Today's events vs the Cuban missile crisis

[gadje]

I was not around during the Cuban missile crisis. I am curious how the current tension between US and Russia compares to the tension back then.

[bazookaman]

Me too. I'd like to know. B/c I'm pretty much freaking out right now.

[Wags]

I remember being much more freaked about about the Cuban crisis. Likely from all the air raid drills, as if getting under a school desk was going to protect against an atomic bomb.

[testcase]

JFK had balls......... :boink:

[Lemon Drop]

The fear was greater because it was happening close to the US mainland. The target was us, not some small eastern European nation thousands of miles away.

And at that time the American public had been primed to fear or despise the USSR as a rival super power.

We've spent the past 25 years either feeling sorry for Russia in their weakened economic state, or cozying up to their social conservatism and autocracy.

Putin as a throwback not just to Soviet times but to imperialist Mother Russia of the Tsars is just confusing and weird I think to many Americans.

[Todd's keyboard]

Wife and I are going to a thrift store to shop for a couple of old school desks.

Todd's hopes-he-will-still-fit board

[rgG]

Wags wrote:
I remember being much more freaked about about the Cuban crisis. Likely from all the air raid drills, as if getting under a school desk was going to protect against an atomic bomb.

I was just a kid during the Cuban crisis, but the fallout shelter drills and films about duck and cover seemed to go on for years after.
I remember learning how effective different materials were at blocking radiation and how you needed to stock your backyard underground bunker.
And yes, getting under your desk, what a joke.
Even then, as a kid, I remember thinking that the best place to be in the event of an all out nuclear war was ground zero of the first bomb.

[S. Pupp]

Wags wrote:
I remember being much more freaked about about the Cuban crisis. Likely from all the air raid drills, as if getting under a school desk was going to protect against an atomic bomb.

Don't forget, though - all you had to do to protect yourself from 1950's radiation was to cover yourself with newspaper. There's no escaping 2022 radiation. Something to do with Obama, I think they said on Fox News.

[August West]

As LD mentioned, the US socioculture was far different. Also, the development of nuclear weapons was nascent. In regard to nuclear, I'm waiting for tactile nukes in-theater to be released before the entire planet goes to nuclear winter.

[SteveG]

I think that Putin will 'test' a hypersonic missile with a nuclear warhead into some distant region of Russia, with the resulting free air explosion.

'Just a test'
(Plus it sounds crazy enough for his adviser Trump have recommended it. 'Got a spare hurricane you're not using?')