There have been several international incidents over the last 70 years that could have provoked a nuclear response. Start the Week on BBC Radio4 this morning described some of the fraught negotiations that narrowly avoided catastrophic consequences.
The Suez crisis was a case in point. The British and French thought they could force Nasser to give up his nationalising of the Suez canal. Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, mistakenly thought they would get the backing of the US government. The deciding factor in resolving the conflict was economic, not military. Eden backed down in the face of a run on the pound.
The Cuban missile crisis saw Kennedy and Kruschev play a deadly game of chicken over the use of nuclear weapons.
People are wondering what it would take for one of the many countries that have nuclear weapons to actually launch them. Israel was sufficiently worried about Sadam Hussein’s Iraq using nuclear weapons that they bombed targets that may have been developing that capability.
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