The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world has every come to nuclear war.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world has every come to nuclear war. President John F. Kennedy and his committee of advisers had ten days to create a plan of action for the United States that would prevent nuclear war with the Soviet Union and ensure that the missiles in Cuba were no longer a threat to the United States security. President Kennedy was faced with a difficult decision on what kind of approach to take. President Kennedy choose to diffuse the crisis with a blockade war diversion, but what factors lead to this conclusion, and why was the blockade the best option?

The Soviet Union had never before installed their missiles outside Soviet territory, and accounts vary as to the principal motivation for their risky deployment of ballistic missiles in Cuba. The domestic situation in Russia was good. The twenty-year plan for increasing domestic production was ahead of schedule, the unemployment rate was down, and the economy was on the rise. The Soviet Union was also basking in the success of the Sputnik operation. The world generally assumed that the military and strategic balance had significantly shifted in the Soviet’s favor. In the 1961 meeting of Vienna, Kennedy naively stated "we regard...Sino-Soviet forces and the forces of the United States and Western Europe as being more or less in balance."  Soviet’s Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s personal assessment of US president, John F. Kennedy, acted as another motivation to move nuclear missiles into Cuba. Khrushchev saw Kennedy as a new, young, and inexperienced president, and had little faith in his ability to lead the great country of the United States. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 had reinforced Khrushchev’s opinion that Kennedy was not ready to make crucial decisions and revealed a president who was unsure of himself. Khrushchev capitalized on his perceived military and political power over the United States to extend Communist influence throughout the world.

        In the spring of 1962, the Soviet Union’s political, domestic, and military positions changed dramatically. Difficulties arose when dealing with underdeveloped countries. The Soviet Union did not have the financial means necessary to provide foreign aid, the patience to deal with extreme nationalism, or the time to train inexperienced political leaders: in short the Soviet Union overstretched themselves and could not support the unstable nations that they took under their Communist wing. Domestically, the government could not meet the demands it had established with the twenty-year plan. There were not enough resources to provide the consumers with a better life and account for the needs and space of the program (Hilsman 8).  The Soviets were put in a uncomfortable position militarily when the reversal of the missile gap was publicly announced; now both the military and political power were in favor of the United States. The tension in the Soviet Union became more burdensome, with the insistent clamoring of Fidel Castro for military protection of Cuba.         

An urgent solution had to be found to regain the USSR’s military position. The missile gap prompted the Soviets to redress the balance of world power. They decided the best way to offset the overpowering position of the US was to militarily support Cuba. After the fact, Khrushchev claimed that putting missiles in Cuba was purely to defend Cuba from another attack by the United States, not a retaliation of the reversal of the missile gap. Khrushchev had better intelligence available to him than that of the United States. Khrushchev was aware that the United States had no intentions of invading Cuba (Hilsman 13).  The main objective of the introduction of ballistic missiles into Cuba was strictly strategic. A successful deployment of missiles into Cuba would be a prompt and inexpensive move to counter the United States. Khrushchev himself acknowledged that the deterrence of a US invasion was not the sole objective of his act: "In addition to protecting Cuba, our missiles would have equalized what the West likes to call ‘the balance of power’" (Talbott 494).  

Upon Fidel Castro’s consent, the Soviets devised a plan to secretly supply Cuba with offensive and defensive nuclear ballistic missiles. The first phase was dedicated to providing a defensive for Cuba. Cuba was equipped with surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, short-range harbor defense missiles, coastal patrol boats armed with ship-to-ship missiles, IL-28 bombers, and over one hundred MIG fighter planes. The second phase of the plan was to make Cuba an offensive nuclear threat. Cuba was given six battalions of medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and four battalions of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs). The weapons would be accompanied by special ground troops totaling roughly 42,000 men. The ground troops had an alarming force of infantry, artillery, and battlefield nuclear weapons (Hilsman 15)

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Before October 1, 1962, U.S. intelligence suspected a Soviet military buildup in Cuba, but could not verify if the weapons were capable of threatening the United States. On October 5, Director of Central Intelligence John McCone predicted that there was a possibility that the Soviet military buildup "would end up with an established offensive capability in Cuba including MRBMs" (US Government website). Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy disagreed, stating that the Soviet Union wouldn’t make such an audacious challenge. President Kennedy approved a U2 reconnaissance flight over Cuba to obtain evidence about the development of MRBM sites ...

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