In Kiev, when our plane landed there, we were hustled onto the tarmac to watch a military demonstration. Soviet troops were massing in the south of Russia and Washington believed they might be sent to Egypt. Whether that was true or not remains unknown, but what was known was the tension between the Soviets and the US was escalating. Washington had declared DEFCON 3 in response to what the CIA believed was a Soviet decision to move nuclear weapons to Egypt. Then, the possibility of a US-Soviet war was looming. In October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, I was in the Soviet Union. In the 1973 Arab-Israel (Yom Kippur) war, the US supported Israel but stayed away from direct armed involvement so as not to get into a hot war with the Soviet Union. In the Vietnam war, the US directly avoided provoking China.
In the Korean War, for example, the Yalu River was the US no-go line to avoid a head-on fight with China.Įven after China sent “volunteers” into Korea, the US held back on any direct battle in China’s territory, although some military leaders, General Douglas MacArthur among them, wanted to use atomic weapons on China - 34 of them to be exact. The Great Powers - namely the US, Russia (before USSR) and China - have generally tried to avoid direct conflict with each other. Whether it is Taiwan or a clash elsewhere, for example in the Miyako Strait or the South China Sea, the question arises whether such a kinetic conflict would be limited, or would end up in a general war. There is growing global speculation that the possibility is rising for a US war with China with the focus on Taiwan.
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