America’s Missing Brinkman

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Today marks sixty-two years since the start of the Cuban missile crisis. I first learned of it by?reading a game theory book called “Thinking Strategically.” This incident is told many times in negotiation courses in global MBA programs. The crisis started when the Soviet Union, in response to the Kennedy administration positioning nuclear-armed missiles in Turkey, put similar arms in Cuba.

John F. Kennedy's genius was a negotiation tactic called brinkmanship. It is where one pushes a situation to the verge of conflict to achieve a favorable outcome. Kennedy threatened to escalate the Cold War into a nuclear confrontation if the Soviets did not remove their missiles from Cuba. After a tense standoff that lasted about fifteen days, the crisis ended with both sides agreeing to pull their missiles. This maneuver allowed the war between the superpowers to remain "cold" for decades. Twenty-nine years later, riddled by its dichotomies, the Soviet Union collapsed. In the meantime, several hot proxy wars were waged between the two superpowers, most notably Vietnam and Afghanistan. ?

For the past few years, there was the thinking inside Israel that if the Iranian regime were ever to acquire a nuclear bomb, they would pose an existential risk to the Jewish State. Iran, on the other hand, had created Hizballah to act as a security guarantee to make sure Israel does not attack them while they build their nuclear arsenal.

A year after the October 7 massacre and Hizballah’s solidarity with Hamas?through bombings of Israel’s north, Netanyahu decapitated Hizballah by killing Hassan Nasrallah as well as maiming its body through the pager attacks. And as of today, the world awaits an Israeli attack on Iran – following the latter’s attack. Iran is widely to blame for arming Hamas and belligerence against Israel. Reports say that Israel won’t attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, but it would make more sense for them to do so and end any potential threat to their nation.

Hostiles look to negotiation when fighting fails to bring peace. ?After all, the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 to effect regime change in Cuba might have had something to do?with the US using a different course during the missile crisis. Today, the Netanyahu government believes that they can end terrorism and keep their occupation going forever, and they are using their full force to that effect. As the post-9/11 war on terror showed, the Israelis are also likely to fail.

Game theoretical equilibriums can exist when there is a balance of power. If Iran did have a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it, Israel would not attack it but rather engage in negotiations – soft or brinkmanship-like. One argument goes that if Ukraine never gave away its nuclear weapons, Russia would not have invaded it.

The delicate equilibrium can hold when only two players are involved, each with the power to destroy the other—a condition that helped preserve peace during the Cold War. However, when multiple parties with mutual hostilities acquire nuclear weapons, the situation becomes increasingly unstable. The genius of Camelot’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis may not be replicable in such a scenario, where complexity and the risk of miscalculation make any brinkmanship maneuver far more dangerous.

This might explain why an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites is more likely than not. From there, a nightmare scenario might emerge. The United States' two major theatre war standards mean that the American armed forces can wage two wars in parallel. One of them is Ukraine and Russia; the second would be to help Israel against Iran, but what if China, maneuvering around Taiwan, decides to take over the island?

We are living in difficult times. What we need now more than ever is a commitment to diplomacy and negotiation?rather than resorting to "hot" wars. The lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis should remind us that strong, strategic leadership?can pull us back from the brink. We need leadership from the free world—especially from the United States—to foster dialogue, de-escalate tensions, and navigate the complexities of our world teetering on the edge.

May God help the innocent civilians who are caught on both sides and have mercy on the ones who will likely die because of the lack of strong American leadership…

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