The cold war, spanning 44 years and involving the two greatest military powers the world had ever seen, was directly responsible for merely a few hundred deaths total. This limited destruction is thanks to the nature of Strategic Stability or the popularly coined phrase, mutually assured destruction or “MAD” which is the balance provided by nuclear parity. The cold war was much like the children’s toy the “Weeble Wobble”, a small egg-shaped plastic object that was impossible to knock over. One can push, flick punch or kick this little toy and no matter what, it lands right side up after some wobbling back and forth. In the cold war, the nuclear deterrent like the extremely low center of gravity of the “Weeble Wobble”, bringing things back to …show more content…
The Cuban missile crisis is a perfect example of the nuclear deterrent not only preventing total war but conflict entirely. The nature of the cold war was a distinct departure from any previous conflicts the world had ever seen. Not only did it result in very limited loss of life but never before had the leadership of two sworn enemies been so aligned in their commitment to avoiding direct conflict. This created a grand scale geopolitical chess match between two of the greatest diplomats the world has ever seen. It is believed by many historians that with an active avoidance policy by each leader, the only way nuclear war would come is through mistake or miscommunication. Not only did the Cuban missile crisis show how innately stable the cold war was, but lead to further long-term stability through better lines of communication and the removal of nuclear weapons from Cuba and …show more content…
Taking into consideration the failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro with the CIA in the catastrophic bay of pig’s operation, it becomes clearer why Khrushchev felt the need to arm Cuba with nuclear weapons. This decision was a distinct departure from Soviet policy leading up to that point as never before had soviet controlled nuclear weapons been installed outside of the USSR. This decision caught Kennedy and the entire administration off guard as it was an incredibly aggressive move for the traditionally conservative and calculating Khrushchev. Kennedy called the Soviet Ambassador to America in for a meeting in which Kennedy asked directly about the missiles in Cuba and to which Gromyko denies unequivocally any offensive weapons. The world later learns that Gromyko was not lying but instead uninformed on the situation. After a few days of meetings with his advisors including Robert McNamara his secretary of defense, Kennedy decides on a naval blockade of the Island nation to prevent any further nuclear weapons deliveries. The US military is placed on DEFCON 2 alert, the only higher level of readiness is imminent nuclear war. The Soviet ships approaching Cuba are told to hold their position at the quarantine line on October 24th, the 9th day of the crisis. The US ambassador to the UN addressed the general
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
We were already in a cold war, not knowing wither if these missiles were going to go off it made people panic. Yet, Kennedy took it upon himself to, to assured us that we needed to take precautionary measure. Kennedy could have said, don’t worry, or nothing at all. Instead, he let us in and let us knows what was up because this crisis involved us, the nation, that involves everybody. After a long wait, the crisis ended peacefully with a deal was made to make sure that Soviets agreed to get rid of their missile if the US, go rid of their own missiles in turkey (it is only fair). This is the agreement that ended the Cuban missile crisis and made our Nation, including the Soviets, and the Cubans relaxed. After this scare, a bunch of treaties was made and signed to reduce nuclear power. Leading us to create a great relation with China, after being a great ally to the Soviets
Soviet chairman, Nikita Khrushchev, guaranteed President Kennedy that there was nothing going on in Cuba. The U.S. was not fooled with Khrushchev's act and began to discuss the ideas of a quarantine or a military attack. RFK and Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, became the blockade's strongest advocates. They did not accept the idea of the U.S. raining bom...
Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was affiliated with Castro, and the two countries made many military decisions together. As Kennedy and the United States tried to stop Cuba and Russia from becoming a threat to the world, an invasion was planned out and executed. The results were a disaster. The Bay of Pigs invasion was the largest military mistake ever made by the United States government and the CIA in the 20th century and brought America to the brink of war with Cuba and Russia. The Bay of Pigs invasion was not a quick decision, many hours of meetings and conferences occurred before President Kennedy gave permission for the attack.
1 The missiles were being brought to Cuba by Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who guaranteed President Kennedy that the missiles would never be used as a weapon against the United States. This is a lie. Khrushchev fully intended to use the missiles as a mechanism of defense against the United States and as a way to further pursue a relationship with Fidel Castro, who was the President of Cuba at the time. The United States needed to find a way to stop the development of missile sites without causing a break out of violent warfare.
