CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
1. Context
Talking about Putin's possible use of nukes in Ukraine and Sixty years on, revisiting the Cuban missile crisis, recently invoked by Biden.
2. Cuban missile crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a significant conflict between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The hostilities between these nations were highlighted in the early 1960s when soviet tactical nuke warheads were deployed in Cuba.
3. History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- An important precursor of the Cuban missile crisis was the failure of Pigs' invasion of 1961, in which US-backed Cuban counter-revolutionaries attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime in the country and establish a non-communist government friendly to the US.
- After successfully fending off the operation, Castro turned increasingly towards the USSR and its premier Khrushchev, to deter any further invasion by the US. An agreement was made between the two, and by July 1962, several clandestine missile launch facilities began to be constructed in Cuba.
- The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, was a 13-day standoff between the United States of America and the Soviet Union that transformed into an international crisis when Soviet missile deployment in Cuba encountered American-deployed warheads in Italy and Turkey. The standoff is often considered the closest to the Cold war ever becoming a hazardous nuclear war.
4. Letters and the Standoff
The Kennedy administration established a naval blockade to prevent any more missiles from reaching Cuba, and in no uncertain terms demanded the immediate removal of the missile that had already been delivered. The danger of this approach was that if the Soviets refused to remove the missiles, the United States would be forced to escalate the crisis by authorizing air strikes over Cuba to bomb the missile sites. Contingency plans were drawn up for a full-scale invasion of Cuba and a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union if the Soviets responded militarily to Kennedy's demands.
5. Significance of the Cuban Missile Crisis
- During the Cold war, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a severe and hazardous conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. It was the nearest the two superpowers got to nuclear war.
- The situation was unusual in several aspects, including estimates and misjudgments, as well as direct and covert interactions and miscommunications between the two parties. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the pinnacle of a taut time in US-Soviet relations.
- It contributed significantly to Nikita Khrushchev's demise and the Soviet Union's ambition to attain nuclear parity with the United States
6. The Agreement
- The first sign of de-escalation came on October 26, when Khrushchev sent Kennedy a letter, stating that he would be willing to stop military shipments and withdraw his forces from Cuba if the US agreed to not invade or support any invasion of its neighbor.
- Fueling tensions further was the fact that on the same day, an American U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba probably by the Soviets.
- On October 28, Khrushchev announced that soviet nuclear missile sites would be removed from Cuba, while Kennedy pledged to never invade Cuba and secretly agreed to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy. Both superpowers began to fulfill their promises over the coming weeks, and the crisis was over by late November.
- By late November, both countries had begun to follow through on their commitments, and the crisis had been avoided.
7. Conclusion
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the two superpowers created the Moscow-Washington hotline, so that their leaders could have a direct communication link and prevent such tensions. While nuclear warfare was thankfully averted, the Cuban missile crisis did not mark the resolution of the Cold War nor the culmination of the ever-growing arms race.
For Prelims & mains
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For Prelims: Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, Pigs' invasion of 1961
For Mains:1 .Explain the Cuban Missile Crisis and enumerate the reasons and consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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Source: The Indian Express
