John F. Kennedy’s “A Strategy of Peace,” Crafted in Response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, is a Hopeful Lesson for This Moment

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. — President John F. Kennedy

Many point to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as a fitting historical analogy for examining the war in Ukraine and the nuclear brinksmanship that is unfolding between Russia and the United States.?

Finding an off-ramp to today’s crisis through that analogy will be challenging, however.?Rather than deescalating a dangerous Cold War nuclear standoff, the U.S. and Russia are already on opposing sides of a very hot war. A brutal invasion has occurred. Successful counterattacks are in progress. Millions have been displaced. Tens of thousands have been killed and many more injured. Devastation is widespread. Debilitating sanctions are in place, with more to come. Russia’s “red line” against further NATO expansion has been crossed. What’s more, whatever justifiable grievances the Russian side might have had before its invasion have been voided by the murder, rape, and other war crimes its invading forces have perpetrated on the population that Russia purported to liberate. It is hard to imagine any outcome in Ukraine that doesn’t result in one side or the other’s current conception of a humiliating defeat.

Another even more ominous path to nuclear escalation is looming, however, and averting it will require masterful leadership and diplomacy off the battlefield.

I’m referring to the rapidly unfolding scenario where Vladimir Putin does not have a way to back down while staying in power, meaning he’d lose his position, his money and maybe even his life. Putin, like all U.S. adversaries, saw what happened to Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and their families after U.S. intervention drove them from power in Iraq and Libya. Does anyone doubt Putin will resort to every option to avoid such a deadly fate, including his nuclear option?

What’s more, even if Putin were to fall without first pushing the nuclear button, we should want to avoid a dramatically weakened or failed Russian state that leaves thousands of unsecured nuclear missiles in its wake. The devils we don’t know could easily be worse than the devil we currently know too well.

It is to better address this larger threat that I hope U.S. and Russian leaders can avoid having to relive (and, through dumb luck, survive) something like the Cuban Missile Crisis and, instead, jump straight to the hard-earned lessons their predecessors, U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, learned from that near nuclear-Armageddon experience.?

Kennedy, in response to diplomatic overtures from Khrushchev in the aftermath of the Cuban crisis, crystallized his learnings in a commencement address at American University in June 1963. The address, titled “A Strategy of Peace,” is regarded by many as Kennedy’s most important speech. The most meaningful review came from Khrushchev himself, who called it “the greatest speech by any American President since?[Franklin Delano]?Roosevelt.”

The following excerpt is especially relevant for this moment. It remains as true today as it was in Kennedy’s time—just substitute the word “Russian” for “Communist.”?

Here's a transcript of the excerpt:

• "Let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
• "Let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.
• "We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists' interest to agree on a genuine peace."
• "Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy--or of a collective death-wish for the world." (Emphasis added)

Kennedy’s speech was more than an exemplar of rhetorical eloquence. It was a diplomatic move calculated to gain Soviet and U.S. domestic support for continued easing of Cold War tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was no easy task, as hawks on both sides saw the Cuban episode as rationale for escalation, not easing. Both Kennedy and?Khrushchev?knew that any gesture toward peace would be attacked in their own countries as weakness and appeasement, with potentially huge personal political cost. (Kennedy was so mindful of domestic resistance that he crafted the speech with a small circle of trusted advisors, without the usual interdepartmental review and advance publicity.) The result proved pivotal to gaining Soviet acceptance and U.S. Senate ratification of 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—an agreement that just a few months earlier seemed completely unimaginable.

The full speech well worth watching and sharing . The full text is available here .

Kennedy accomplished what Jeffrey Sachs, the noted economist and author, called “one of the greatest acts of world leadership in the modern era." An excellent retrospective produced by American University highlights key elements of his success. Professor Sach’s book, “To Move the World; JFK’s Quest for Peace ,” is an excellent deeper analysis.?

Sitting where we sit today, given Ukraine’s valorous defense and striking counteroffensive, “total victory” for our side—including the toppling of Vladimir Putin—might feel like both within reach and justice well served. But, those with the responsibilities of leadership rather than punditry must be honest with themselves (and with us). Total victory must be more smartly defined and worked towards—as Kennedy was honest with those of his time. Putin might withdraw from Ukraine but he won't retreat from the Kremlin.

We need an act of leadership even greater than Kennedy’s. We need an act of leadership to create the context for and successfully negotiate an outcome that completes and secures the well-earned defense of Ukraine while avoiding a defeat so deadly for Vladimir Putin that he must refuse it, and resort instead to his “relatively invulnerable” nuclear forces.

That feels unpalatable. Yet, it must be tried. For, as Kennedy said, “we must deal with the world as it is,” avert “the bankruptcy of our policy,” and not succumb to a “collective death-wish for the world.”