Nikita Khrushchev & Cuban Missile Crisis Term Paper

Nikita Khrushchev & Cuban Missile Crisis - Term Paper Example Cuban Missile Crisis is an important historical event for its relevance to the cold-war era, as it is believed to be the most intense encounter between the then Superpowers, U.S and USSR. Since both countries had a nuclear capability, a direct encounter meant the most cataclysmic war in the history of global politics. For this reason it is important to draw a cause and effect relationship between variables in this context to analyze the important factors causing this event and the outcomes. Historically, most of the accounts presenting the Cuban Missile Crisis and its resolution rhetorically give due credit to the patient and the wisdom of JFK to have resolved the issue in time and avoid nuclear war. Many factors can be identified, for instance, the placement of U.S missiles in Turkey close to the vicinity of Soviet. Similarly, the Bay of Pigs incident caused a threat perception in the mind of Castro and in order to avoid a future attack, he sought assistance from the Soviets. Also, another reason can be understood in terms of the balance of power and the ambition of the Soviets to represent a superior vision in the world regarding the power and the image of the Soviet. Thus, as a result of these, along with many other factors Soviets placed Middle Range Ballistic Missiles in Cuba which stimulated the threat perception within the minds of the decision makers in the U.S. Consequently, JFK along with his advisors explored all available options to resolve the crisis, and agreed upon the option of the Naval Blockade, which they labeled as â€Å"Quarantine† which continued for 13 days.... Nevertheless, in my view, Khrushchev should equally be appraised, as he also took the matter very seriously and patiently communicated his terms and conditions to JFK. Thus, without appraising Khrushchev, even Castro, for their efforts in this regard the rhetoric remains incomplete. To analyze the event, its historical context needs to be discussed in detail. In this regard, the various long-term as well as short term objectives of the Missile deployment in Cuba by the Soviets can be studied, which will help us analyze the causes behind the event. The historical context of the event can be traced back to the U2 incident which occurred in May 1960, when U.S sent a spy plane into the vicinity of Soviet Union, which was both a breach in the security of the territory of the U.S.S.R, and a cause of building a trust deficit. Even after this event, despite the pressure from the hard liners, Khrushchev managed to stay calm and kept indicating his intentions of maintaining peace between the s uperpowers1. Preceding this dangerous event was the Bay of Pigs accounts which again proved to draw a line between the superpowers. In 1961, U.S made an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro`s government in Cuba which eventually failed. U.S trained and triggered some Cuban rebels to overthrow Fidel in an operation, however the operation immensely failed. This led towards the shattering of the image of the U.S in the world, and it further boosted the confidence of the Soviets which encouraged them to take this step. 2Also, this event was an indication of the interest of U.S in Cuba which indicated that U.S fears that Cuba can later turn out to be problematic for the U.S. Also, U.S later posed various sanctions over Cuba which