The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962
The Cuban missile crisis remains one of the most closely examined episodes of the nuclear era. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, even more historical material has become available for scholars to examine.5 Though this now allows us to re-examine the crisis, most scholarly and popular accounts have only stressed how close the two superpowers came to a nuclear war. A more surprising outcome was that the nuclear deterrence worked, and that it worked in spite of considerable disparities in the nuclear arsenals of the two powers. Despite enjoying local and strategic superiority, and despite strong sentiment among President Kennedy’s advisors (which Kennedy appears to have shared at times) in favour of bombing the missile sites in Cuba, the US was deterred from going to war. What deterred the US was the certainty that some Soviet retaliation would take place. Though the Soviets might have suffered more, the fact that the US would not escape unhurt was sufficient to deter the US.
The decision to place Soviet missiles in Cuba was taken in late May 1962.6 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s primary motivation appears to have been to defend Cuba against continuing American-sponsored attacks by anti-Castro forces and the very real possibility of an American invasion.7 Hoping to present the US with a fait accompli, Khrushchev ordered that the mission be carried out in complete secrecy.8 The extraordinary measures that the Soviet military took to conceal the operation, as well as some favourable weather, allowed the Soviet military to successfully conduct much of the operation in secret. Nevertheless, by the middle of October, American intelligence had begun to suspect that Soviet missiles might have been shipped to Cuba. On October 16, President Kennedy was informed that there was conclusive photo-reconnaissance evidence of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba. Though originally contemplating an air strike, Kennedy eventually decided on a ‘quarantine’ of Cuba to prevent any more missiles going into that country, along with resolute demands that Moscow remove the missiles already in Cuba or face war. The crisis ended short of war, when Khrushchev decided to pull the missiles out of Cuba in exchange for an American undertaking to not invade Cuba, and to eventually remove American ‘Jupiter’ missiles from Turkey.
The Essay on Crisis Missile Soviet Cuba
The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 presents an integrated, comprehensive record of U. S. decision making during the most dangerous U. S. -Soviet confrontation in the nuclear era. Some 3, 400 unique records relevant to the crisis, total ling approximately 17, 500 pages, are reproduced in the microfiche. Much of the documentation focuses on U. S. decision making during what Robert Kennedy called the ' ...
The nuclear balance and the Cuban Missile Crisis
One of the continuing areas of dispute about the Cuban missile crisis concerns the impact of the nuclear balance on the eventual resolution of the crisis. Did American nuclear superiority matter? Or, were nuclear weapons irrelevant? Was it Kennedy’s resoluteness and patience that was the critical factor?9 What lessons can be drawn from the crisis about the general importance of nuclear balances?
There is now little doubt about the lopsided nature of the nuclear balance at the time of the missile crisis. Through the late 1950s, a section of the American strategic elite had worried continuously about advances in Soviet missile and bomber strength.10 A classified RAND study suggested that American strategic forces, primarily the bombers of the Strategic Air Command, were vulnerable to a Soviet surprise attack.11 The Gaither Committee, appointed by the Eisenhower administration to examine the issue of American vulnerability, supported the conclusion reached by the earlier RAND study.12 But much of this concern was exaggerated, primarily because of lack of intelligence about the true strength of the Soviet strategic forces.13 The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had deliberately exaggerated Soviet accomplishments, announcing repeatedly to Western journalists and leaders that the Soviet Union had built large numbers of strategic weapons.14 By 1960, the existence of a ‘missile gap’ was an article of faith among both the American public and leadership and it was used to great effect by John F. Kennedy in his presidential campaign. However, though Kennedy used the missile gap issue to win the election, it became abundantly clear, within weeks of his inauguration, that no such gap existed, and the Kennedy administration officially and publicly debunked the ‘missile gap.’15 By October 1962, the US enjoyed at least a 17 to 1 superiority in strategic nuclear warheads, about 5000 US warheads to approximately 300 Soviet ones.16 Even this appears to understate the American superiority, because it is likely that the Soviet Union had fewer than 300 warheads at this time.17 As importantly, this was a superiority that the US as well as the Soviet Union were aware of and both knew the other knew.
