The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Crisis ended with the Americans managing to remove the Soviet missile’s from Cuba while the USSR gained the promise of a non-American invasion ever to happen in Cuba and the removal of the Jupiter missile threat in Turkey. Both nations also benefited with a “Hotline” telephone, as communication during the Crisis had been slow which made negotiations difficult and put both nations in constant alert. This would help avert similar crisis in the future, such as an accidental nuclear outbreak caused by malfunctioning of electronic equipment.

Why did the Soviets placed the missiles in Cuba in the first place. Was it to protect Cuba from the United States? Or was it to reduce the gap between the arms race and balance of power, Depending on the aim the Soviets had, which is not for certain as there are many views, including the clear contradiction of Khrushchev himself about the aims, then we can discover if the crisis had been a victory for the USA and a failure for the USSR. However, one thing is for certain, both nations and the whole world won, as nuclear war was prevented which would have been devastating.

In the short term, the USA won the conflict , because they had accomplished what they had set out to do and had also obtained an image of strength. Kennedy had achieved total victory in the psychological, propaganda and media factors while the USSR total defeat; They were seen as the aggressors and then had given in to America and had redraw their missile sites back to their nation, which not only caused national problems, but also affected their International Relations with other countries. The Russians were seen as retreating from circumstances that they had started. In a way, they had received the punishment they wanted the USA to have.

However, in the Long Term the results could be seen as a victory for the USSR. many people believe that Kennedy’s guarantee of security to Cuba and their removal of the Missiles from Turkey was more important and more of a sacrifice than for the Soviets to remove their missile sites in Cuba because Soviet long-range missiles could already reach the USA from Russia itself, so the missiles in Cuba did not really pose a new national security threat. On the other hand their is praise Khrushchev for giving in the crisis and preventing the nuclear war Kennedy was ready to have.

In any case, the USA was able to eliminate this new national security threat, no matter what the intentions of the missiles really were, and most importantly, they managed to take them off Cuba before they became operational. If they had come operational, no one knows what could have happened. Large tensions and bad communications could have caused one side to “hit” first and the retaliation by the other, ending with a complete war.