Driving Toward Nuclear War: Interinstitutional Dynamics in the Cuban Missile Crisis and What we Might Learn From Them

Abstract The scandal of the Cuban Missile Crisis lies in the fact that it brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war for actions associated with relatively minor strategic and political gains. In this article I will treat this crisis as a diagnostic event to identify two significant interinstitutional dynamics that drove Nikita Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy to this rationality-defying precipice. The first of these dynamics explores the consequences of transitioning military units from peacetime routines to crisis-level field deployment, which quickly created considerable command-and-control problems for both political leaders. Yet each believed that the other side remained in control of its forces, erroneously understanding local action by the other side as strategic moves ordered by central command. This created the potential for uncontrollable escalation. The second dynamic resulted from the interaction of two institutional arrangements in the United States. American presidents are simultaneously the country’s highest decision makers in foreign affairs and political campaigners interested in their own reelection. Foreign policy decisions thus become potential campaign moves. After World War II, a campaigning tradition emerged in which both parties felt compelled to outdo each other with anticommunist rhetoric and policies. This strategy built on deeply instituted anticommunism in the electorate, which politicians felt compelled to further cultivate. This dynamic significantly limited Kennedy’s response options, making it more likely than not that he would have called for an invasion of Cuba if Khrushchev had not backed down. The consequences would have been disastrous. The article concludes with tentative lessons to learn from these two dynamics.