The Term Paper on Cuban Missile Crisis: The Edge Of War
... was a strategic one (Hersh 346). A year earlier, the United States had placed several medium-range nuclear missiles in Turkey ... was amazingly ignored throughout this whole crisis. He was certain that the Americans were invading and was frustrated that ... secretly ordered the placement of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba. Earlier the Soviet premier had promised Soviet protection to Cuba ("Cuban" 774). ...
But this overwhelming advantage played little part in the confrontation.18 Then and subsequently, many participants believed that it was the threat of a nuclear war itself that deterred the US from acting on its superiority. Despite the American advantage, both superpowers were vulnerable to nuclear war. In Bundy’s words,
We had to assume that in any nuclear exchange, no matter who started it, some of these missiles and bombers would get through with megaton bombs. Even one would be a disaster. We had no interest in any nuclear exchange other than to avoid it. The fact that our own strategic forces were very much larger gave us no comfort.19
Other participants have made similar observations. The irrelevance of the strategic balance is captured most aptly in a comment made by President Kennedy to his advisors at the height of the crisis: “What difference does it make? They’ve got enough to blow us up now anyway.”20
Of course, not all participants agreed on the irrelevance of the strategic balance in the crisis. The military, particularly those from the Strategic Air Command (SAC), were clear about why the Soviets “backed-down.” Years later, Air Force General Curtis LeMay would recall that “During that very critical time, in my mind there wasn’t a chance that we would have gone to war with Russia because we had overwhelming strategic capability and the Russians knew it.”21 Some of the civilian participants, such as Paul Nitze (one of the three among Kennedy’s advisors in the Executive Committee), have also consistently maintained that the strategic balance was a critical factor.22
The Essay on Strategic Plan Part III Balanced Scorecard
Before opening its doors, a company must employ researchers and marketers to create new ideas or products that will make his or her company stand out above competitors and get the attention of consumers. Management will come up with a strategic plan on the direction of the company, which will include a balanced scorecard. According to Pearce and Robinson, (2009) “The balanced scorecard is a ...
But it is clear that for the critical participants, including President Kennedy, the more relevant issue was avoiding war itself. Nevertheless, even for those who argue that the strategic balance was a critical factor, what was important was the impact of the strategic superiority on Kremlin decision-makers. Khrushchev, according to this argument, backed down only because the US had both local conventional superiority and strategic nuclear superiority.23 But ‘the dog that didn’t bark’ in the Cuban missile crisis was not Soviet restraint, but American restraint. Soviet restraint was understandable, considering their relative weakness.24 The American restraint, despite their overwhelming advantage, is counter-intuitive and difficult to explain, except as the consequence of the fear of nuclear war itself. The American restraint becomes even more remarkable when considered in the light of new evidence that suggests that President Kennedy was willing to even make a public bargain of the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, if that was what it would take to resolve the crisis short of war.25 In short, the new history of the missile crisis suggests even greater American restraint than was realised earlier, strengthening the proposition that the US was as deterred by the threat of war as the Soviet Union was, and was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent the outbreak of such a war. The nuclear balance appears to have played little part in the crisis.
This is a lesson that has implications for SNFs such as the Indian deterrent force. A good part of the debate about the Indian nuclear deterrent has been focussed on the issue of numbers—what kind of weapons, and what quality of weapons, are necessary to ensure deterrence.26 What the experience of the Cuban missile crisis suggests is that the numbers might not be a critical factor in achieving deterrence. If superiority and inferiority does not matter when dealing with nuclear weapons, then numbers and balances do not either.
The Essay on Cuban Missle Crisis Cuba Missile American
The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most tense and epic confrontations of the twentieth century. Many factors led to the level of escalation that was experienced. The causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis can be traced back to the late nineteenth century, during the Spanish-American War, where the U. S. A. gained control of Cuba. Until 1959, America supported a corrupt regime in Cuba under ...
