In their Oct. 12 article published in Responsible Statecraft, “How Did We Avoid a Cuban Missile `Armageddon’? Strategic Empathy,” columnists James Carden and Katrina vanden Heuval offer a useful review of how President John Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev were able to peacefully resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 through a number of factors, chief among which was “strategic empathy in the formulation and practice of foreign affairs.”
The authors note the relevance for today the fact that the two leaders were able to empathize with the position of the other, enabling “both countries and the world, to weather the storm.” This stands in stark contrast to the U.S., the U.K., and NATO’s warmongering approach toward Russia today in their conflict in Ukraine against Russia, where there’s no sign of strategic empathy, only a drive to nuclear war.
In 1962, Kennedy was under enormous pressure by hardline civilian and military advisers to act militarily, which he resisted. Robert Kennedy’s memoirs, published posthumously, reported that the President’s controversial decision to allow the Soviet tanker, the Bucharest, to proceed past the U.S. naval blockade was made because, “against the advice of many of his advisers and of the military, he had decided to give Khrushchev more time. `We don’t want to push him into a precipitous action—give him more time to consider. I don’t want to push him into a corner from which he cannot escape,’” the President said.
