When the Cold War started to reach it's peak, Cuba was armed by the soviets with their own nuclear weapons in order to have first strike capabilities.
If you look at it from the point of view of the Americans, we wanted to protect our first strike advantage due to the fact that we had no intention of attacking Russia and wanted them to have no such ability. The Americans main interest is democracy and one of our government's goals is to have all nations be democratic yet if Cuba is allied with Russia as a communist state that is very scary for us.
On the other side of the spectrum, Russia wanted to protect it's own national security as well because letting America have first strike opportunity was a dangerous thing even if at the moment they had no intention of attacking. By moving their missiles to Cuba they now also have first strike capabilities and in turn have the same advantage as America. This was a direct threat to democracy in America and possibly the whole western hemisphere.
I believe that based on the crazy logic of Mutually Assured Destruction, both America and the Soviet Union are equally to blame for edging each other on in the race for larger nuclear arsenals. The Soviet response in Cuba can be pictured as a counterpart to American missiles aimed at the Soviet Union in Turkey, so America's moral standpoint is greatly blurred. Both countries basically implicitly agreed to continue the dangerous policy of building and testing more and more deadly bombs until it seemed that the entire world could be destroyed at the drop of a hat; if either country decided not to choose to do so, the logic of MAD would truly have been tested.
ReplyDeleteTalking about Cuba I think neither Russia or America is to blame, both countries had missiles and both countries were thinking about aiming them at the other. Russia was attempting to help its allies and America was attempting to help itself. Both countries were thinking in defense for themselves and their family, therefore it is hard to blame either for the Cuban Missile Crisis. One can definitely argue both sides but I believe neither countries were at fault and I like how you do not insert an opinion into the article as well.
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