When President Kennedy asks the Soviets about the missiles, they say the Americans shouldn’t see them as a threat because they were strictly defensive bombs. Clearly lying to the President, Kennedy calls for a meeting were they discuss two possible courses of action: an airstrike and invasion of Cuba and the Russian freighters; a naval blockade. On the fifth day after learning about the nuclear bombs headed towards Cuba, Kennedy decides that the best plan would be to set up naval block around Cuba, to prevent Russian ships to reach the shores. At 7:00 p.m., as the President is giving his speech to the people revealing that there were missiles being constructed by the Soviets in Cuba, the naval fleet is preparing for their mission to prevent the Russians from reaching Cuba. Prior to announcing the great...
United States spy planes found Soviet missile hangers being constructed throughout Cuba with the missiles being capable of reaching various targets in the United States. Panic raced throughout the Kennedy administration. Kennedy’s defense advisors urged for increased force, with options ranging from invading the island to destroying the hangers with bombs. Kennedy, who feared the possibility of nuclear war, wanted a solution without escalation. The solution was to put a quarantine on Cuba.
The Soviet Union and the United States were very distant during three decades of a nuclear arms race. Even though the two nations never directly had a battle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, amongst other things, was a result of the tension. The missile crisis began in October of 1962, when an American spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union in Cuba. JFK did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles, so he made his decisions very secretly. Eventually, Kennedy decided to place a ring of ships around Cuba and place missiles in Turkey. Eventually, both leaders superpowers realized the possibility of a nuclear war and agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would remove the missiles from Cuba if the US didn't invade Cuba. Even though the Soviets removed took their missiles out of Cuba and the US eventually taking their missiles out of Turkey, they (the Soviets) continued to build a more advanced military; the missile crisis was over, but the arms race was not.
To start off, one of the key ideas behind the tense, yet somewhat stable peace between the Soviet Union and United States during the second half of the 20th century was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD. As both of the world’s superpowers attempted to outstrip each other in a nuclear arms race, it grew increasingly apparent that should one nation attempt to strike the other or its allies with nuclear weapons, the consequences from the secondary strike would cause an unacceptable loss of life and likely the extinction of the human race. Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance. There were multiple times where all out nuclear war between the East and the West ca...
After obtaining Fidel Castro's approval, the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly to build missile installations in Cuba. On October 16, President John Kennedy was shown reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missile installations under construction in Cuba. After seven days of guarded and intense debate in the United States administration, during which Soviet diplomats denied that installations for offensive missiles were being built in Cuba, President Kennedy, in a televised address on October 22, announced the discovery of the installations and proclaimed that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be responded to accordingly. He also imposed a naval quarantine on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of offensive military weapons from arriving there.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event in U.S History that almost led to nuclear destruction. It was over a period of thirteen days in which diplomats from the U.S and the Soviet Union were trying to reach a peaceful resolution so that they wouldn’t have to engage in physical warfare. The crisis was the hallmark of the Cold War era which lasted from the 1950’s to the late 1980’s. The Cold War was a power struggle between the U.S and Soviet Union in which the two nations had a massive arms race to become the strongest military force. The U.S considered Communism to be an opposing political entity, and therefore branded them as enemies. Khrushchev’s antagonistic view of Americans also played a big role in the conflict. The Cold War tensions, coupled with a political shift in Cuba eventually lead to the military struggle known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of most tension and near collapse causing the Cold War to almost shift from a passive and underground struggle to a violent and catastrophic one.
The Cold War was a political standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States that again created a new worldwide nuclear threat. The destructive potential of nuclear weapons has created a global sweep of fear as to what might happen if these terrible forces were unleashed again. The technology involved in building the first atomic bombs has grown into the creation of nuclear weapons that are potentially 40 times more powerful than the original bombs used. However, a military change in strategy has come to promote nuclear disarmament and prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. The technology of building the atomic bomb has spurred some useful innovations that can be applied through the use of nuclear power.
The "Thirteen Days" of the Cuban Missile Crisis were, at that point, the closest the superpowers came to war. How severe this would have been is impossible to know. That this is the case was due in a large part to serendipity and the patience and understanding of the leaders. The lessons of this stand-off were not lost on either side. There were several key after-effects of this confrontation:
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.
In 1962 nuclear war seemed inevitable to the world, it was the first time nuclear war was hanging on a thread. The Cuban Missile Crisis presented a threat to the world, in which the USSR planted nuclear missiles on Cuba. America’s response was to threaten launching nuclear missiles at the Russians. This incident launched the world into a new time, which presented nuclear weapons as a source of power.