October 16, 2007 (LPAC)--This month is the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Missiles Crisis, when the Cold War superpowers went to the brink of strategic thermonuclear war. The stalemate in last week's 2+2 talks between Russian and American defense and foreigners, about the Bush Administration's plan to put strategic radars and anti-missile missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, prompted Novosti information agency's military analyst Nikita Petrov to put out a bone-chilling commentary today, under the headline "A Caribbean Crisis for Europe" -- "Caribbean Crisis" being the conventional Russian name for the Cuban Missiles Crisis.

The lead paragraph gives the gist of Petrov's column:

"The current crisis in Russian-American relations is reminiscent, in certain essential features, of the infamous Caribbean Crisis of 1962. Only then, it was the Soviet Union that had brought its missiles up towards the borders of the USA, while today it is the USA that has decided, under the pretext of building ABM systems, to emplace its missiles around the borders of Russia. The crisis at that time, as is well known, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. How will the current crisis end? In 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchov were able to reach agreement at the last minute. Will the White House and the Kremlin be able to find a common language now?"

Petrov went on to repeat the arguments that Russian military analysts, as well as officials, have given: that the ABM systems in Central Europe will be up-gradable in such a way, as to threaten Russia's strategic deterrent. He also noted some of Russia's threatened counter-measures, such as targetting the Polish and Czech facilities with their own missiles.

"Is it really necessary," asked Petrov, "to take relations between our two countries to a situation like the Caribbean Crisis, if it is already now clear what the consequences can be, of ignoring each other's security interests?"