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Essay On The Cuban Missile Crisis

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: During the period of cold war, both the US and NATO allies and the Eastern Bloc comprising the USSR and its allies competed against each other to demonstrate the superiority of polito-economic system. In this “virtual war”, USSR pitched for the authoritarian and communism principles as against the US’s democracy and capitalism. One such event of the proxy wars was the “Cuban Missile Crisis” in which the USSR positioned the nuclear missiles in Cuba, gaining the nuclear missile capability in close proximity to the US. After the Berlin crisis, an attempt to gain control over West Berlin from the NATO allies, Mr. Nikita Khrushchev, the premier of USSR, was trying to use various power to tactics to pressurize US to cede the control of West Berlin. Apart from this issue, USSR …show more content…

USSR leveraged this position to its advantage and made Cuba an ally, gaining a strategic control in terms of geographic proximity to the US as well as an opportunity to proliferate communism. A crucial learning is that in a dispute, when parties are trying to demonstrate strength, one should identify partners that offer a strategic superiority. USSR positioned its medium range ballistic missiles with nuclear capacity in Cuba, a move that provided a lot of bargaining power to USSR. The US had no prior experience of any attack on its geography and hence, it appeared precarious with any kind of vulnerability. The USSR understood this position and placed missiles in Cuba to use them as an arm twisting measure against the US. By gaining this position, USSR wanted to ouster the NATO forces out of West Berlin and get rid of missiles from Turkey and Italy. The next best alternative for USSR was to get intervention of United Nations on its position on West Berlin and the missiles in Turkey. With the nuclear missiles in Cuba, the US realized that it would be appropriate to negotiate with USSR for a peaceful

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