The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cold War almost goes hot

Cold War Strategies Deterrence Proxy Wars Espionage The Space Race Brinkmanship Balance Of Power Defense Systems Propaganda Arms Race Prestige Race

Deterrence Espionage Cold War Strategies Brinkmanship Balance Of Power

Cuba & the USA After World War II, USA and Cuba were close trading partners Cuba exported sugar to USA. This was the basis of their entire economy

Castro In the late 1950’s a group of revolutionaries lead by Fidel Castro take over Cuba from the dictator Batista Castro’s new government began to nationalize many foreign-owned businesses, many of them American Americans pull out of Cuba and boycott Cuban sugar Castro now had to find a new market for Cuban exports, or else the economy would collapse

Castro and Khrushchev The Soviet Union offered to buy Cuban sugar Offered to help Castro and Cuba defend itself from further ‘American Imperialism’ The USSR began selling weapons to Castro and equipping his army However, it wasn’t just conventional (non-nuclear) weapons that ended up in Cuba…

Bay of Pigs In 1961 the USA tried to help anti-Castro Cuban rebels invade and overthrow Castro The attempted invasion was a complete disaster, with Castro’s army killing or capturing all of the rebels within three days Embarrassed Kennedy and the USA on the world stage, made Castro even more worried about US intervention in Cuba

The Crisis starts In mid October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane took photographs of nuclear missile sites and bomber bases in Cuba Everyone quickly realized these missiles had the range to hit every major American city except Seattle, and could do it in about 5 minutes How would that affect the ideas of deterrence and balance of power?

You’re President Kennedy: What do you do? Nothing Try Diplomacy Warn off Castro Blockade Cuba Air Strikes Invade Cuba

Brinkmanship The American blockade and the Soviet near-attempt to run it was the height of the tactic called brinkmanship Brinkmanship is the tactic of pushing the other side to the very edge or brink of war In a lot of playgrounds and school grounds, this same idea goes by another name: The Game of ‘Chicken’

Back from the Brink In playground terms, the Soviet’s ‘blinked’ first. Russian ships stopped and didn’t run the blockade Kennedy and Khrushchev made a deal The USA promised never to invade Cuba, or help others do the same The USSR would remove all nuclear weapons from Cuba The USA would remove their nuclear weapons from Turkey and Italy