Cuban missile crisis: Soviets’ aggressiveness or… ?

A common pattern in the United States’s history is the unreasonable aggressiveness of other countries against their own country. “During the Second World War we were neutral till suddenly the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor”. “During the WWI we were neutral, when Germans started the unrestricted submarine warfare and sent the Zimmermann Telegram”, “We were peaceful in our homes when in 2001 airplanes from the air attacked us”.

However, what about the Cuban missile crisis? From the americans’ perspective, the crisis started in the autumn of 1962, when Soviets started sending medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Cuba. “An explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas” as John Kennedy stated later. So, according to the USA, a small american state accepted to become a puppet state of the USSR and to be ready to harm another American states with nuclear weapons anytime. An unreasonable move of aggressiveness which the USA had to fight against.

Let’s turn now to the Cuban perspective. Fidel Castro took the power in Cuba in 1959. He promoted what he regarded as Cuba’s interests also by nationalizing american properties. USA’s (totally reasonable) disagreement to those actions and trade retaliation (for example the USA stopped buying cuban sugar, an export crucial for the cuban economy) made Castro look for a deal with Soviet Union.

The latter enraged the USA and they actively planned the way to throw him away from power. The invasion in the Bay of Pigs finally took place on April 1961 and was unsuccessful. Castro declared Cuba as a socialist state and stuck more to his alliance with Soviet Union. So when the chance came that he would receive defensive and offensive weapons, it was a great chance for him to increase his own safety. The USA had already invaded once and they were still trying to throw him away from power with covert activities. Accepting those missiles was not an offensive move for Castro, it was clearly a defensive one. Only an insane Cuban leader would attack the USA, especially with nukes. He needed them to scare the USA, so that the USA leadership accepts his regime.

So in Cuban perspective’s was it reasonable to proceed to this deal with Soviet Union? In Cuba there had been a revolution and a new regime. This regime wanted to eradicate the american privileges in the island. It can be debated if that was correct or not, but in any case i don’t think that this legitimizes any country to invade a sovereign country, like in the Bay of Pigs operation. So, in my opinion, Castro’s d e f e n s i v e decision to accept the Soviet weapons should not be such a surprise to the american officials.

But what about the Soviet Union? Well, here it’s more than apparent. The USA had deployed missiles in Europe and, even worse for the Soviets, in Turkey since 1959. What’s more, the president who made that was Dwight Eisenhower who had come up with the strategy of the “Massive retaliation”. If Soviets were making a move anywhere in the world that was against America’s vital interests, he threatened with massive nuclear retaliations.

Three years later, the Soviet Union decided to do the same, deploy nuclear weapons next to the USA’s borders at an allied-country that had been invaded by the USA. We all know America’s response, but, sorry for that, it was quite a hypocricy.

Last but not least, i can totally understand that the USA did not want Soviet allies in their continent. But, excuse me, didn’t they do the same in all the borders of Soviet Union? In Europe they created NATO, an anti-soviet alliance, in the borders of the communist world. According to the Americans it was a defensive alliance, but i am not sure if the Soviets understood it like that. In South Asia they created SEATO, the South East Asia Treaty Organization. In the Pacific Ocean they established the Anzus alliance with Australia and New Zealand. Even in Middle East they created CENTO, the Central Treaty Organization that also included Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.

So the USA encircled the USSR from all sides with anti-soviet alliances in the context of the USSR’s “containment”, moved even missiles to USSR’s borders, but when Soviet Union found an ally on the sea borders of the USA and also tried to move missiles there, that was quite a shock for the Americans. Ok, i also believe that Soviet Union was an authoritative regime and it was good that the USA finally won the Cold War, but this does not mean that we need to let the winners write the history in such a way.

And who made finally a step behind so that the nuclear war be avoided? Mostly Hrustsov. The Americans claimed in the start that they would not remove the missiles from Turkey under extortion (although Americans already planned to remove them, because they were old-fashioned anymore). Finally Hrustsov accepted publicly the deal that he would remove the missiles since USA would guarantee that they would not invade Cuba. Secretly, there were also assurances from american officials that the missiles in Turkey would also be removed next months.

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