Cuban Missile crisis



Cuban Missile crisis

Introduction

The Cuban missile crisis is one of the threatening conditions in history and a conflict between two superpowers with nuclear weapons - the Soviet Union and the United States of America. This crisis took place from 15 - 28 October 1962 at Cuba. It was caused by the Soviet secret deployment in Cuba missile medium-range directly threatening to United States. Previously, namely at the turn of 1959-1960 U.S. ballistic missiles deployed on the territory of the United Kingdom , Italy and Turkey . It was the biggest crisis in the history of post-war world (Chrisp, 2002).

Event of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis highlighted the limits to peaceful coexistence, and resulted in the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in exchange for a concession of public and confidential two promises given by the Kennedy administration. Seemingly minor at the time they have been seen in the West in the following decades as very restrictive for the foreign policy of the United States (May & Zelikow, 1997). A " red phone "directly linking White House to the Kremlin was introduced after the crisis in order to establish a direct negotiation between the executive of both superpowers and prevent another crisis of this style (Frankel, 2004). The objective of this paper is to analyze the history and cause of the Cuban Missile crisis. Also it aims to analyze the historical interpretation and the consequences of the crisis.

History and interpretations of Cuban Missile crisis

From the Second World War the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the world powers. They stood for two opposing economic systems and ideologies. With the constant development of new weapons technologies from the beginning of the 1950s came as never seen before the arms race underway in which the United States had held usually a head start. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States avoided direct armed confrontation in their dispute over territorial and ideological supremacy (Munton & Welch, 2012). Moreover, from 1953 began a new phase characterized by several goodwill gestures tended to smooth relations between East and West (May & Zelikow, 1997). As mentioned above, this step is called "peaceful coexistence", referring to the concept used by Nikita Khrushchev on the new international policy that sought to implement. However, for two tense weeks of October 1962 the superpowers came face to face and almost caused a nuclear war. This period has been called "Missile Crisis". The crisis began on October 14, when a U.S. spy plane detected Soviet ballistic facilities on the island of Cuba, just 145 miles from the United States (Frankel, 2004).

To circumvent this early warning, missile had to be installed closer to the target. In 1958, the Soviet Union began with the installation of intermediate-range nuclear missiles R5 in the GDR, which were directed against targets in Western Europe, in particular the Federal Republic of Germany. However, they were surprisingly after 1959 Kaliningrad postponed. The next stage of the arms race followed in ...