The second option was, an air strike: use the US Air Force to finish off all the nuclear missile locations. The third option was, a blockade: use the US Navy to block any nuclear missile from entering Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis reflects the disaster of the Cold War. The Cold War name was given to the affiliations that began between the US and USSR. Even though it was named, “The Cold War” no nation engaged in violence.
The world was left in a bipolar power struggle between the two main superpowers, America and the Soviet Union. Stalin, then the leader of the SU wanted to spread communism in order to strengthen the Unions hold on satellite states in Eastern Europe. The US were afraid of the threat of communism, fearful it would spread and cut all ties with their onetime allies. The Soviet Union hardened its attitude towards the West when NATO was formed in 1949 to battle the USSR. One of the major causes of tension was the Berlin blockade which caused an accelerated involvement of the US in Europe.
These instances show the world again and again, that America is anti totalitarian. America’s trepidation about totalitarian regimes is a common motivator for US military involvement. A turning point in American ideals that illustrates the power of the emotion of fear and its effect on government action came during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a very controversial time for the USSR, Cuba, and the United States. This critical event set the stage for America’s on going high tension relationship with Cuba and the U.S.S.R, both less than 100 miles of the coast of our country, (parts of Alaska are near Russia).
The situation that followed the Second World War was the period of Cold war that lasted up to early 1990s and when the Soviet republic disintegrated. During the period of the Cold War, many political and economic developments were realized ideologically. Thought there were no direct military combat in the Cold War, the period was characterized by many serious allegation of the two blocs; the US and USSR. Propaganda was one of the weapons used during this period, this made tension to build up within the two countries and at one point during the cold war, it almost sparked to a direct military confrontation but this never was. This was the Invasion of the Bays of Pig and the subsequent Cuban Missile crisis.
The cold war refers to the post second world war struggle which saw the deterioration of the grand alliance relations to a point of war short of actual warfare. It was characterised by suspicion and mistrust from the western bloc, made of the capitalist United States made of its allies and eastern side made of the communist Soviet Union and its satellites. A further characteristic of this period is the treat of atomic weaponry. INSERT. The mutual fear of Nazi Germany brought together an improbable ‘Grand Alliance’ the world’s greatest communist state, the Soviet union led by Joseph Stalin, the world’s leading capitalist state, America led by Roosevelt and the world’s greatest colonial state, Britain led by Churchill.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a defining moment in human history. It pitted two strong and very idealistic civilizations against one another in a situation where the outcome could have lasting and devastating effects on the entire world. The almost unthinkable consequences of a direct military confrontation between the two great nuclear states of the world were to be avoided. The decisions made by President John F. Kennedy during this crisis would define him, his administration, and his country. The President had no closer ally and no more trusted confidant than his brother, U. S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
The State Department thought it was a terrible idea and was not intending on doing anything about the Plan until Czechoslovakia was taken over by a communist rebel. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed by the United States and Canada and ten other Western European countries. As it says in Document four the treaty says that any armed attack against any country that has signed the North Atlantic Treaty is an attack against them all. It also states that “if armed force is needed to maintain security in the North Atlantic
The Cuban missile crisis was one of the most tense periods of the cold war, with World War 3 threatening to break out some very tough decision needed to be made by the USA and the USSR. With the USSR setting up nuclear weapons in Cuba that could reach the white house in 5 minutes created a huge threat to the USA, of which were left to make some choices that have the nations fate in their hands. They originally set out to create a blockade of all Russian ships coming into Cuba. From there negotiations were made that the USSR would agree to remove their weapons. This is all said to have gone down in thirteen days of which a dramatised movie was created title “thirteen days”, which tries to recreate the tension of the Cuba Missile crisis.
To what extent did events in the final year of the Second World War turn wartime allies into Cold War enemies? I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, I, my brother and our cousin against our neighbour, all of us against the foreigner. This Bedouin proverb strikingly summarizes the transition from wartime allies to enemies in 1945: it is the compulsion to fight the enemy that glues together even the most unlikely of allies. The reason why the USA and UK fought alongside the USSR during the Second World War was their common will to defeat Nazi Germany. This was also the motivation behind Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill’s cooperation during the Yalta conference of February 1945, as the war against Germany, although in its final stages, was still raging.
However, the breakdown in relations between the emerging superpowers during the war and the consequences of the disbandment of the Grand Alliance can be interpreted as the start of the Cold War. Tensions during wartime conferences paved the way for post-war conflict and it can be argued that as soon as the common enemy of Hitler was destroyed, the disparity in post-war aims of the superpowers led to the Cold War. The conferences of ‘the Big Thee’ at Yalta and Potsdam produced areas of tension surrounding plans for Germany and Poland, highlighting the USA fear of USSR’s expansion. Therefore Stalin’s policies for these countries can be construed as an attempt to form an ‘Eastern Bloc’, knowing this to be in complete contradiction with Western ideals for a world without spheres of influence. However, there is not much evidence to suggest the USSR’s was pursuing expansionist aims at this point, and in fact was simply securing its borders.