Missiles The Soviets example essay topic

The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis was a military, diplomatic, and economic crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States, both of whom had specific goals involving global and military power, competition over Cuba, and struggles for superiority. The U.S. faced the problem of the security dilemma, described in the Nye text in reference of states as. ".. the independent efforts of each to build its own strength and security makes both more insecure" (Nye 16). The Soviets faced opposition from one of the most powerful forces in the world, the United States. Through a series of actions and communications of both sides of this conflict, nuclear war was avoided, and today relations between the two powers remain intact. Both the Soviet Union and the United States had much at stake during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The U.S. had obtained information that the Soviets had placed offensive missiles in Cuba which was not only a contradiction of Soviet pledges that their aid to Cuba would always be defensive, but was also a serious threat to the U.S. Kennedy's administration "believed that the missiles would affect global perceptions of U.S. strength and resolve" (Brussel 3) as well as "threaten the global power structure that the United States sought to maintain" (Brussel 3). The U.S. also wanted to prevent Cuba from turning Communist and maintain it's superiority in the view of the world. The Soviets chose to prove their strength by placing missiles on the U.S. periphery, much like the U.S. had placed missiles on the Soviet borders. The missiles that the U.S. had in Turkey were a threat to the Soviets, and some members of the ExComm committee believed that the missiles the Soviets placed in Cuba were an attempt at a bargaining offer involving those U.S. missiles in Turkey.

This view stems from a suggestion from one member of the committee who said "Mr. Khrushchev may have... known that [the United States does not] really live under fear of his nuclear weapons to the extent that... he has to live under the fear of ours" (Brussel 4). A second factor in the bargaining theory was the idea that the Soviets may have been looking for a way to get a more positive settlement of the Berlin arrangement. After World War II Berlin and Germany were divided between the United States, France, England and Russia, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis it was thought that perhaps the Soviets were looking for a bigger portion of Berlin, and they were using missiles to attempt to bargain with the U.S. A third factor that had upset the Soviets was the U.S. ' mistake in the Bay of Pigs. The United States trained and supplied Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro, and when the Cuban forces defeated the exiles, Kennedy would not authorize air support to help the exiles. The U.S. had failed to support ant-Castro exiles as promised, and seeing as the Soviets were aiding Cuba, they were not happy about this kind of mistreatment.

Also, the U.S. had reduced trade with Cuba drastically, and the Soviets stepped in to take over the economic role the U.S. had formerly played in Cuba. Both the Soviets and the U.S. were experiencing what the Nye text describes as the security dilemma. "If one state builds its strength to make sure that another cannot threaten it, the other, seeing the first getting stronger, may build its strength to protect itself against the first" (Nye 16). The Soviets were threatened by missiles that the U.S. and NATO had in Turkey, and the U.S. was threatened by the offensive missiles the Soviets had placed in Cuba. The Soviets wanted to shift the imbalance of power to favor themselves as well as support Cuba, one of the Soviet Union's firm allies. The United States felt threatened by the Soviets for several reasons.

First, there was the fact that the missiles that were in Cuba had the more potential for damaging the U.S. than other Soviet weapons around the world due to the number of missiles and the close proximity of their placement to the United States. Although members of the Excomm committee were not anticipating an actual attack involving the missiles, "they agreed that the political implications of the missiles were serious and that their emplacement was a deliberate challenge to U.S. prestige and influence" (Brussel 6). A factor that made this crisis so tense was neither side being sure of what the true objectives of the opposite side were. According to the case study "The United States knew it did not intend to invade Cuba and believed it had communicated this intention to the Soviets and the Cubans. In fact, it had not. The soviets believed that the United States thought it was in its interest to launch a first strike against Cuba" (Brussel 5).

Similarly, the U.S. spent much of the first few days of the crisis speculating what the Soviet's intentions were. As the realism perspective describes, "the prospect of was in an anarchic system makes states keep armies even in times of peace". Both sides were using realism in their actions, planning for war because although it is not inevitable, there is always the possibility. The Excomm committee deliberated for days deciding between military action and a naval blockade, ultimately deciding to execute the blockade. The decision to execute the limited military embargo of Soviet shipments to Cuba involved limited yet dramatic and forceful pressure. The crisis ended as suddenly as it began when Soviet ships headed for Cuba turned back and Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba.

The realist explanation of the Cuban Missile Crisis is that there was an imbalance of power and the U.S. had superiority. In conclusion, both sides in the Cuban Missile Crisis narrowly escaped a major military conflict. This was due to factors such as a lack of communication between the two powers, the Security Dilemma explained earlier, and threats perceived on both the parts of the Soviets and the United States.