Analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis Essay

Thirteen days. For some, it seemed like a lifetime. Thirteen days. For others, it was the scariest moments of their lives. Just thirteen short days to prevent a nuclear war. After Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government, he turned Cuba into a communist regime. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decided to provide Cuba with Soviet aid. Soon after, The United States found evidence of nuclear missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an important time in both Cuban and American history. Castro’s Cuba was just the beginning, things then started to intensify with Soviet aid, and culminated with the United States responding to end it all.

The closest the world has come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. This was the tense cold war opposition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States

This Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the biggest events in American history. After World War II, much of Europe was left in ruins. Europe had been divided into two sections: eastern and western by the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union and many new governments in Eastern Europe were communists, controlling everything from businesses to schools and people. As a result, the Cold War began with the Soviet Union and the United States became rivals competing to recruit other countries to their side.

What was the Cuban Missile Crisis? Many people have heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and may have learned about it during school, but they do not know the nitty gritty details of the whole fiasco. The CMC was the first threat of a nuclear world war. The real “crisis” was between the United States and the Soviet Union and not Cuba. Cuba played a relatively small role in the grand scheme of it all and was basically the field on which the two powerhouses played on. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most tense 13 days that the world has ever known and had the possibility of completely disintegrating the world we know today. In this paper we will learn exactly what happened.

In his article, “The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Marc Trachtenberg considers three historical approaches to the role that nuclear arms played during the 1962 conflict: first, the view that nuclear arms played no role at all, with U.S. and Soviet weapons cancelling each other out, second, the interpretation that the risk involved with nuclear warfare heavily influenced policy making, and finally the view that the strategic imbalance of nuclear force, characterized by a substantial American advantage, significantly impacted the outcome of the crisis. In weighing the three interpretations, Trachtenberg dismisses the first in supporting the existence of the second, using a variety of primary sources to identify instances when decision-makers were influenced by the risk of nuclear warfare. The focus of the article, however, is on advancing and complicating the third approach, which Trachtenberg claims is congruous with the second. In this third section, Trachtenberg advances the approach that the imbalance of nuclear capabilities impacted Soviet strategy but not American decision making. Accordingly, Trachtenberg’s article is characterized by two central claims: that risk of nuclear war influenced policy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and that American nuclear superiority disproportionately affected Soviet decision-making.

Thirteen days in October of 1962 changed the course of the World in the nuclear age forever. The Cuban Missile Crisis represents the closest brink of mutual nuclear destruction the World has ever been close to reaching. The leadership in place throughout the crisis is critical to the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three men dominated the nations involved in the crisis and captivated citizens of all corners of the world. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy of the United States, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro dominated the airwaves and news circuits leading up to the infamous crisis, which put the three leaders and nations in a cold silence of misperceptions, miscommunications, and unprecedented

US foreign policy in Latin America is greatly influenced by its interactions with Cuba during the late fifties. With the efforts of Fidel and Raul Castro, and other Marxist revolutionaries such as Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, the corrupt and tyrannical caudillo

Cuba is the country best known for being at the center of the Cold War conflict between the U.S. and Russia because of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union’s strategy, and the anticipated U.S. response to the Russian strategy, is described in an October 19, 1962 telegram from Andrei Gromyko, Russia’s Foreign Minister, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Virtual Archive]. The Central Committee was the highest organization within communist Russia. Gromyko seems to have written the telegram to inform the Central Committee that the Russian strategy in aligning itself with Cuba seemed to be working. In the telegram Gromyko expressed his belief that “a USA military adventure against Cuba is almost impossible to imagine” because of “assurances given to us that the USA has no plans for in Cuba (which undeniably commits them in many respects)” (Gromyko). Instead, Gromyko believed that the U.S. efforts would be to try weakening Cuba by obstructing its economy, thinking that over the long term Russia would not be able to continue supporting Cuba with foreign aid in order to offset U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba (Gromyko).

The fear of nuclear war between the nations of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba only intensified the Cold War. Cuba, who was already struggling with the huge transition of becoming communist, was not at all prepared for the possible war. Along with, the United States who were still dealing with controlling the spread of communism. The events of the Cuban Missile was the closest the world has ever gotten to a nuclear war. Its aftermath resulted in measures to make sure these events were not repeated.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the only devastating event in U.S. to ever bring the country into DEFCON-2. Ever since World War 2, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been rivals(Jeffery, Riley, 4). The Soviets later aligned themselves with the small country of Cuba. It is a small piece of land in enemy territory, but it is very important to them because they have to protect their allies at all times. For this reason, The USSR placed missiles in Cuba to keep them prepared for an invasion. In 1962, The two huge superpowers brought the Cold War to a nuclear crisis in Cuba which led to DEFCON-2, the closest point to a nuclear war(The Choices Program)

Good afternoon today I will be talking about how the proper role of the Federal government is to give liberty to the people. Liberty is best expressed through the events of the Cuban missile crisis, traditionalism vs. modernism, and block party and countercultural events.

During the Cuba missile crisis near every newspaper and radio station would talk about how the end of the world on the brink of destruction. Because of this many people around this time lived in fear and felt the world was going to end. The effects of the Cuba missile crisis didn’t just affect the two nations its effects also had major effects on the people of these nations, the world, and the countries themselves. These effects only truly made the world change when it was too late. The effects that the Cuba missile crisis left on the people of these nations consisted of fear, panic, and enough paranoia to scary the entire world. It also affected the world as other counties would do anything

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. The crisis was a major confrontation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The confrontation was caused by the Soviets putting missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States of America. The world was in the hands of President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khruchchev. These two men would have to reach a compromise or else the results would be fatal.

In order to understand the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis in American history one must first understand the Cold War drama, Castro’s rise to power, and the American operations that set up the crisis. “The term Cold War refers

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a frightening moment for the entire world. It started October 14th, 1962 after the Soviet Union planted nuclear missiles inn Cuba. The U.S. found out that these missiles were being planted without their knowledge, but the Soviet Union continued the construction of these nuclear missile sites, even after President Kennedy, the president of the U.S., sent out a warning against these weapons in Cuba. Even after this warning, Kennedy once again found out that the construction was still happening. Following the discovery of the ongoing construction, Kennedy wanted to meet with people at the White House to solve the problem that they were encountering. There were multiple sides during their talk about the missiles. Some of the people at the meeting wanted to take a more aggressive approach and destroy these missiles and then follow up with an attack. Kennedy eventually decided to quarantine Cuba. After Kennedy quarantined Cuba, there were many messages sent between the White House and the Kremlin to try and solve the problem. The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted for thirteen extremely tense days. At the end of these thirteen days, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with an agreement between the United States and Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis greatly impacted history. It strengthened the bond between the United States and Soviet Union, showed people how to come to a