The crisis relating to the Cuban missiles has occupied a key section in the international relations theory as well as in the United States foreign policies. For policymakers, the Cuban missile crisis established various tenets concerning the use of supremacy in the world of nuclear weapons and the way any association formed with Soviet Union ought to be best handled. According to Nathan, the deployment of the missiles by the USSR in Cuba represented an essential and triumphant retort to the vital interests of the Americans in Cuba that caused challenges to the Soviet Union (p.265). Nathan raised various fascinating questions relating to the implications of the USSR policy on the missile deployment in Cuba (p.267). Nathan claims that national leaders had their foreign affairs policies built on their deeply held values before the deployment of the USSR missiles in Cuba (Nathan 265).
Despite being challenged by other scholarly literature, Bernstein confirmed Nathan’s claims by offering warranted evidence on the deployment of the USSR missiles in Cuba (p.267). The scholar claims that policy issues played some roles in the Cuban missiles crisis. Bernstein gave two striking instances namely; the associated and deeply entrenched beliefs in the deterrence efficacy and the capacity of the political managers in steering their nations through the nuclear crisis shoals. Prior to the discovery of the deployed USSR missiles in Cuba, the policies of Soviet Union were construed to be in agreement with the former beliefs (Pachter 87). However, Khrushchev Nikita and Kennedy victories in solving the missile conflict in Cuba are provided in the literature to support the latter example. Thus, based on the Soviet policy and the deployment of USSR missiles in Cuba, literature asserts that Khrushchev acted rationally in the Cuban missile crisis (Lebow 440).
Literature tends to justify the claims on whether Khrushchev was unintentionally misled to deploy the USSR missiles in Cuba. Kennedy (1969) together with Pachter (1963) stressed that the US and USSR had political and cultural differences. These differences might have distorted the perception of Kennedy on the willingness of Soviet to accept risks and the perception of Khrushchev with respect to the resolutions offered by America to Cuba. Wohlstetter (1965) argues that the behavior of Kennedy offered grounds and contributed to the mistaken perceptions of the Soviet Union. In fact, Kennedy issued various warnings to Khrushchev, hence making such efforts to offer grounds that justify the miscalculations made by Khrushchev. According to Wohlstetter (1965), Khrushchev might have been obligated to assess the political contexts and the meaning of the warnings issued by Kennedy. Khrushchev could have been encouraged to deploy the USSR missiles in Cuba by three situational aspects relating to the doubts on the viability of the Americans resolutions. Khrushchev was encouraged to refute Kennedy’s warnings and deploy USSR missiles in Cuba because the American electoral politics had peculiar characteristics, John had poor office record, and he lacked desirable personal traits (Abel 1966).
Bernstein (1980) claimed that Khrushchev underrated Kennedy by assuming that he was irresolute, inexperienced, and weak (p.99). Such judgments accrued from how Kennedy managed Vienna in the fiscal 1961, poor management of the fiasco in the Pigs Bay, and his comparatively youthful age. These scholars state that the deployment of USSR missiles in Cuba showed the incorrect image of the Soviet Union after they realized that Kennedy could not change his stand on the deployment of missiles in Cuba. Abel cited that Khrushchev hardly believed that a young man like Kennedy could confront the USSR leader in the test of willpower (p.22). Hence, Khrushchev was forced to doubt the resolution offered by Kennedy. For instance, when the Pigs Bay was invaded, Kennedy failed to commit troops from America to fight invaders thus making his credibility to be undermined by Khrushchev. According to Khrushchev assertions, the Americans had irresistible authority, but they forgot the manner in which the great powers ought to conduct themselves (p.511).
According to Ulam (1968), the internal sphere and the Soviet policymakers including Khrushchev, became conscious about the likelihood that the discovery of missiles in Cuba would intensify its crisis with the U.S. In accepting this, the USSR anticipated to benefit from the ample tactical and political gains if the missiles were unnoticed and became operational. Knorr (1964) who realized the likely benefits argues that to resolve the tough dilemmas facing the Soviet overseas policy, Soviet leaders were moved with the irresistible aspirations in the fiscal 1962. The bold fondle to resolve the intricacies, the Soviet tactical inferiorities, as well as the Chinese and German tribulations came in the course of introducing the nuclear tilted missiles in Cuba. Knorr (1964) acknowledgement of the Soviet eagerness to induce Peking with the aim of stopping nuclear weapons manufacturing was generally unrealistic.
