ANOTHER CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS?

The secret deal that ended the 1962 standoff involved the USSR publicly agreeing to remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba, with the USA subsequently removing some obsolete missiles from Turkey.

There are more modern missiles in Turkey, and the heirs to Khrushchev, heck, to the Romanovs, aren't pleased.

The U.S. repeatedly has said the European missile-defense system is designed to fend off an attack by Iran, but Russia has insisted that the system would blunt its own arsenal. Moscow has proposed to jointly operate the missile shield, but NATO has rejected the offer.

No automatic alliance with Cuba to provoke an arms reduction agreement by basing missiles there, and no Ronald Reagan to consider joint use of a strategic defense system, which elicited no end of scorn from Democrats when he proposed to do so.