To what extent did the world come close to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?

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To what extent did the world come close to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?

When the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out in 1962, it culminated what had become a very tense global situation. The beginning of the Cold War in 1945 meant that both the Soviet Union and the USA had become rivals in terms of their distinct ideology and position in the world, leading to an elaborate race between the two to be seen as the “great superpower.” The crucial question is, however, how far did the Cuban Missile Crisis bring the world to the brink of nuclear war, and how much can be attributed to carefully premeditated game of brinkmanship in the contest to gain superiority?

        Before the question can be answered, it is important to distinguish between the ideologies of the USA and the Soviet Union and how this would lead to conflict when Khrushchev placed his missiles in Cuba. The long-term causes can be traced back to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917; the newly established communist ideology was seen as a threat to the capitalist world system, with many capitalist countries such as the USA being fearful of this new state. The socialist economy that Soviet Russia tried to create was based on state ownership which put the needs of society before that of individuals. This was a stark contrast to the capitalist system in the USA, which was based on private ownership and individualism. These systems were based not only on ideology but also on pragmatism. This is because ideally, the USA wished to preserve the capitalist system to benefit the country whilst the USSR saw a socialist society as the ideal way forward. However, this was generally difficult to put into practice. For example, following his rise to power, Khrushchev realised that he had to break with Stalinism, but also had to maintain some of his policies- if Khrushchev had moved forcefully against Stalinism, he would have undermined the existence of the Soviet Party which had legitimised the construction of the Soviet system by accepting Stalin’s theory of “Socialism in one country”.

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 By the late 1940s, American foreign policy had taken a more aggressive stance towards the Soviet Union. The “Long Telegram” of 1946 was a report from the US divisions of Russian Affairs to the US Government which concluded that the USSR was an expansionist state that would never co-operate with the USA. It is here that the policy of containment was founded in the USA. Similarly, the Truman Doctrine (1947) declared that it would support any country that could demonstrate that it was in danger of a communist threat. This ideology shaped American foreign policy for the next two decades.

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