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In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a standoff that became the closest we have ever come to a nuclear exchange. This followed after the United States stationed Jupiter medium-range missiles in Turkey and theSoviets responded by deploying their own nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba. The United States Navy then blockaded Cuba. Direct conflict was averted only when American President John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw their respective missiles from Turkey and Cuba. Having achieved his objective and in order to let Kennedy claim victory, Khrushchev agreed not to disclose the withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey.
Six decades later, the war in Ukraine has produced an echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Continuing a policy of serial escalation, NATO supplied Ukraine with long-range weapons and authorized their use deep inside Russian territory. At the end of May, Ukraine used long-range attack drones to strike Russia's strategic early warning radar sites. These radars were designed to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. They were purely defensive and had nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. Destroying them was highly provocative. Shortly afterward, Russia sent a naval squadron, including a nuclear-powered submarine to Cuba. Russia will neither confirm nor deny whether these ships carried nuclear weapons when they sailed past Florida, but they certainly had the capability to do so.
The good news is that we are not yet on the edge of another Cuban Missile Crisis. Neither President Joe Biden nor Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to widen the war in Ukraine. Only two of Russia's 10 strategic warning radar sites were damaged and as these faced south, they were the least critical. Ukraine did not use American missiles in the attacks. The Russians have sent warships to Cuba before, most recently in 2019. The fleet they sent this time, consisting of a submarine, a frigate, a supply ship and a tugboat, was hardly an armada. Highly visible and easily tracked, it was more symbolic than threatening; NATO often has more warships in the Baltic.
The bad news is that we are moving ever closer to a major confrontation because Biden faces an election and Putin faces a rising tide of Russian nationalism. Biden cannot win in November if he loses in Ukraine. While it is true that the ranks of Ukraine's Western cheerleaders are dwindling as Kiev's prospects for victory fade, Biden still cannot afford another foreign policy fiasco like the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan. Putin, on the other hand, must deal with mounting demands that he win the war quickly and decisively. Every Russian parent who has lost a son to an American missile or a German tank is demanding victory and revenge. We run the mounting risk of a cornered politician conflating personal priorities with national interest.
Our greatest fear is that an embattled American president with his chorus of the war hawks will drag of us further down the road of unanticipated consequences. Few now fail to recognize that expanding NATO to within 300 miles of Moscow was provocative to a nation that has for centuries based its security on trading space for time. Yet, how often do we still hear that "compromise is appeasement" or that after Ukraine all the "dominos" of Eastern Europe will fall.
We note that all successful negotiations require compromise and that the road to Riga does not run through Kiev—Russia could have occupied the Baltic states years ago in a matter of hours. It did not then and, since the end of the Cold War, has never threatened to do so. NATO membership remains a strong and effective deterrent for those who have joined, but it is not in our interest to expand this umbrella further if that means direct confrontation with Russia.
The price of peace in Ukraine is affordable and our greatest hope remains a negotiated settlement. This can be based firmly on the positive principles of neutrality, economic development and self-determination. Russia went to war to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. A settlement will require guarantees of Ukrainian neutrality like those agreed to by Austria in 1956.
Moscow can have no legitimate security objections to Ukraine joining the European Union—just as neutral Austria did almost 20 years ago. EU membership for Ukraine should be a clearly stated condition of any agreement to end the war, as should specific commitments from major Western nations to help fund Ukraine's reconstruction. Likewise, the West would need to dismantle its economic sanctions regime against the Russian economy and leadership. Self-determination is a long-cherished American principle. Let us have a ceasefire and a UN-supervised referendum to determine if the people of Crimea and eastern Ukraine really do want to join the Russian Federation. The people of Quebec and Scotland were given an opportunity to vote on their political future. Why not the Ukrainians?
Russia is winning a war of attrition that relentlessly drains Ukraine's manpower and NATO's arsenal, but we still have time to reach a compromise. A year from now Putin may well be able to demand the Russian-speaking cities of Kharkiv and Odesa, as well as the eastern provinces he already claims. It is in our own interest to help Ukraine negotiate a settlement rather than continue endorsing President Volodymyr Zelensky's maximalist demands. Would it not be better to get off the path of escalation now, before unanticipated events spark another full blown Cuban Missile Crisis?
David H. Rundell is the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroadsand a former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command who spent 15 years working the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
