COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS Spring 2011 Introduction to International Relation INTA 103 Evaluate the causes, consequences

and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis SUBMITTED BY Anli Amram Youssouf SUPERVISION Dr. Steven wright 200603216

Evaluate the causes, consequences and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis After the defeat of Germany and Nazi from the allied forces and after the mass destruction of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the American atomic bombs used for the first time, the World War II came to end and the Japanese raised their hands to accept the defeat and end the war. Directly after the end of the war, there were dissolution of all different allies and the world entered a new era in 1945 of the so called The Cold War Era. Under this period the world had entered a homogeneous of economically, politically and militarily competition between the west and the east and more specifically between The United States a simple of capitalist economy against the Soviet Union that represented a communist economy. Both the United States of America (USA) and its competition the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) were trying as much as possible to spread its ideology and gain more followers to join its camps. They competed in all different fields all over the world, in Europe after divided Berlin the Germany capital into different areas, the competed in Asia as the case of Vietnam and Cambodia and the also competed in South America and the Caribbean as the case of Cuba and some other South American states. In this paper the writer will focus on Cuba by discussing the Cuban missile crisis under three main points: the causes, consequences, and lessons learnt from it. Each category will discuss three sub-points. According the writer, the Cuban missile was led by three main causes: national interests, failure of Bay of Pigs and mongoose operations, and presentation of American missiles in Turkey. This crisis has impacts on three main areas: Cuba has remained a communist country, US and USSR has entered in a serious relationship instead of conflict, and finally other nations competed to earn nuclear weapons for national security reasons. Three main lessons can be learnt from it are that: countries learnt to concentrate more on their problems than other countries problem, allied with your enemy is not a mistake, and when taking action think about the surrounded reactions.

