Cuban Missile Crisis, Research Paper Example

How close did the world come to nuclear war as result of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

One of the most feared and devastating wars in the world is what involves nuclear procedures. Nuclear war saddens as it takes life at most unaccepted and unbelievable methodologies. Even after the use of nuclear apparatus, what is left behind are simply problems that come as side effects due to their use. For instance, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effects of nuclear attack are still effective as children born bear physical and psychological disabilities. There are various scenarios in the world that almost propelled fighting nations to get involved in nuclear war. Some of these nations were the United States of America and Cuba, among other nations. These nations were involved in world war one and two, and were also the main participants of the world war three. Nuclear war almost surfaced itself, an activity what would have overtaken thoughts and intentions of many world leaders, including those of the fighting nations. Here is a full occurrence of episodes right from start to the end of crisis that brought a halt to attack of nuclear weapons (Todd 56).

A crisis in the Cuban missile operations, known as the October crisis together with those of Caribbean nation were at argumentative confrontation. This crisis resulted from perceived unproductive operations by the United States of America to conquer the regime of Cuba. The Soviet Union and Cuba were thus teaming up against the United States of America. This confrontation happened in the year 1962 during the time of the cold war. As a result of the American operations, the Soviet Union together with Cuba began to design their modes of attack and take cover. The Soviet Union built stations in Cuba in order to lounge and attack using the medium range and intermediate range, ballistic nuclear armaments. This crisis marked a moment where the cold war was almost turned into a moment of nuclear attack by various nations. This would have been adapted by other smaller nations as a set of arming their regimes. Moreover, one of the other major happenings that ensued was a recording of the first ever documented scenario of a threat of nuclear attack in the world. This was later referred to as a threat of mutual assured destruction, which made headlines in state agreements on the manufacture and use of fire arms by every nation.

Many attacks planned by the United States of America were to be based on air as it seemed efficient and effective to attack Cuban territories. To further strengthen their plan, they had to ensure at no one time are offensive weapons delivered to Cuba, together with demolition of every plan and construction by Cuba as far as nuclear weapons are concerned. The US president, John F Kennedy, was in control of all these military actions. He participated in writing a letter to the Cuban president of that time, called Kremlin. Kennedy thought that Cuba would subdue to their demands, and had little faith over the same. The response from Kremlin was, however, not pleasant at all. He pronounced to the United States of America and Kennedy that the impasse of routing in international waters and air space represented an act of violence that could propel an individual or a nation to involve and exemplify nuclear missile war as the only remedy (Stein 61-65).

What got underway was a simple backing of the US by the Soviet Union, nonetheless having a secret plan to end the crisis. Several secret meetings and agreements were made between the US and Soviet Union, all which were trying to achieve a universal agreement of ending the imposed threat of nuclear weapon attacks. It took not more than two weeks for an implementation of the agreed upon both nations, together with their allies. The Soviet Union had to destroy and take back their weapons built on the Cuban base, while the United States of America did the same on their weapons built in turkey and Italy. Moreover, every nuclear weapon was deactivated, and a hot line of communication based on the agreement was established as the Washington-Moscow hot line (McCabe 97).

Considering various practices by the United States of America since the end of World War 2, there was a likelihood that any arising crisis would surely result in a bloody war, most of which would be nuclear missile attacks. The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 was thought to trigger the Soviet Union to act through missile attacks. This failure had been considered a tremendous embarrassment of the United States of America. Moreover, there was another failed operation as operation mongoose. These failed operations tarnished the abilities of John Kennedy, as he was verbally and literally attacked by the Soviet Union as too intelligent but indecisive and too weak to handle crisis situations. This aggravated the entire US nation, and was thus prepared to take stun action against the Soviet Union in case of any crisis or misunderstanding between these two nations. As a result of all these abuses by the Cuban president, it took no long before the US planed to retaliate himself. Through a top secret arrangement, John F Kennedy planned to overthrow the Cuban government. An embargo was thereby lounged against Cuba in 1962. Guerilla operations were stationed to begin as at august and September, after which two weeks would be enough to open revolt and hence overthrow the communist regime. Nuclear engagements were likely to erupt in this operation as it had been propelled by aggression and hate.

A balance of power normally forces many nations to take resemblance of others, and more so in possession of weapons enough to withhold any attack. This was one of the dreams that had taken the US president into power. Part of the weapons to be owned by the United States of America were nuclear missiles and bombs, of which they were supposed to be used to scare off other nations. Moreover, they were to declare the nation stronger and not susceptible to defeats, due to attacks. Due to what the U.S. had done, the Soviet Union had to lounge weapons at a base in Cuba. This followed a declaration by the Cuban president that they were always ready to defend themselves in case of any attack. Some of the weapons declared to be used were the nuclear weapons. It was clear in Osvado’s declaration that they were not ready to acquire and employ these weapons. However, due to looming US attacks, he, and his country was ready to take part in these deadly nuclear fights. There was thus a reported entire continent missile target on the US by the Soviet Union military establishments (Cambridge Resources for the IB Diploma 45).

After a long time of arguments and misunderstandings that resulted in the short term agreements and disagreements, the crisis appeared to be in a state of stalemate. Kennedy had to decide and declare that the only remedy that would stop the crisis was to plan and attack in order to eliminate weapons from Cuba. With several secret meetings and negotiations being held, the crisis continued and posed even a greater threat of nuclear attack eruptions. Direct US aggressions on Cuba were considered to provoke nuclear war between these to nations. Moreover, several speeches were made against the US’s ability to handle such a war, and was thus declared to lose it, in case it started.

It took several deliberations between the U.S. cabinet, and the Soviet Union before the crisis came to an end. The Soviet Union agreed to eradicate its weapons in the Cuban base, together with the US withdrawing all its weapons longed in turkey, Italy and the borders of the Soviet Union nation. This ended as many speculated and long overdue threats of nuclear attacks between the United States of America, and the Soviet Union (Hilsman 78).

In conclusion, the Havana conference of 2002 posed a formidable moment of threat of nuclear attack. Several planned attacks had been organized against the knowledge of the U.S. A submarine that was armed with nuclear torpedo had been designed to surface and lounge attacks. At the time the submarine was to surface, a heavy workmanship of the American war ships was in control. With several arguments breaking out, and more lively threats being posed by the soviet military on the US navy, a nuclear attack had come so close to surfacing, faster than any one of them had thought. It was later declared that an individual known as Vasili saved the world (Ethridge 32-50).

Work cited

Cambridge Resources for the IB Diploma. History for the IB Diploma: The Cold War, 2011. Print.

Ethridge, Marcus. Politics in a Changing World: A Comparative Introduction to Political Science, Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.

Hilsman, Roger. The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Struggle Over Policy, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. Print.

McCabe, David. Modern World History for AQA Specification B.: Core, Heinemann, 2002. Print.

Stein, Conrad. Cuban Missile Crisis: In the Shadow of Nuclear War. New York, Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2008. Print.

Todd, Allan. History for the IB Diploma, Cambridge University Press, 2011. Print.