The Cuban Missile Crisis: An In Vivo Decision-Making Laboratory
The 1962 crisis was an in vivo thought experiment conducted on the organism of civilization. It tests the resilience of procedures and the illusions regarding the rationality of systems armed with nuclear technology. Thanks to the analysis by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, this event became the foundation of decision theory, offering three lenses: the Rational Actor Model, Organizational Processes, and Bureaucratic Politics. Readers will discover how the collision of these logics shapes the survival of the species.
Model I: The Limits of Rationality in the Monolithic State
Model I assumes that the state is a unified entity maximizing utility. Through this lens, Kennedy and Khrushchev: a calculation of gains and losses explains the course of the crisis. The USSR rationally defended Cuba and sought to correct the missile imbalance, while the US chose a blockade as an intermediate option. However, this elegant picture is a "cheap approximation" that ignores the limits of rationality—cognitive biases and the lack of full information.
Model II: Organizational Routine Paralyzes Policy
Model II reminds us that the government is a federation of organizations operating according to standard operating procedures. This is why bureaucratic logic dictated the course of the 1962 crisis: Soviet engineers failed to camouflage the missiles because they built them according to standard USSR blueprints. Meanwhile, the American Air Force, instead of a "surgical strike," proposed a full-scale invasion because their doctrine demanded it.
Model III: The Power Struggle Within the State Apparatus
Model III portrays the state as an arena for power struggles within the government apparatus. Decisions are not the plan of a master strategist but the outcome of bargaining between players. Kennedy had to balance between hawks in Congress and his generals, building coalitions. Presidential power proved to be, in essence, the power of persuasion rather than simply issuing orders.
Artificial Intelligence Destabilizes Deterrence
Introducing AI into nuclear systems promises full rationality but, in practice, creates black boxes: the opacity of command systems. Algorithms can generate false alarms, shortening the time for political consultations. The integration of AI with NC3 means that machine-written routines can produce escalatory signals beyond human control, making the system more fragile.
Allison’s Aporias: Theoretical Gaps in the Three Models
Allison’s models contain aporias: the totalization of rationality (ignoring minor errors), organizational fetishism, and the temptation of cynicism. Furthermore, the US, Europe, and the Arab World: a geopolitics of memory shows that the crisis is interpreted differently—from a myth of success to a memento of dependency. Nuclear war: paradoxes of law and economics reveals that in the face of annihilation, classic cost calculations and legal norms fail. This was the era that gave rise to modern pop culture and dread: the birth of the apocalyptic imagination.
Summary
In the era of algorithms and automation, will the Cuban Missile Crisis remain merely a warning from the past, or will it become a self-fulfilling prophecy unfolding before our eyes? Perhaps it is time we stopped treating history as a dataset for analysis and started experiencing it as a lesson in humility? For is it not in humility, rather than in algorithms, that the key to survival lies?
📄 Full analysis available in PDF