Perspective: The missiles of October, redux

Missiles are flying everywhere these days, it seems. China just launched its first ICBM test into the Pacific Ocean since 1980. If the U.S. gives the nod, Ukrainians may soon be launching U.K.-donated Storm Shadows, a long-range, air-launched cruise missile capable of striking more than 150 miles into Russian territory. And of course, in the Middle East, Iran launched a barrage of 181 ballistic missiles into Israeli territory, some of which may have been hypersonic.
In a rather eerie coincidence, I am discussing the Cuban missile crisis this week with my foreign policy students. In October of 1962, President John F. Kennedy faced off with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over the Soviets’ emplacement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles off the American coast. There were any number of reasons the crisis could have devolved into an all-out nuclear exchange between the two superpowers, but both men stepped back from that fateful brink, and the world breathed a sigh of relief when the “missiles of October” were laid to rest.
But it took Kennedy and Khrushchev’s personal attention and intervention to step back, in addition to the incredible bravery of one submarine officer, Vasili Arkhipov. Once operations were handed off to the national security establishment, bureaucratic drift would surely have led to escalation. Kennedy had to personally intervene with the U.S. Navy to prevent calamity, and Khrushchev had to swallow the bitter pill of personal humiliation to reverse course. Is anyone prepared to do the same today?
There is room for very cautious optimism that the lockstep of escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war may be paused by the work of the Biden administration. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, concluded a U.S. visit in mid-September that designed to secure America’s permission for Ukraine to use its Storm Shadows against Russia, but he came away empty handed — at least for now. Vladimir Putin of Russia, meanwhile, has been signaling as strongly as he possibly can that U.S. approval for use of the Storm Shadows or the U.S.-made ATACMS would be tantamount to a declaration of war by NATO. Further, he has revised Russian nuclear doctrine to permit and justify a nuclear response to such a missile strike.
Some argue it’s all a bluff and that the U.S. should ignore Putin. Wiser heads in the administration have suggested these longer-range missiles are an escalatory “bridge too far” for the national interests of the United States and its NATO allies. It’s instructive to remember that Kennedy vetoed the more escalatory response of an air strike on Cuba in favor of a quarantine of the island. This was not a choice to quit or submit, but rather a choice not to recklessly escalate a situation with potentially horrific consequences for the whole world. And even without the air strike, Kennedy got the missiles removed from Cuba. Perhaps Biden has taken a page from Kennedy’s playbook.
The current situation in the Middle East, on the other hand, is probably headed in the direction of escalation — an escalation that many counterintuitively hope will bring de-escalation. For years now, the central question for the broader region has revolved not around what to do about Israel, but what to do about Iran. More specifically, it’s about Iran’s support for the violence and instability throughout the region, whether that be Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Shi’a in Iraq or the Houthis in Yemen. This “axis of resistance” is not just a threat to Israel, but a threat to many other states, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf States and Lebanon.
In a classic and gutsy reverse-thrust move, the body blow that Israel absorbed on Oct. 7 has been turned into the means of disabling two of Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. The recent missile attack by Iran was parried so successfully by the U.S., U.K., Jordan and Israel that only one casualty resulted from 181 missiles fired. The strike was, as Biden noted, “defeated and ineffective.”
Interestingly, it was reported that the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated, Iran exercised “self-defense” against Israel and its action is “concluded” unless the “Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation.” Given all that Israel has done to Iran’s proxies, including the assassination of Hezbollah’s leadership and the assassination of a top Hamas leader while he was in Iran, this is an amazing statement. This completely ineffective, limited, one-time missile strike, with a public announcement that the strike was “concluded,” is, for Iran, a clear de-escalatory step. It is a step back from the brink.
However, the crisis is by no means over. The next move is Israel’s to make. There are already voices calling for Israel to retaliate by completely destroying Iran’s oil facilities, nuclear facilities and military facilities in a massive escalatory strike. The rationale given is several-fold: such a strike would presumably push Iran’s timetable for the deployment of nuclear weapons back considerably, the timing of the strike would ensure the American president was a lame duck unable to take steps to curb Israel, and a truly massive strike might catalyze the overthrow of the Iranian theocracy.
Naftali Bennett, former president of Israel, summed up this view: “We must act now to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime. We have the justification. We have the tools. Now that Hezbollah and Hamas are paralyzed, Iran stands exposed.” The assumption, then, is that this escalation would so hobble Iran that regional de-escalation of conflict would be the result.
I am not so sure, and neither, thankfully, is Biden, who has warned Israel against a disproportionate response.
But then, the problem has always been that the conflict is existential. Theories of deterrence in international relations were not built for conflicts where the right to exist is in play. Until and unless that right is assured, all bets are off. I am reminded of the scene in the movie “Independence Day,” where the U.S. president addresses one of the aliens, saying, “We can find a way to coexist. Can there be peace between us?” The alien responds, “Peace? No peace.” President: “What is it you want us to do?” Invader: “Die.”
This is a fateful moment in world affairs. The missiles of October threaten once more, and it is by no means clear that this time we will be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief at all.
Valerie M. Hudson is a university distinguished professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a Deseret News contributor. Her views are her own.