US might soon face new Cuban missile crisis

US might soon face new Cuban missile crisis

The recent seizure of a North Korean freighter carrying Cuban,
nuclear-capable SA-2 missile components for refurbishment has
resurrected the spectre of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Richard Fisher, a military affairs specialist, explained the
significance of the shipment, which was captured in the Panama Canal:
"North Korea, a country soon to be in a position to export nuclear
warhead armed ballistic missiles, now has a missile relationship with Cuba."
Fisher said the shipment was part of a Cuban-North Korean military
cooperation effort to upgrade each country's SA-2s with advanced
tracking electronics.
It was an SA-2 that downed an American U-2 on May 1, 1960, while
undertaking a high-altitude reconnaissance over the then Soviet Union.
But officials fearing some sort of modern-day Cuban Missile Crisis could
only have been relieved to find out that what Cuba describes as an
assortment of antique Soviet weapons discovered aboard the ship –buried
under 255,000 sacks of brown sugar - are more suited to a Cold War
museum than they are to being used as weapons in the 21st century.
The missile components, however, were undeclared, resulting in the
Panamanian seizure, which reportedly was prompted by a tip of drugs
being on board the ship.
Since then, the SA-2 has been modified to make it more capable.
The SA-2 and its radar is "still in use in a lot of countries," said
James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, "and
progressive upgrades to the radars and the missiles means it is not
completely useless."
Cuba says the weapons, which were en route to North Korea for repairs,
are "obsolete." And experts who identified early Cold War relics like
the Soviet-designed SA-2 air defense system among the ship's cargo say
that's not far from the truth.
But North Korea and Cuba, isolated communist allies and trading partners
since the Cold War, aren't modern countries, to say the least – and
after years of sanctions and embargoes there are few places at their
disposal to obtain new weapons, according to experts.

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http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_07_23/New-Cuban-missile-crisis-0559/