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Evaluate the causes, consequences and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis The Cuban missile crisis did not come over night as some people might think. It was due to different factors come from different causes: One of the main causes of the crisis was a matter of national interests. After different attempt coup dtat from Fidel Castro and his companions to overthrow Fulgencio Batista ( a friend dictator to the United States) and his regime, Castro had finally succeeded to take the leadership of Cuba 1959 ( Leycester Coltman, 2003 p.142). Before Castro came to power, Cuba was like a play ground of United States. It owned most the economical activities of the countries from agriculture, refineries of petroleum, casinos, beaches and prostitutes. Castro did not feel happy to leave as a slave in his own land; therefore he started to nationalize all foreign investments. Because most of industries in Cuba that time owned by Americans, US felt that its national interest was attacked by Castro Regime. Castro had nationalized billions and billions of American investments, plus he took all lands owned by American farming industries and distributed it to the Cuban farmer Citizens. It was not only economic national interest that America felt was attacked but also its national security, especially when Cuba started its alliance with the USSR. In the NSA and Cuban Missile Crisis, Fort George G (1998) writes that Castro soon took actions inimical to American interests and aligned his country publically with the Soviet Union. (p.3) In the Americas perspectives, this was a sign of threat and attack of its national interests. But in the Castros perspectives, reform of lands and nationalizing foreign investments was done for the national interest of Cuba and Cubans. Both John Kennedy (The US president of that period) and Castro look at this action in on the eye of national interests. The failure of Bay of Pigs and mongoose operations was another cause of the Cuban missile crisis. After the failure of the Bay Of Pigs operation, Castro and his regime felt the danger from the United States; therefore they were in need to rely on another power in order to themselves from the American emperor. ( Quesada and Walsh, 2009) write that Fidel Castro victory at Bay Of Pigs pushed him speak loudly and announced that Cuba is a socialist communist country. It meant that Cuba had to strengthen its relationship to the USSR the communist leader power of the era led by Nikita Khrushchev. The decision of Cuba to acquire the URSS missiles wasnt but to protect the sovereignty of the country against any expected invasions from US. They US on the other hand had failed to understand the issue that way; instead it considered it as a tremendous threat against its national security. Theses absences or silences-the failure to understand soviet motives in developing the missiles to Cuba, the failure to acknowledge Cuban sovereignty, and the failure seriously to consider the strategic irrelevance of the missiles in Cuba- all provide important windows into the orthodox US understanding of the Cuban missile crisis (Jutta Weldes, 1999, p. 17). The US missiles in Turkey were the third cause of the Cuban Missile crisis. Since the URSS was the competition of the USA at the time, they as felt the threat when they came to know that United States had deposited missiles in Turkey a country that is almost in the gate of the Soviet Union States. Deposited missiles in Cuba were a great opportunity for the URSS to make pressure on the United States to remove its missiles in Turkey in exchange of removing missiles in Cuba. The USSR made this decision to make the US rethink again and again before taking any action against Castro and his regime. The US threat of massive retaliation was taken very seriously by Khrushchev and looked to missiles for a counter force: only by building up a
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Evaluate the causes, consequences and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis nuclear missile force could we keep the enemy from unleashing war against us (Bradley lightbody, 1999, P.53). Even though the most and well known threat from all over the world was the missiles in Cuba, but in the Soviet Union point of view the missiles in Turkey did matter a lot. They considered it as a very serious threat to their national security. It is something that Mr. Body wandered of how removing missiles in Cuba was taken in a very high consideration, while removing missiles in Italy and Turkey did not gain the same consideration (Lightbody, 1999, P.53). The Cuba missile crisis had causes as well as consequences. It affected all different parties involving in this problem in particular and the entire world in general. There are three main consequences underlying on the Cuban missile crisis. Despite all conflict between US against Cuba and USSR regarding the Cuban missiles, Cuba had become and sustained a communist country in the gate of the United States. Furthermore, Cuba had become a country of inspiration of all other countries Caribbean and South American countries; like the case of Venezuela and Bolivia. Many of those to participate in the Cuban revolutions had taken action to help other nations in the neighborhoods. Many of Cuba revolutionaries- as Che Guevara- had participated or influenced other revolutionaries in South America (Samuel Farber, 2006, p.141-146). Another consequence of the Cuban missile crisis that both realized that they should enter in every serious relationship and open a line of communication to avoid any other nuclear tension that may lead to nuclear war disaster in the future. As a result many treaties of nuclear agreement were signed thereafter to ensure that no other mistake would occur in the future. One of the agreements assigned for that purpose was the Comprehensive Nuclear-test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that banned and forbid all kind of nuclear explosion for whatever its purpose. The treaty has somehow reached some goals to have many countries to sign it although it not compulsory. The last but not least consequence resulted from the Cuban Crisis was some countries learnt from this crisis that any country to own nuclear weapon, it would be very to other nations to attack it. Under this concept France and UK worked hard after to possess nuclear power in order to avoid any attack from unfriendly country in the future. It was something that eventually these European powers came to realize at the end and ensure their national security. A great example of how effective possessing nuclear power was is the case of India and Pakistan. Each one is a great enemy of another, but none of these two countries will use its nuclear bombs to attack his opponent. Like any scenario happens, people tried to draw some lessons from it. Cuban missile crisis though is not an exception. There are three main lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the lessons we could learn from it is that if any time countries forgot to take a deep look at their own problem rather than trying to look at anyones action as a threat of their national security, the same scenario and the same mistake would happen again and again. An example of that was the case of Iraq. Although Iraq did not possess any nuclear weapon, the American imagination of threat from Iraq led them to a great mistake for them to attack Iraq without any proof. This is for sure something that the history will never forgive them for taking such action.
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Evaluate the causes, consequences and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis Another lesson we could learn from that is that strengthen your allied to you enemy is not a mistake if that will avoid such crisis. In the current case we must recognize that the US is hated by some Arabs and some Muslims, and that is will affect the actions of our allies and our opponents. We must try to minimize unintended consequences of our action by probing deeply the root of such hatredsby trying to see our actions as other see them ( McNamara & Blight, P.14). We could learn also from this crisis that before someone take any action; he should first think hundred times what would be the reaction of the involving parties. This was the mistake from the US to miss anticipate the reaction of the USSR from the missiles in Turkey. From examining the Cuban missile crisis case, I can say that this crisis was resulted from the Bay of Pigs and mongoose operations failure, national interests misunderstanding, and the presentation of US missiles in Turkey which is closer to the URSS. These causes had impact thereafter on different areas. The USA could not stop Cuba from Being a Communist country, but could have established a direct line with USSR to solve their conflicts. This crisis also led to a world nuclear competition. Countries learnt from it to concentrate on their own problem rather than others problem. Many countries work harder to reduce their conflict with their enemies, finally countries have learnt to never take action against any country without thinking of their opponent reactions.

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Evaluate the causes, consequences and lessons from the Cuban missile crisis References

Bradley, L. (1999). Cold War. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge

Farber, S. (2006). Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered. Chapel Hill, NC, USA: University of North Carolina Press.

George, F. (1998). NSA and the Cuban missile crisis. Maryland USA: National Security Agency.

Weldes, J. (1999). Constructing National Interests : The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press.

Leycester, C. (2003). Real Fidel Castro. London, , GBR: Yale University Press

McNamara, R. & Blight, J. The miracle of October: Lessons from the Cuban missile crisis

Quesada, A. & Walsh, S. (2009).The Bay of Pigs: Cuba 1961. Botley Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

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