A nation must think before it acts.
Dan Drezner, who has a blog at the Washington Post, is correct to caution the foreign policy commentariat from not overblowing comparisons between the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and current Russian-American tensions over Syria today, noting that the “conflict in Syria lacks the tight coupling between initial clash and escalation to full-blown nuclear war that the Cuban missile crisis did.” Nevertheless, like former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul or former head of MI6 John Sawers, I agree that we are facing a realistic prospect for a clash between Moscow and Washington.