Ulam (1968) hypothesized that Moscow planned not just to bring the Chinese on board, but also to persuade China to join the Formosa special consideration. Ulam articulated that Khrushchev as a policymaker thought that America would be appreciative due to the policies and strategies he implemented (p.604). His gambit aimed at instituting the political prerequisites for an influential American-Soviet divergence agreement, getting rid of the prospects of Chinese having nuclear armaments, and resolving the German troubles. As Ulam (1968) claims, it was a reasonable risk for the entire scheme to lie on the ability of Soviet to install missiles in Cuba without being discovered by the U.S. (p.603). He postulated that America would not perhaps act in response to it by providing a nuclear wallop even if they became aware of such missiles in Cuba.
It was logical for Soviet to consider deploying USSR missiles in Cuba if Moscow operated according to its prospect and became acquainted to the outcomes. This means that the ideas sought from the beginning by Moscow would obtain a similar representation compared to the definite consequence of the crisis. As a leader, Khrushchev developed the allegations relating the deployment of USSR missiles in Cuba (Bernstein 17). In fact, Khrushchev deployed USSR missiles in Cuba to haul out a no-invasion promise made to the American president after he became adamant that his government had the information about the Americans preparation for a different attack on Cuba. The Soviet Union regime reiterated its concurrence to the confiscation of all the ballistic skyrockets from Cuba. Khrushchev disagreed that the confiscation intent accord corresponded to the improvised lateral thinking (Lebow 442). He declared that this only worked out in the cooperative headship since it was a guiding principle from the time of inception.
When the value attached to literature review is assessed, it becomes apparent that more than a solitary analyst acknowledged Khrushchev’s explanations. It is an oversight to salvage the wreckage for brilliant policy steering while regarding the effects of Cuban missiles disaster to be corresponding to the Soviet wellbeing or intents (Horelick 365). Together with other analysts, Horelick (1964) points out the noticeable incongruity between the closing stages and the extent of the means purportedly sought by Khrushchev. The scholars alleged that suspicions radiated from Khrushchev’s demonstration on the nature of armaments initiated during the Cuba missile assault. Finally, the subject of political outlay emerged because other world principals concluded in opposition while Khrushchev declared the Cuba missile crisis a triumph for Soviet. Knorr censured Khrushchev and the Cuban debacle made the Soviet loose persuasion and reputation inside the socialist campsites (p.457).
Works Cited
Abel, Elie. The Missile Crisis. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1966: 19-110. Print.
Bernstein, Barton. “The Cuban Missile Crisis: Trading the Jupiter in Turkey?” Political Science Quarterly, 95 (1980): 97-125. Print.
Bernstein, Barton. “The Week We Almost Went to War.” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 32 (1976):13-21. Print.
Horelick, Arnold. “The Cuban Missile Crisis: An Analysis of Soviet Calculations and Behavior.” World Politics 16 (1964): 365. Print.
Kennedy, Robert. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1969: 24-26. Print.
Khrushchev, Nikita. Khrushchev Remembers: The Last Testament, trans. Strobe Talbott. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1974: 509-14. Print.
Knorr, Klaus. “Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Cuban Missiles.” World Politics, 16 (1964): 455-67. Print.
Lebow, Richard. “The Cuban Missile Crisis: Reading the Lessons Correctly.” Political Science Quarterly, 98.3 (1983): 431-458. Print.
Nathan, James. “The Missile Crisis: His Finest Hour Now.” World Politics, 27 (1975): 265-81. Print.
Pachter, Henry. Collision Course: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Coexistence. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1963. 87. Print.
Ulam, Adam. Expansion and Coexistence: The History of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-67. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1968: 602-71. Print.
Wohlstetter, Roberta. “Cuba and Pearl Harbor: Hindsight and Foresight.” Foreign Affairs, 43 (1965): 691- 707. Print.