Causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis

In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to talk about causes of the Cuban missile crisis October 1962, one of the most tense moments in the so-called Cold War. During the course of this historical episode, the world was about to enter the war again, this time being the war with nuclear weapons, which would have been disastrous, if we take into account what happened in Hiroshima or Nagasaki during the Second War World. Keep reading this lesson and you will get to know the factors that produced this crisis in Cuba and that, really, it was a reflection of the struggle between the United States and Russia.

To better understand this historical period, we have to take into account a series of important events that occurred between the two great superpowers and that led to this clash.

First of all we must comment that since 1959 the Cuban Revolution had promoted a series of popular measures like the agrarian reform law that affected the interests of North Americans residing on the island. This had been in response to the administration of President Eisenhower, which had initiated a series of movements to end the Castro regime.

Within these movements we will find the economic blockade, strong propaganda against the regime and the promotion of armed groups on the island to put an end to it. Finally, and the main trigger for our topic to be discussed, was the use of these Cuban paramilitary groups, together with some US military personnel, to enter the island and end the revolutionary regime. In this other lesson from a TEACHER you can find a summary of the Cuban Revolution captained by Fidel Casto and Commander Che Guevara.

Within the causes of the Cuban missile crisisThe most important occurred in 1961, at which time a landing of anti-Castro Cubans took place in the Bay of Pigs, who had been armed by the United States. Although the skirmish proved a real failure for the United States, Fidel Castro asked the Soviet Union for help to protect itself from further possible attempts by the United States to control the island.

After the defeat, the United States did not wait for a response and Operation Mongoose was launched, which consisted of a military invasion of Cuba (directly). For this, they had planned to provoke a conflict similar to the one that occurred with the USS Maine, but this time at the Guantanamo Naval Base or in Cuban jurisdictional waters. But the intelligence service of the USSR or the so-called KGB, managed to seize the invasion plans of the United States and notified Fidel Castro of the imminent attack by the North Americans, for this reason the Cuban dictator asked the Soviet Union for help to defend himself against new attempts by the United States to seize the Island.

In October 1962 the United States had news of the creation of missile launch ramps on the islandThis put the United States and practically the entire earth map on high alert. For this reason, President Kennedy's first measure was to militarily block access to the island of Cuba in an attempt to prevent missiles from arriving from the Soviet Union. It was a period of great tension, due to a terror of a nuclear war.

On October 29, 1962, the president of the USSR, Kruschev, gave the order to the Soviet ships to return and also ordered the dismantling of the island's missiles along with the ramps. In return, the United States promised to no longer try to control Cuba.

Although it was a time of great social and military tension, it served to bring the two superpowers closer together, which ended in the celebration of a first nuclear disarmament conferencer and the mutual renunciation of being the first to use the atomic weapon.

The name of that meeting was Helsinki Conference 1973-1975, in which many other important issues on international relations were discussed, the strong points of debate being:

• Sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent to sovereignty.
• Refraining from resorting to threats or the use of force.
• Inviolability of borders.
• Territorial integrity of the states.
• Settlement of disputes by peaceful means.
• Non-intervention in internal affairs.
• Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
• Equal rights and the right to self-determination of the peoples.
• Cooperation between states.
• Compliance in good faith with the obligations of international law.

This led to close the chapter on the Cuban missile crisis. After being on the verge of provoking a nuclear war, the two superpowers were evenly matched (as both were forced to back down in their political ambitions).

Although it was not the end of the confrontations between the two sides, in fact, the next places where clashes between the two superpowers would take place were Korea and Vietnam.