in the cold war, nuclear confrontation happened where?

Answer 1

The closest we came was when Cuba parked some ICBMs 90 miles south of us. We were at at nuclear threat and had missiles targeted on them and the Soviet Union. This is the closest we came to launching in any conflict. President Kennedy held firm and the Soviets removed the missiles.

Answer 2

The power to extinguish life on the planet has hung over our heads since that December 2nd day in 1942 when the first controlled nuclear fission under direction of scientist Enricco Fermi marked the beginning of nuclear haulocaust potention. We stand at 5 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock and are a hairs breath away from utter destruction. Consider the following:

Oct. 27, 1962 - a Soviet submarine officer named Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov reportedly refused to comply with the launch of a nuclear warhead while apparently under attack by a U.S. warship near Cuba. In order to initiate such an attack, Soviet naval procedures stated that the captain and two other officers must concur. The other officer on duty agreed to the launch, but Arkhipov conviced the captain to wait for instructions from Moscow before proceeding.

October 24, 1973, as the Yom Kippur War was winding down, a Soviet threat to intervene on Egypt's behalf caused the United States to go to DEFCON 3.

November 9 ,1979, when the US made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD saw on-screen indications that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. Early warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place. A computer system test had caused the display errors and caused the absolute panic at NORAD.

Sept 26, 1983 Colonel Stanislav Petrov had 2-3 minutes to respond to 5 incoming nuclear warheads from the US according to his early warning system alarms. Against protocols, he did not push the button and did not notify his superiors, who would have most probably launched a counter-attack. The "rocket launches" were later found to be sun rays bouncing off of high altitude clouds.

Nov 1983, the USSR mistook a test of NATO's nuclear-release procdures as a fake cover for a NATO attack and subsequently raised its nuclear alert level. It wasn't till afterward that the US realized how close it had come to nuclear war.

Jan. 25, 1995 - Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitsbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. This was the first time in history that the Russian suitcase carrying the codes was activated.

Then there's the nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan.

Answer 3

It has come to light in recent years that Israel seriously considered using some of their nuclear weapons during The 1973 Yom Kippur War with Egypt. In that war, Israel was taken by surprise by the Egyptians and were totally unprepared for action. Israel suffered such serious early losses that a furious secret debate occured within the Israeli power structure as to whether or not use nuclear weapons to repel the Egyptians. The vote came close to using them. The Israelis succeeded in rallying their defenses and then overwhelmed the Egyptian invaders without using nuclear weapons.

Answer 4

Cuba