Depends on perspective Clive.
The original drift of the thread was in terms of perceived threat. Where as it's undoubtedly true that the catastrophic threat of the 2 super powers kicking off against each other was......... well....... end of the world type stuff, the probability of it happening wasn't really ever that high.
The euphamism often used about the Cuban Missile crisis is that the "world held its breath". I didn't live through it, but have heard enough accounts of it for me to have no reason to believe that it wasn't true. What we were to later learn of course, was that the Americans had moved missiles in Turkey before the same things appeared in Cuba, and it was the removal of these that prompted to Soviets to do like wise. The U2 Stevenson photgraphs from 1962 incidentally, were a damned sight clearer and unequivicol than anything Colin Powell produced 40 years later.
The Soviet Union with its heavy top down command and control hierarchy was a reasonably stable regime. Indeed, it was widely regarded by both sides that the biggest danger posed was through some kind of accidental activity, which then triggered a whole host of computer generated automatic responses etc. Cuba of course led to the installation of the 'hot line' to try and minimise these risks. It's probably also no coincidence, that the largely risk averse Soviets moved to replace Kruschev shortly afterwards (you might argue the Americans did the same?) but that's a different issue :brows:
The scenario I was painting in resposne to the original question involved a "what if"? kind of thing. If we accept the concept of what Bush calls "rogue states" then the question that it poses is one of who would you regard then as the greater threat? My fear isn't so much the idea of a rogue state, (history's had plenty of them before now). Mostly such states are driven by political philosophies (some of which we find warped) but politicians tend to be more pragmatic than dogmatic, and tend to value their own survival too (as indeed Saddam tried to demonstrate).
The concept I'd be tempted to introduce is that of what I'll call a 'Martyr State' driven by an intransient religious dogma where pragmatism and compromise play second fiddle to some perceived 'calling'. In many respects you might even see it as an extension of the suicide bomber, just that it would now be being played out on a national stage by way of expanding the concept of sacrifice in the name of duty. Essentially, it would be a state that doesn't mind the consequences of retaliation, and in its most perverse form, even sees it as fulfillment. A truly shocking and dangerous prospect should it ever come to pass, I'm sure you'd agree?
I for one would not be the least bit surprised to see such a state emerge, or perhaps the more likely scenario of freelancers passing technologies, and materials into the hands of quasi autonomous republics (ungovernable regions of countries, where a radical foothold is established and evolves effectively to function as a minor republic within a supposed soverign country). It's one of the reasons why i can reconcile the Afghan situation, but not the Iraqi one, where no such threat existed.
Now if this situation were to ever occur, it would be a brave person who claimed the threat was less. For the most part, weapons have never killed anyone. They are essentially pieces of largely inanimate metal. Possession is one thing. A willingness/ prepardness, or perhaps most worryingly, enthusiasm for using them, is another. I'm sure in that context you can see what was behind my assertion? At some point in the future, when i don't know? i can easily see us having to face up to such a situation. The last time I knew there were about 25 countries in the world with some kind of nuclear weapon capacity (not to mention a host who could put one together within a couple of months). Although there's a few marginal candidates, none are what you might call dangerously dogmatic and unpredicatble as yet (although as i type that and run some of the names through my head, I'm far from certain I beleive it :laughing: )
or there's been a quick bit of fancy footwork on the part of the Government to throw up a smokescreen (shades of Madrid and ETA?).