Battle lines

The nuclear brinkmanship of 1962 has clear parallels with Vladimir Putin’s reckless behaviour in Ukraine 60 years on.

- PETER GRACE

ABYSS: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, by Max Hastings (HarperCollins, $37.99) Max Hastings' newest book has been written in time for the 60th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in October and November of 1962, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. But his timing is better matched by the increasingly bellicose warnings from the Putin regime threatening the tactical use of nukes in the event of a major attack on Russian territory.

In the 2022 version, humiliation seems to be the main driver, backed by the calculation that an unequivocal loss to Russia is an existential loss to Putin himself.

Where Hastings' Abyss is particularly useful is in highlighting how much language plays a central part in such conflict. Here he is describing Krushchev's view around the time of the construction of the Berlin Wall: "The Russians were dismissive of American talk of 'controlled escalation', 'massive retaliation' - they believed that subtle nuances of nuclear strategy were unrealistic, and they were almost certainly right. They talked of 'prospective victory' only because they believed that it was essential to use such language, to convince Americans that they themselves would not flinch from a nuclear showdown."