Cuban Missile Crisis Diplomacy
The world will never be the same after the events of October of 1962, now known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States learned that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev wanted to shift the balance of power more favorably towards the Soviet Union. Khrushchev ultimately did not want to go to war with the United States he wanted the Soviet Union to be respected and seen as a super power. The missile bases were near completion when a U.S. U-2 spy plane discovered the bases. Over the next thirteen days American President John F. Kennedy and his ExComm team (a group of Kennedy's top advisors) probed every diplomatic channel possible to prevent a nuclear holocaust. This essay will argue that President Kennedy's crisis diplomacy can be considered the main factor which prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis ending in nuclear war in retrospect to theories from Huth and Blainey. If any of Kennedy's responses had have been different the crisis may have led to WW III, and possibly the end of the world.Kennedy and Khrushchev met for the first time at the Vienna Summit in June 1961. Khrushchev had been previously unsuccessful negotiating nuclear policies with Eisenhower so he decid
Khrushchev possibly thought this was a sign of weakness by Kennedy and that he could try bullying the young President to adopt reasonable policies. The Joint Chiefs believed that Kennedy should have ordered surgical strikes against the bases to show that the U. Blainey states in his book, 'The Causes of War', that "the danger of a crisis that slipped from control was diminished if two powers dominated the world" (1988 p. "We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union - for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples" (Kennedy 1962). Navy was vulnerable to submarine attacks. The quarantine was to become effective at 10:00 on the morning of 24 October, 1962. President Kennedy had never intended to invade Cuba and the Jupiter missiles were scheduled to be removed before the crisis (the crisis delayed their removal) from Turkey as they had become obsolete. Kennedy decided not to conduct air strikes with a follow up invasion probably because of the Bay of Pigs (he also wanted to avoid thermo nuclear war). Huth states:The outcomes of attempted extended deterrence for the defender were coded as either; (1) Success - Defender (Soviet Union) stands firm in support of protege (Cuba) and potential attacker (U.
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Acceptance Essays
