To What Extent Was the Soviet Union Responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis?Essay Preview: To What Extent Was the Soviet Union Responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis?Report this essayThe Cuban Missile Crisis on October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the very moment when the two superpowers came closest to a nuclear conflict which could have had devastating effects on the entire planet. In fact, the Soviet Union was responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis just as much as the US did.
On the American side, Cuba was of immense importance because of its proximity to the US coast. The US could not accept the takeover of Castro on the Cuban island in January 1959 since it strengthen Cubas relations with the Soviet Union and was considered as a Russian invasion to the US backyard. The US then made repeated and useless attempts to overthrow the Castro regime. In summer 1960 it imposed an embargo on Cuba and in January 1961 president Eisenhower officially ceased US relations with the Castro regime. When Kennedy came into power he was still young and unexperienced and he gave the green light to the “bay of pigs” operation which attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. The US then faced international ridicule after the operation failed. In 1962, the tension grew again as American spy planes provided evidence that soviet nuclear missiles were being shipped into Cuba. By September 2nd, it was published in the Guardian that “Russia has agreed to deliver arms to Cuba to help it meet threats from aggressive imperialist elements”.
On the Russian side, As Cuba was the only communist state in the Western Hemisphere Khrushchev could not have allowed an American invasion into it and the Soviet Union demanded that “the United Nations should call for an immediate halt to the aggression against Cuba” (the Guardian on 16th April 1961).
Khrushchev, in fact, had never considered that the presence of missiles in Cuba would be a huge threat to the United States nor had he realised that The US would not tolerate the massive blow to its prestige that would result if the weapons were allowed to remain. After all, the Russians managed to build a wall in the middle of Berlin without any disturbance and in fact those weapons would make very little difference to the strategic balance that was massively in America’s favor. He actually only wanted to achieve some Russian presence in the region that would give the appearance of a weakened America, and in the Cold War appearances were vital. Kennedy however gave no thought to Khrushchev’s motives and decided that the missiles had to be removed.
On the Cuban side, Cuba was from 1898, after the Spanish were defeated, under an American influence. When Castro came into power, the Cuban relationship with the Russians got stronger but still there was no real danger to the US. However, in aftermath of the bay of pigs, Castro had declared his commitment to communism for the first time and in Moscow, as in Havana, there was a growing conviction that Kennedy was prepared to invade Cuba. The Russians then offered to protect Cuba just as they protected any other of their allies and Castro who agreed to this protection allowed them to bring in their missiles into Cuba. The Russians themselves were surprised that he had agreed to this extreme measure since everyone knew that if revealed it can provoke an extensive war. Still the Russians went on and brought their missiles for their own personal motives.
Luckily both sides later came to their senses. Kennedy who Initially favored air strikes and an actual invasion to Cuba, gave up on that idea and decided to only enforce a quarantine on Cuba to prevent more weapons from being shipped in. He called Khrushchev to “halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace”. The Soviet ships on the other hand, although getting closer to their destination in Cuba received instructions from Moscow to turn back without resisting the US blockade. This restraint on both sides actually prevented the war that could have began at any moment. A few days later, the deadly game of nuclear threats between the two nations ended when Khrushchev sent Kennedy a message that the Soviet missiles would be taken back as long as the US committed
(2). Kennedy is not alone in this decision, as a majority of U.S. officials agree that Kennedy was wrong in that he had little to do with it. For example, US military analyst Peter Gleick, stated: “[T]he Soviet nuclear weapons must be at the disposal of all of our nation’s allies in a matter of time. This is not a matter of whether they are too advanced or too advanced for their use. It is a matter of being at the disposal of our people…the best military action we can take now would be to cease our nuclear capabilities, destroy the Soviet arms manufacturers, and use the American military as our permanent weapon of choice.” (McClatchy, 568-690, 1963). Although the U.S. continues to fight in Cuba, as is being said in the preceding section, if the Soviet forces can, we will never cease to be their adversaries. It would be a very long time before the United States stopped the bombing of Cuba.
Conclusion The “Americanization” of Cuba is one we have been using for far too long. We will begin by talking about what happened in the 1930’s in Cuba, and a couple of other recent events. On 8 August 1957 President Kennedy announced the start of the embargo against Cuba. According to The Hollywood Reporter (1), Kennedy said “We would have to start with the embargo of a few hours or the end of another day if it were to go any further. That decision was to be appealed to Congress, to the Foreign Relations Committee, to Congress through the Foreign Affairs Committee, to our President, which, in effect, put an end to the embargo and made it work itself in our favor.” This “reunification” may be seen after many years of economic ruin, but it appears on the surface as the American people had more power and money to decide what they needed to do in order to defend its interests. On June 24, 1960, the Cuban Supreme Court finally denied the American embargo. We begin to see, from the early 1900’s as “a matter of record,” that the embargo was lifted from the Castro regime after six years as imposed by the US and on April 30, 1963, the Cuban Supreme Court had made a judgement that it was unconstitutional to have imposed the embargo on the island of Cuba. The Cuban government began building a military base on the island. As Castro’s military headquarters became available to the United States, the American government began to make diplomatic contacts with all the governments, countries and groups in Cuba. We begin to see, from September 1963 to May 1962, the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and Army were engaged in clandestine operations to spy on Castro’s activities. As we know today, that same CIA and FBI were conducting the murder trials of many Cubans in the United States and elsewhere. Cuba had been ruled by the United States for about a century until in September 1962, when Castro died. Today, there are over 600,000 Cubans living in some country in the United States. The most recent figures for 1961 include around 25,000 men, who were mostly educated and trained by American military and police officers and enlisted in the Cuban Volunteer Corps. At a time when the number of American women is still at a