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Devastation was avoided because Soviet submarine captain Vasily Arkhipov countermanded an order to fire nuclear torpedos when US destroyers attacked Russian submarines near Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had he obeyed, vast destruction or possible nuclear winter might have resulted.
Nuclear expert Graham Allison sees parallels between Iran today and Cuba then. Despite no threats then and now, heightened tensions risk potentially devastating conflict. When politics and heated rhetoric spin out of control, anything's possible, including nuclear war.
In 1995, Boris Yeltsin nearly launched missiles. He thought a US one targeted Russia. His fear turned out to be a Norwegian weather sounding rocket. Disaster was narrowly averted.
In May 2000, the Pentagon's Joint Vision 2020 called for "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.
Washington's December 2001 Nuclear Policy Review asserted a preemptive first strike nuclear policy. The Bush administration's 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies reaffirmed it. In 2006, Iran was mentioned 16 times, saying "(w)e may face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran."
Post-9/11, America asserted the right to use nuclear weapons against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attacks (like underground ones), in retaliation for nuclear, biological or chemical attacks, or in case of unexpected military developments whether or not they're, in fact, threatening.
The Bush and Obama administrations also violated 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provisions. The ABM and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties are ignored. So are the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention and Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. It prohibits additions to current stockpiles.
In 2010, the Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was old wine in new bottles. Rhetoric changed, not policy. NPR 2010 said America "reserves the right" to use nuclear weapons "that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat."
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