As the relationship between Russia and the United States deteriorates, the chances of war at some point in the future continues to increase. And the increasing tension in the Ukraine underlines the potential for escalation between the two nations. The stand-off between Russia and the EU / NATO establishment in the Ukraine has demonstrated, and increased, the possibility of this unsavory prospect developing in the future. Vast military forces Although many political and military analysts will not entertain the possibility of a war between the United States and Russia at present, the fact that such large numbers of military forces are operating in proximity to one another will undoubtedly keep this possibility alive. All that would be required would be some unfortunate form of miscommunication, and the situation between the United States and Russia could become terminal very rapidly. While many people would not wish to contemplate such an eventuality, it is notable that there is a historical precedent for this occurrence. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a by now infamous period in US history, Russia and the United States came extremely close to a conflict that could have had phenomenally deadly consequences. On October 27, 1962, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph nearly prompted an international incident from which it would have been almost impossible to recover. It was only the intervention of Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, stationed on the Soviet submarine B-59, that prevented soviet submarines from firing nuclear weapons. Had this occurred, a full-scale nuclear conflict was almost inevitable, and indeed former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara has since recognised that Arkhipov played a major role in saving the world, stating that “we came very close" to nuclear war, "closer than we knew at the time”. This underlines how feasible it is for conflict between nations to get out of hand, and also... More