Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most important conflicts of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union came close to starting the third world war in October, 1962. The reason was the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in CubaInformationFor a long time, the Soviets thought that they were years a head of the US in terms of intercontinental missiles. After all, they had put 'Sputnik' into orbit, well before the US had dreamt of such an act. Most of the Soviet organizations did not believe that there was a necessity to build more intercontinental missiles (i.e., they started to believe in their own propagonda). This laxity made it harder for the Soviets to understand and deal with the fact that they had been surpassed. As it was not possible to build more intercontinental missiles (economic reasons), a group within the newly created Strategic Rocket Forces proposed the using of Cuba as a missile site. Such a move was also backed by the Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev who believed that the future of wars would involve strategic nuclear rockets (and it was he who had actually created the Strategic Rocket Forces). The Soviets, thus, decided to place medium- (MRBM) and intermediate-range ballistic (IRBM) missile
ResultsAt the end of this 'adventure' nobody was happy: Fidel Castro was angry at the way the Soviets had retreated. Since the UN needs the consent of the host country to set up and deploy such teams, the Cubans had every right to deny permission (another example of the dominance of the concept of sovereignty within the UN framework). The secretary-general went to Cuba to make the arrangements for an observer team. He also maintains that Turkey was kept in the dark during the crisis and that Ankara did not really know what was going on. Surgical air strike had been ruled out because the US Air Force did not believe that it could guarantee success. Former Turkish Ambassador Sukru Elekdag's article "Kuba fuze krizi ve Turkiye" ('Cuban missile crisis and Turkey') demonstrates the Turkish feeling. Alan James (in Peacekeeping in International Politics) says that the Red Cross was then advanced as an inspector on the high seas of ships going from and to Cuba but while the Cubans were favorably disposed to this plan, it was the Red Cross that had doubts: They worried that this operation would damage its reputation as a solely humanitarian body. s in Cuba (as well as other weapons). Furthermore, he echoes the Turkish feeling when he says the Soviets and Americans would have made sure that any nuclear confrontation would be limited to Cuba and Turkey. This behavior was similar to Egypt's behavior in 1956 when the Egyptians told the UN team to leave. An important point is that President Kennedy had twice ordered for the missiles to be removed from Turkey (a year ago) yet the missiles were still in Turkey when the crisis broke out. John McCone, head of the CIA, had suspected since August that Soviets were introducing offensive missiles to Cuba. After a tense week (during which many messages were exchanged and the parties started to prepare for war) Khrushchev announced, on October 28, that the construction of the sites had stopped.
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