Editor's note:
Jorge Dávila Miguel has a degree in Journalism since 1973 and has maintained a continuous career in his profession to date.
He has postgraduate degrees in Social Information Sciences and Social Media, as well as postgraduate studies in International Relations, Political Economy and Latin American History.
Currently, Dávila Miguel is a columnist for El Nuevo Herald on the McClatchy network, and a political analyst and columnist for CNN en Español.
The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.
See more at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) --
60 years have passed and Europe is on the verge of a war in which, once again, Moscow and Washington are the main adversaries.
The press cites the Cuban missile crisis, or the October crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, and compares them.
You are right, they are essentially the same thing.
In 1962, the USSR learned of its nuclear weakness against the United States and alerted the Cuban government that an invasion against their country was being prepared, so they agreed to place nuclear missiles just 90 miles from the United States.
Now, in 2022, it is the United States, through NATO and with Ukrainian consent, that could place missiles (even if they are not nuclear), other equipment and ammunition very close to the Russian border, again making Russia weaker. Moscow.
It is the same, but in reverse.
In the crisis of 1962, the US Armed Forces were on combat alert, ready to invade Cuba.
In 2022, the Russian Armed Forces are in combat readiness, a few miles from the Ukrainian border, ready to invade Ukraine, although Russia has never admitted it.
So far the similarities, fundamental.
The differences also exist.
In 1962, the possible confrontation threatened the territory of the United States.
In 2022, the conflict would take place in Europe, far from the US, although in its capacity as military leader of NATO it commits it worldwide, especially after Afghanistan.
In 1962, it was a casus belli between two world superpowers, and they resolved it only among themselves, leaving Cuba out, and Fidel Castro with wounded national pride.
why sell?
Since the 1970s, the USSR has been supplying fuels to Europe through oil and gas pipelines.
Currently they are over 20.
In 1962, the crisis in Cuba broke out and was resolved in 13 days.
This of 2022 was conceived 30 years ago in the talks between the United States and the USSR for the reunification of Germany and its integration into NATO.
James Baker III, then US Secretary of State, promised Mikhail Gorbachev – as he recounts in his memoirs – that NATO's borders would not extend "one inch" to the Russian border.
Although an agreement was never signed.
President George Bush took the view that Baker had gone overboard on his promise and that is how the matter stayed.
Until 2008, when NATO reaffirmed its Open Doors policy in Bucharest, Romania, almost 20 years had passed and the thousands of kilometers separating Germany from nine NATO countries, all bordering the Russian Federation.
This meeting also invited Ukraine and Georgia to join.
But Germany and France indicated that they would veto such entry with the support of Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The reason?
That would be an unnecessary offense to Russia.
And so Russia remained on friendly relations with NATO. Even Putin expressed his desire to join, being secretary of the George Robertson organization, between 1999 and 2003, since Russia "was part of Europe," alleged the president. But everything got complicated in 2014, with the coup against the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, close to Moscow, and the existing Ukrainian tendency to ally with the West, that is, NATO, whose enemy seems to remain the same as it was founded in 1949. : Moscow.
And so we are.
Waiting every day what is going to happen in Europe, because the whole world will feel that war.
Moscow alleges that the history of Ukraine and Russia is one, and resists NATO's complete encirclement.
NATO says that it cannot deny a priori the integration of democratic countries that request it, according to its Open Doors policy.
In 1962 the sanity of John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev prevailed after 13 days of conflict.
In 2022, almost two months have passed since Washington recognized the danger of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, alerted by a news item in The Washington Post on December 3.
This is the main confrontation between Russia and the West since "the end" of the Cold War.
Putin cannot simply withdraw his troops without having achieved something substantial for Russia's security;
The West insists on its right to integrate any country it wants into NATO and gives no more answers to Moscow's demands on Ukraine than a radical "no".
Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron spoke this January 28 and remain as distant as ever.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Biden not to mention the war so much (if Zelensky watched American television!), as preventing the bad omen.
And he stressed that he saw no difference between today and a year ago in the complicated Russian-Ukrainian relationship.
There is a crisis here for a while.
We will continue to comment.
CubaUkraine