60 years after Cuba crisis, nuclear war suddenly thinkable again

Russian-backed separatist leaders from Ukraine join hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Kremlin ceremony on September 30, 2022

US President John F. Kennedy signs the order of a naval quarantine of Cuba on October 23, 1962 at the White House

For 60 years, the Cuban missile crisis has loomed both as a frightening lesson on how close the world came to nuclear doomsday -- and how skillful leadership averted it.

- The brutal war that has already gone on for eight months is substantively different than the Cuban crisis, where the question was how to prevent a Cold War confrontation over the discovery of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island from turning hot.