The Cuban Missile Crisis - Short Essay

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The most serious Cold War confrontation between the United States and the USSR that took place in October, 1962. The U.S. discovered that the Soviets were in the process of positioning nuclear missiles in Communist Cuba. The United States sends naval blockade to stop Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuba. October, 22, U.S. military alert is set at DEFCON 3 and Castro mobilizes all of Cuba's military forces. October, 24, Soviet ships reach the quarantine line, but receive radio orders from Moscow to hold their positions while being backed up by a Soviet submarine. JFK concludes that if we invade in the next ten days, the missile base crews in Cuba will likely fire at least some of the missiles at US targets.October, 25, American military forces are instructed to set DEFCON 2 - the highest ever in U.S. history. October, 26, Khrushchev receives a cable from Castro urging a nuclear first strike against the US in the event of an invasion of Cuba.October, 27, while one U-2 spy plane accidentally flies into Russia, another is shot down over Cuba. October, 28, the crises ends. In a speech aired on Radio Moscow, Khrushchev announces the dismantling of Soviet missiles in Cuba and does not insist on his demands concerning the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey.From the Cuban missile crisis both sides learned that risking nuclear war in pursuit of political objectives was simply too dangerous. It was the last time during the Cold War that either side would take this risk. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and USSR still superimposed their competition on local conflicts in other parts of the globe.In Africa, newly independent nations such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, received military backing and other assistance from the United States and the USSR. American-Soviet competition in the Third World intensified once again, this time during the civil war in Angola and the Somali-Ethiopian war over the Ogaden region. During...