Theland, are you really as naïve as your statement regarding the Cuban crisis, suggests? You make it sound as if it was just an argument between two countries. Had the conflict developed into full scale war between Russia and the USA, the world would have been annihilated. Did you know for example that during the crisis, American and UK nuclear armed bombers were constantly flying to and from the Russian borders?. At all times there were aircraft in the air with the pilots knowing their targets awaiting instructions to bomb every city and major town in Russia. It was only due to Khrushchev backing down that they didn't. It was also fortuitous that Kennedy chose to blockade Cuba rather than invade. He didn't know at the time that Russian troops were already in Cuba and Khrushchev had decided if the Americans invaded then he would carry out a nuclear strike first. There were many incidents during the cold war where nuclear conflict could have happened, because they didn't take place it's easy to look back in retrospect and say those days weren't as dangerous as the present time.