| Its more like, sometimes both sides want to make some sort of concession to the
other, in order to defuse the situation -- but it is politically impossible for
them to do so in public, either because of their domestic political situation,
or because of the loss of face they would sustain in the international
arena.
In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Russians initially did not believe
Kennedy would stand up to them, but he did -- effectively taking both countries
to the brink of war. In fact there were several incidents that could have
easily sparked that war, and it was only through sheer luck that the situation
was defused before that happened. After giving their ultimatum, there was no
possible way for the U.S. to back down on their stance that the missiles had to
be removed from Cuba, and that any nuclear launch from Cuba on any western
nation would be interpreted by the U.S. as a direct attack on the U.S. by
Russia. The Russians had similarly boxed themselves in by the public stance
they had taken. Also there was some misunderstanding on both sides of the
intentions and mettle of the opponents.
In the secret negotiations, the U.S.
was able to offer Russia a bone -- agreement to remove NATO missiles from Turkey
that the U.S. didn't care much about anyway, but that Russia was quite bothered
about. For Kennedy's government to offer this publically would have been
political suicide, so they offered it in secret and did it quietly, months after
the end of the crisis. Russia still came out of it looking foolish, but without
that secret concession there would have been no deal at all and World War III
would have surely begun.
htt
p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis#Secret_negotiations [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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