the United Stateswould be forced to fire the first shot, inviting re-taliation. Third, a blockade would deny the tradi-tional freedom of the seas demanded by severalof our close allies and might be held illegal, inviolation of the U.N. Charter and internationallaw, unless the United States could obt,ain
Making any type of move to make sure cuba didnt fire seemed like an act of was. Everyone was just suspicious of each other they didnt want to back down just in case.
A stable nuclear balance reduces the like-lihood of nuclear attack. This proposition is de-rived from the genera1 proposition plus the as-sert.ed fact that a second-strike capability affectsthe potential attacker’s calculations by increas-ing the likelihood and the costs of one particu-lar set of consequences which might follow fromattack-namely, retaliation.(2) A stable nuclear balance increases theprobability of limited war
Its like a game of tic tac toe when you know it will end in a cats game. you cant play a game like that with someone at the same level as you. You can only win if you play a child who doesnt know the strategy.
The ProbZem. Action is chosen in responseto the strategic problem which the nation faces.Threats and opportunities arising in the “inter-national strategic market place” move the na-t,ion to act.
This could be the reason why the soviets decided to give nukes to cuba... because the US did the same thing with Turkey. The soviets felt threatened by the US for giving the missiles they decided to make the US feel the same way.
Oneof the major propositions concerns the stabilityof the balance of terror: in a situation of mu-tual deterrence, the probability of nuclear war isreduced not by the “balance” (the sheer equal-ity of the situation) but rather by the stabilityof the balance, i.e., the fact that neither oppo-nent in striking first can destroy the other’sability to strike back .2
The nuclear launch was a double edged sword because of the other sides ability to do the same damage to the other
A crisis de-cision, by a small group of men in the context ofultimate threat, this is a case of the rational pol-icy model par excellence.
A decision that could cause great reprecussions would likely not come to a unanimous decision. Just like how the 3 captions on the cuban submarine had to all agree to launch the nuclear missile at the US when they thought war started but one of them said no to the launch.
no matter who strikesfirst, each has an assured capability to retaliatewith unacceptable damage, no rational agentcould choose such a course of action (since thatchoice is effectively equivalent to choosing mu-tual homicide).
Choosing to launch a missile from either side would do more harm then good. It could have potentially ended the world. like the metaphor that was stated earlier choosing to launch was like making a sacrifice in chess. There is no other reason to make a sacrifice other then to speed up the game or to make sure they don't have a srong piece on the board even though it means you wont either.