Nuclear Testing And The Cuban Missile Crisis

As tensions continued to augment profoundly throughout the latter half of the Cold War period, they brought forth a movement from a previous bipolar conflicting course, to one of a more multipolar nature. These tensions were now not only restricted to the Soviet Union and United states, but amongst multiple other nations of the globe. It became a general consensus that a notion of ‘peace’ was sought globally, hence, the emergence of détente. The nature of this idea in the short term conveyed itself to be an act of change for the conflicting nations, however, in the long term it proved to be a blatant continuity, ultimately acting as a ‘mechanism for domestic fortification’ which prompted a more divisive tone. It became apparent that by the prime 1970’s Cold War countries were now seeking a state of relaxation in political and international tension, détente, through measures of diplomacy and negotiation. Actions, influences and treaties such as the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the establishment of SALT 1, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and the Shanghai Communique of 1972 evidently help reinforce that the concept of détente brought a period focused on lessening the tensions of international relations and ultimately achieve political relation for the future of the Cold War, although the success and impact of this era is abhorred by many historians who have concluded that détente didn’t activate any positive changes to the cold war, and was conclusively a failure.

Premier Nikita Khrushchev described it as, “The two most powerful nations had been squared off against each other, each with its finger on the button.” (Nuclear). If this other World War or massive nuclear war would have occurred, just think of where we would be today.

Since the invention of nuclear weapons, they have presented the world with a significant danger, one that was shown in reality during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, nuclear weapons have not only served in combat, but they have also played a role in keeping the world peaceful by the concept of deterrence. The usage of nuclear weapons would lead to mutual destruction and during the Cold War, nuclear weapons were necessary to maintain international security, as a means of deterrence. However, by the end of the Cold War, reliance on nuclear weapons for maintaining peace became increasingly difficult and less effective (Shultz, et. al, 2007). The development of technology has also provided increasing opportunities for states

World War III is an alarming event to ponder on right? Especially if that war would be nuclear. This event almost happened on multiple occasions, but this is going to be about a nerve-racking time in 1962. What happened in 1962 you may ask? The Cuban Missile Crisis. Just as the year was coming to an end an American spy plane took pictures of missiles in an island 103 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba. Can theorize who put the missiles there? The USSR put them there because Cuba was a neighboring communist country to the US, so if the US were to do something the USSR could shoot the missiles. Mind you, these weapons are nuclear and as we should all know that is never excellent. After this very stressful time for the US and the USSR how did

The Cold war was a time of hardships in the mid 1900s and continued having a war between the two superpowers for which would have more of a sphere of influence on the nations worldwide. Sphere of influence, nuclear weapons, and propaganda were main ways on how the Cold war had started and were a few of the many “weapons” used in alternating ways for the war. Cold War began in many ways, but a few main ones were the nuclear weapon warfare, the sphere of influence among the two superpowers, the Soviets and the United States and the ways the two nations used propaganda to promote their ideologies on their citizens and others to gain influence. Nuclear weapons are a main source of conflict between the U.S.S.R and the U.S in the cold war.

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.

To discuss about the conclusion of the Dodge’s case study, I think I should explain the concept of brinkmanship first. As we know, Brinkmanship is deliberately put crisis to the brink of disaster. At some point of using brinkmanship, will be able to increase the players ' negotiating leverage - -participants. For example, the struggle between National political and military, if a long-term military confrontation between the two countries, both sides have nuclear weapons, the weaker side in order to avoid a conventional war can be used to launch nuclear weapons to threat another one which side is stronger. However, this threat may be considered to be incredibly for strong side. The question is coming that how it can threaten by one of the weak side becomes confidence and let stronger side believe in weak side? Perhaps the country 's leader can devolve control of nuclear weapons - nuclear weapons are arranged at the border, targeting the enemy and by a general to grasp the nuclear button. This seems to be more dangerous, but in fact may produce a real strong deterrent. Once the outbreaks of war in the border, despite the weak leaders do not want to start nuclear button, finally the general who faced death may also start nuclear button to meet them death together. This is most famous case in history happened in the Cold War of Cuban Missile Crisis. I will pay attention to this case in the following paragraph.

Identification and Evaluation of Sources “How real was the threat of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis?” That is to say would either country actually have turned the key and pushed the button, sinking the world into nuclear warfare or was the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction too great to have allowed for such catastrophe to occur? All of the sources used were found on the internet but were all found from highly reputable sources. One online source came from the Library of Congress’s website.

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.

Throughout all of history, humans have been creating weapons for waging war against one and another or to protect something that is important to them. Over time, the weapons that humans use have gone from just a simple wooden club, to a forged sword, and to high power firearms. However, throughout history none of the weapons created led to a stalemate among any of the world’s super powers until the mid twentieth century with the development of the atomic bomb by the United States and the Soviet Union. The reason why the development of the atomic bomb led to a stalemate has to do with the idea of mutually assured destruction. The idea behind mutually assured destruction is that if one-country attacks with atomic weapons then the country being

By the 1970’s and 1980’s arms control became an urgent concern, consequently, stabilization of the superpowers became priority. The result was the “bilateral Strategic Arms Limitation Talks had resulted in the SALT Treaties of 1972 and 1979, both aimed at regulating the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union.” (Hanson 201)

During the 1950s the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union saw both nations to developing massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Technological advancements increased the destructive technology and range of these weapons, and each new breakthrough was met with anxiety from the other side, as each nation sought to attain and hold a strategic advantage over the other. It was a costly and dangerous game. Still, during this time, Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower had managed to take definite and deliberate, though tentative and politically risky, steps towards relaxing tensions and slowing the arms race. These steps culminated in Khrushchev’s visit to the US in 1959, an invitation for Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union,

35 Nikita Khrushchev, “Department of State Telegram Transmitting Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 26, 1962” (Moscow: 26 Oct. 1962). 36 “Black Saturday: Cuban Missile Crisis.” (The Historical Association, 27 Apr. 2010). 37 Nikita Khrushchev, “Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 27, 1962” (Moscow: 27 Oct. 1962). 38 Carter 33.

The Cuban Missile Crisis had a huge impact on society even years after it was resolved because the incident had brought our nation and the world so close to the brink of nuclear war. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis had occurred, many other factors had been piling up and building undesirable tensions between many countries. Along the way new allies and enemies were made causing more stress to the Cold War. The new bonds that formed after Cuba was taken over by Fidel Castro pushed nuclear war to the very edge.

The U.K and Paris built nuclear weapons due to the impending Soviet military threat and the reduction in the credibility of the U.S guarantee to NATO alliances after the Soviet Union threatened retaliation. China on the other hand developed the bomb because of the U.S’s threat to bomb Beijing at the end of the Korean War. Furthermore the emergence of hostility in Sino-Soviet relations in the 1960s further inspired the “robust and affordable security” of nuclear weapons since without it, China’s deterrence was thought to be inadequate compared to nuclear states. (Goldstein, 1992) Following the development of the bomb in China in 1964, India who had just fought a war with China in 1962 felt compelled to follow in its footsteps. Then following India’s nuclear test explosion, Pakistan felt it needed to step up its nuclear program facing a recently hostile neighbor with both nuclear weapons and conventional military security. Ultimately as a result of this domino effect, there have been no conflicts between these previous hostile states due to the generation of nuclear weapons; further emphasizing the key role nuclear weapons plays in the stability of international politics.