The Weight of History

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

4 min read

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

Star Wars

  • this is like. if the Jedi had discovered the Separatists building the Death Star right next to Coruscant
  • in response to the Republic’s vastly superior fleet and clones

USSR Motivations

Security

  • protect Castro's regime from further American acts of aggression

  • 'missile gap' between U.S. and USSR

    • U.S. deployed 15 Jupiter nuclear intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IBRMs) near 🇹🇷 Turkey, which could easily threaten western Soviet cities

      • e.g. Moscow in about 16 minutes, within the 1500-mile flight range
      • Khrushchev would invite guests to vacation on the Black Sea, take out binoculars and ask them what they saw. When they replied, “Nothing”, Khrushchev would reply that he saw U.S. missiles in Turkey, "aimed at [his] dacha"

    • the USSR sought to equalize things by placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles in 🇨🇺 Cuba

      • mutually-assured destruction; the U.S. would be deterred for fear of retaliation
      • Cuba requested for fear of further U.S. interference

    • at the time of the Missile Crisis, the American:USSR advantage was 17:1 missiles

    restrain the United States from precipitous military action against Cuba's government."
    –Khrushchev

    “The main thing was that the installation of our missiles in Cuba would, I thought,

  • USSR spreading Marxist-Leninist ideology in the Third World

    • communism appealed more to these developing nations than developed ones like Japan and Germany, which by this point had shown a clear preference for liberal and capitalist institutions
    • 📜 John Lewis Gaddis: Khrushchev’s attempt to stop the U.S. from winning The Cold War
      • Kennedy did not understand this as clearly as Khrushchev did

Realist School of Thought

Khrushchev’s eventual giving-in, sacrificing Cuba in the process, showed that security concerns trumped ideology.

Economic

  • Khruschev sought to consolidate trading links in the Third World
    • 1951: USSR had trade representatives in 🇦🇷 Argentina, 🇲🇽 Mexico and 🇺🇾 Uruguay
    • 1961: USSR signed a trade agreement with 🇨🇺 Cuba, agreeing to pay for one-sixth of Cuban sugar
      • sugar was their main export
  • Khrushchev was facing economic problems at home, hurting his political standing
    • [] [1954 Virgin Lands Campaign]] was supposed to open up undeveloped land in northern Kazakhstan and other places
      • by 1960 the soil was infertile and there weren’t enough silos → grain thrown away → USSR had to buy grain from Canada → FAILURE
    • Khrushchev got rid of Moscow's industrial ministries in a bid to weaken central state bureaucracy
      • 1957: they were replaced with ==sovnarkhozes== (regional economic councils), supposed to be more responsive to local needs
      • led to disruption and inefficency → criticism at home

Ideological

  • Khrushchev was desperate to score a foreign policy win, especially after the 1961 Berlin Crisis
    • he aimed to increase Soviet security + bolster his position within the Soviet Communist Party
    • opportunistic – he considered Bay of Pigs to be Kennedy's failing that he could capitalize on
  • after the 1950s Sino-Soviet split, the socialist world ==wasn’t cohesive
    • Khrushchev had fundamentally changed the Communist doctrine, now advocating for peaceful co-existence with the liberal and capitalist West – without consulting China
    • China and the USSR both considered themselves leaders of Marxist theory and disputed
      • 1958-1959: Khrushchev used economic aid to try and oust Mao and bring China under the USSR (but obviously failed)
      • 1960s: dispute escalated over differences in interpretation of the communist ideology
    • problematic because communist ideology encouraged fraternity
      • USSR had a huge PR clean-up attempt by demonstrating solidarity with other communist regimes (aka Cuba)
      • communist Cuba would keep the Marxist-Leninist cause alive where it had significant appeal (i.e. Third World) → Khrushchev hoped other Latin American countries would pursue socialism → it would spread
  • USSR aggression as a sign of ideological expansion (aka Orthodox School of Thought)
    • Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida → missiles in Cuba was extremely aggressive and a veiled threat
    • was also only a band-aid to the missile disparity
      • implementation was sloppy
      • any potential gain was outweighed by the cost of heightening tensions → security clearly wasn’t a concern
      • Khrushchev sought to deter U.S. aggression towards Cuba and achieve nuclear parity
        • but the U.S. pulled an Uno Reverse Card and it backfired horribly
    • Cuba’s loss wouldn't have endangered the USSR; Cuba is so small compared to the rest of the USSR

U.S.A Motivations

Economic

  • U.S. imported sugarcane for CHEAP from Cuba → Castro nationalising industries meant loss of this revenue
    • incentive to keep Cuba capitalistic and GET CASTRO OUT

Impact (C & C with 1948-1949 Berlin Blockade)

  • set precedent for communication & diplomacy (direct hotline installed between Moscow & Washington DC; first line of defence between heads of state)
    • vs Berlin Blockade – no communications, heightened tensions; Stalin simply gave up
  • Cold War shifted from proxy (Berlin as the battleground) to more direct (tangible consequences on both nations)
  • humanitarian use of troops (airlifting, blockading) VS direct military conflict (nuclear/missile war)

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