Crisi missilistica a Cuba nella Guerra fredda

Sommario

The Cuban Missile Crisis e la guerra fredda, tema svolto (in lingua inglese). "The build up of missiles in Cuba in 1962 was a deliberate, provocative and unjustified action". To what extent do you agree with this statement?" (file.doc, 3 pag)

The Cuban missile crisis presented the most direct and acute Soviet -American confrontation; it portrayed the occasion on which the two sides have come closest to the brink of nuclear war Francesca Cricelli Pr. 8 Cold War “The build up of missiles in Cuba in 1962 was a deliberate, provocative and unjustified action”. To what extent do you agree with this statement? The Cuban missile crisis presented the most direct and acute Soviet -American confrontation; it portrayed the occasion on which the two sides have come closest to the brink of nuclear war. The build up of the armaments in Cuba in 1962 was carefully thought out in advance, an intentional Soviet plan. According to the American Orthodox point of view, it was extremely provocative and bellicose. For the first time the USA found not only a communist Island in their backyard, but one armed with nuclear weapons. The situation presented a threat to national security. At first, the problem wasn't taken too seriously, the EX Comm members thought they were in full knowledge of the Soviet nuclear potentials. Both J.F.K. and Robert MacNamara (his secretary of defense) thought the missiles as much a political problem as a military thread. As the crisis developed and became public, panic took hold across the USA. In the revisionist Soviet retrospective the placement of missiles was to avoid a potential confrontation not to cause one. " When we put our ballistic missiles in Cuba, we had no desire to start a war, no the contrary, our principal aim was to deter America from starting a war”. To a vast extent the Soviet reasons for the build up in Cuba were justified. The Soviet Union had just begun to embrace relations with Cuba, a Communist state in Latin America would have served as an example to the other countries whose economy was on the way to prosperity but was still fully controlled by American imperialism. Even though Cuba was stationed 11,000 km away from Russia, Khrushchev knew he could not lose Cuba. He feared that by ignoring the uprising of Marxism-Leninism in Cuba, the Soviet image would have suffered a grave diminish throughout the world, but especially in Latin America. “ If Cuba fell, other Latin American countries would reject us”. Khrushchev continued to consider a deliberate way to intervene with the American influence in Cuba. “We had to think up some way of confronting America with more than words. We had to establish a tangible and effective deterrent to American interference in the Caribbean”. The Soviet main justification for placing missiles in Cuba was of defensive nature, the United States had already surrounded their country with bases and missiles. American missiles were aimed against the Soviet Union and placed in Turkey, Italy and U.K. Khrushchev acted deliberately, he had been planning on the build up since his visit to Bulgaria, he aimed to place the missiles in secret from the United States, for it to be discovered when it wou (...Segue)