The Pros And Cons Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

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The Cold War had lots of confrontations that involved using principles and practicing them. One example is the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuba was coming off the failed invasion by the United States at the Bay of Pigs. They allied themselves with the Soviet Union and, in order to protect Cuba, The Soviet Union sent missiles to Cuba. The Americans found out using a spy plane. They warned Russia not to do this because it threatened the USA. However, the Soviet Union wasn’t stopping. This event was quickly called The Cuban Missile Crisis. Principles in the Cuban Missile Crisis were the ideas/thoughts that occurred without going into action like when the United States said they would have peace talks with the Soviet Union but instead waited until the Soviets offered them a plan. Practices in the Cuban Missile Crisis were that ideas that went into action like their plan to quarantine Cuba from the Soviet Union. During this crisis, it was clear that the United States had a lot more principles than practices.
Cuba was recovering from the Bay of Pigs invasion. They held off the American forces and were able to avoid the invasion. They weren’t sure if the United States would attack again. Cuba’s dictator (Castro) wanted to convert Cuba into communism. In doing this they allied themselves with the USSR while being dangerously close to the “enemy,” the USA. Cuba was now in the middle of the Cold War. Although they believed getting involved with the USSR would protect them, at the same time it put them in more danger. Castro did not think it would get Cuba tangled into the Cold War. In an interview he said, “Our problem is above all of national sovereignty. Cuba does not mean to get involved in the Cold War.”(Beck 551)
United States had a U-2 ...

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...il finally the USSR issued a deal. The deal seemed to work out more for the Soviets as they insured the safety of Cuba and got the U.S. missiles removed from Turkey. If the United States issued a deal first, like they planned to, they might’ve gotten a better deal.
The USA had lots of principles/ideas but they didn’t put them into action. They had lots of ideas on how to handle the situation and on how to end it but, they never put them into practice. Actions speak louder than words and it was clearly demonstrated in this crisis. The USSR took actions that they thought they should take and eventually got what they wanted and then some. Maybe if the USA put more principles into practice they could’ve gotten a better deal. No matter what action you take there should always have a principle behind it. However, like the USA, overthinking things can be unrewarding.

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