Cuban Missile Crisis Good Vs Evil

Cuban Missile Crisis: A Fight of Good Against Evil?

The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the peak of the cold war that was on-going at the time. It was a parlous period characterized by an ideological tug-of-war almost leading to a collision course. After the end of the Second World War, tensions had already been built around the already shaky relationship between the United States and the USSR. Cuba, a little neighboring island to the United States and a former colony of Italy, unfortunately, was at the center of the whole crisis. Additionally, the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba was already tensed following the overthrow of the U.S. supported government of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, who contemporaneously commenced building

There were several actors that played certain roles at some point in the crisis, but due to the scope of this essay, I will mention but a few. The key actors were the United State under John Kennedy’s administration, the Soviet Union under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, Cuba under Fidel Castro, the United Nations and Vasili Arkhipov etc. I specifically chose Vasili Arkhipov because according to a video uploaded by Codi von Richthofen, he is considered the man who saved the world. Vasili Arkhipov was a captain on board the B59 submarine, one of the four submarines headed for Cuba and loaded with nuclear missiles. This period is considered the most dangerous period in human history because, for the first time in history, a nuclear bomb and the power to fire it were in the hands of a commander. After the Russian fleets were spotted by the U.S. Navy, Arkhipov and his crew were at a crucial point of either being captured by the U.S. or launching the missiles considering the fact that they had lost communications with the Russian governments for days. At this point, the two captains and the political officer on board who had parts of the key to activate the nuclear bomb had agreed to launch the bomb, but Vasili Arkhipov decided not to since he was in charge of the fleet, and he alone had a veto power. Hence, because of this action, he is considered the world’s savior. The United Nations

According to Sergei Khrushchev in a video uploaded by The Choices Program, “each great power has their obligation to protect all their allies. They’re far or close; they’re important or they’re not important” (2008). It was just an attempt to protect its own just like every other country would do and was not at all a fight of changing the balance of power as several scholars would say. At the time of the event, according to Sergei Khrushchev, “the American superiority was too big,” hence it was not possible for the Soviet Union to change the system because the U.S had 159 ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and 2500 strategic bombers, as opposed to the Soviet Union’s 24 ICBMs. A war with the U.S. clearly would have been a disaster for the Soviet Union, but in order to protect its image and trust by its allies, the Soviet Union’s actions were