned of the missile launch bases being constructed in Cuba from recon fly-overs of U2 aircraft taking photographs. It was also learned from intelligence that the Soviets were transporting by ships the first batch of missiles to Cuba across the Atlantic Ocean. After unsuccessfully attempting to talk Premier Kruschev out of continuing the transfer of missiles, President Kennedy ordered the military to DEFCON 3 (an acronym for Defense Condition with the scale of danger ranging from 1 to 4, with one being lowest and four being "go to war").

All Air Force B-52 bombers were loaded with nuclear bombs and put on alert; a moments notice to launch from their base and head out over the North Pole, while the entire nation's missile defense system was prepared to launch its dozens of nuclear missiles should the decision be made to back the President's demand to cease and desist the placement of the Soviet missiles on Cuba, maintaining the Monroe Doctrine of Western Hemisphere sovereignty from foreign (Eastern Hemisphere) interference and threat.

Also, a blockade of ships by the U.S. Navy on the eastern side of Cuba was set to intercept the ships loaded with missiles. As the days went by and attempts at negotiating seemed to be failing, tensions mounted across the nation. Citizens watched with growing anxiety that a nuclear war might break out if things couldn't be resolved between the two nations. Kruschev, at the last minute, blinked, and ordered the ships bound for Cuba to turn around. The Cuban Missile Crisis was over and both nations breathed a huge sigh of relief. (Later, revelations disclosed that a deal had been struck between the U.S. & the Soviets that, if the U.S. removed missiles from Turkey that were pointed at the U.S.S.R., then the missiles headed for Cuba would be turned around.)

It should be pointed out that, because of the "Red Scare" of the decade of the '50s after Sen. Joe McCarthy went after Soviet spies in the U.S., fallout shelters had been built with the purpose of being able to sequester hundreds, if not thousands of citizens into underground bunkers that were supposedly capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust. While there certainly weren't enough for everyone, it did provide the public with a sense of comfort to know that their government did intend to provide some measure of protection for those fortunate enough to survive to carry on some semblance of life afterwards.

However, those fallout shelters no longer exist. They've been turned into other uses or destroyed in some locations. This is due in part to two major factors; one, the yield of newer nuclear warheads increased to the point which would make it very unlikely that anyone would survive, and two, detente had reached a point at which a nuclear war was no longer a likelihood for either nation to carry out. 

Over several decades, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the cold war between the two nations also ended. But, the nuclear arsenals of both countries didn't just disappear. Fast forward to the more recent administrations and it is now obvious that the Clinton administration's weak, if not deliberate policies of appeasement during the '90s, has allowed the development of one of the last "hold-outs" of hardcore communist regimes to acquire nuclear missile technology to the point at which we find ourselves today.

Sadly, today's media - backing the ideological policy of appeasement - is having kanipshun fits over the current President's verbal remarks and is considering them more dangerous than the threats made by the "potbelly" dictator, Kim Jong Un. I guess they're not very concerned that other countries are threatening to wipe our country out. Given their attitude towards other threats - like ISIS cells within out country, or immigrants infiltrating our cities and sucking our tax dollars to support them - it's understandable.

Some will speculate that, because they believe Trump is crazy, or mentally unstable, this situation will lead to Armageddon.  On the other side of that "coin", there are those who view this stance by Trump to be what is necessary to call the "potbelly dictator's" bluff, and eventually the situation will resolve itself; much like the Cuban Missile Crisis eventually did.