The Global War: Conflict between the superpowers -> Causes and long term causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis Flashcards
What did the US regard the Caribbean as?
As its ‘back yard’
How did the US present its relationship with Cuba?
As a ‘benign and malevolent one’
Who was Fidel Castro?
The Cuban nationalist who after a period of exile, returned to Cuba in December 1956
Was Castro a communist?
Not communist when he started but a left-wing nationalist
Who was Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara?
An Argentine revolutionary who came with Castro
What did President Roosevelt introduce in Latin America to improve relations?
The ‘Good Neighbour Policy’
What did this policy entail in Cuba?
- create new economic opportunities in the form of reciprocal trade agreements and reassert US influence in Latin America
- U.S. gov expressed to the Cuban gov that it should increase American quotas for Cuban sugar under a trade agreement, with the idea that it would benefit Cuba’s local economy.
How did the US implement this policy?
Used Cuban thugs who were in the interest of the American sharehold
- Batista was a beneficiary of this
What did Cuban landholders produce for the US in the 1930s ?
Big Cuban landholders produced huge amounts of rum for Americans
- mutually profited
How did Batista exploit this link with the US?
Decided to make Havana the capital of Cuba and a holiday place for the pleasure-seeking, Puritanical Americans
- Cuba’s tourist sector booms as a result
What doctrine represents long-term issues for the US in Cuba?
The Monroe Doctrine introduced in 1823
What was this historical US doctrine?
A regional US policy introduced in 1823 in response to the receding influence of the imperial powers (Spain)
- for the US to fill the power vacuum
How did Noam Chomsky describe the Monroe Doctrine?
“A declaration of hegemony and a right of unilateral intervention in the Americas”
- a sphere of influence “to leave America to the Americans”
In which brief period did the Americans admit to being imperialists?
1848-1914 during the Spanish-American war
- majority of Americans started becoming opposed to open imperialism, leading to the anti-imperialism movement
How did the nature of US imperialism create long-term issues?
Its economic influence/values led it to believe Cuba was “a natural extension of the North American continent” (John Adams 1783)
What did Cuba emerge as?
“Independent” Cuba emerged as the model for US imperialism
How did the Americans secure domination over Cuba?
- American economic and political domination had been secured without the seizure of a colony
- The US could continue to boast its anti-colonial tradition and beliefs despite having made Cuba a dependency
What ammendment gave the US political domination in Cuba?
The Platt Amendment (1901) gave the US the right to intervene in newly independent Cuba’s political and military affairs
What evidence is there to suggest the US had economic domination in Cuba?
- By 1877, the US accounted for 83% of Cuba’s total exports, meaning it was able to control price and hence production levels closely (sugar/tobacco) -> primary exports
- US investment in Cuban industry and infrastructure (60% of the Cuban sugar industry was US owned by 1626
What were the implications on Cuba?
It became poor, predominantly agricultural, underemployment, illiteracy and low life expectancies
When was the US civil war?
1861-65
- Free market capitalism in North vs aristocratic slave-owned capitalism in South
What was the Cuban context?
The Cuban Revolution was at bay
What does the US assume about Castro?
That he is a communist - anyone who questions the US is
- American blindness pushes Castro to the Soviets
Who was Fulgencio Batista
Cuban President 1940-44 and 1952-59
- pro-American -> close political cooperation between US and Cuban governments
- had a regime over Cuba
How much economic domination did the US have by this period in Cuba?
Complete domination of Cuba’s economy in this period, as the number of American corporations owning Cuban companies grew (sugar/tobacco/oil)
What was Batista’s regime like?
- Brutal and repressive using coercion, patronage and corruption
- combination of American economic dominance, Cuban subservience and the brutality of Batista created resentment amongst Cubans
When did Batista’s regime collapse?
On 1 January 1959
- Castro began his guerrilla struggle in December 1956
What was the initial US response to the Revolution?
Initial US acceptance of the Revolution as Castro was a nationalist, not a communist
What did Castro do which alerted the US?
- Castro planned to reduce US economic and political influence in Cuba, in order to legitimise the Revolutionary state/ cement his own position as leader
- Castro’s economic reforms - seizure of US owned companies (nationalisation) led to the US resentment
Which support did Castro need?
He needed the support of a great power - Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan visited Cuba February 1960 (reciprocal trade agreement)
How much did the USSR give to Cuba?
$100,000,000 in credit as the Soviet version of the Marshall Plan - established an economic and political relationship
What was the impact of Soviet support for Cuba?
- Cuba becomes the liberal outpost of Soviet influence as part of the USSR’s aim to expand their influence
- Castro taking aid from the Soviets gave Eisenhower even more of a reason to get tough
- The relationship established between the Cuban revolutionary gov and the USSR provoked the Americans
- US-Cuba relations deteriorated
What threatened American economic interests in Cuba?
The nationalisation of Cuban industries (sugar, tobacco)
What is evidence of the deteriorating US-Cuban relationship?
In April 1960, crude oil arrived in Cuba from the Soviet Union
- US oil companies in Cuba refused to refine the oil
- Castro nationalised the oil companies
- Us imposed economic sanctions/cut sugar imports by 95%
When was the ‘Bay of Pigs’ debacle?
17th April 1961
Who was involved in the military coup?
1500 anti-Castro exiles to land on Cuba and carry out a military coup
Who planned the military coup?
Planned under Eisenhower, and then taken up by President Kennedy (who was humiliated by the disaster)
- to train a force of Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro
What were the consequences of the military coup?
- Strengthened the revolutionary government and consolidated Castro’s leadership (propaganda)
- Castro had protected Cuba from American imperialism
- Confirmed US attitudes to its “sphere of influence”
How was Kennedy already a flop?
- June 1961: embarrassed at Vienna
- August 1961: Couldn’t stop Berlin Wall going up
What led to the Soviet decision to deploy nuclear weapons in 1962?
- The US military response to developing situation in Cuba
- Khrushchev is provoked (US brinkmanship)
What military operations did the US deploy on Cuba?
- US “Operation Mongoose” Nov 1961 (covert)
- US “OPLAN 312 and 314” 1961
- US “Operation Quick Kick” March 1962
What was “Operation Mongoose”?
- A collection of 33 CIA plans to discredit and overthrow Castro
- through the use of covert operations within Cuba to destabilise the regime
- about assassinating Castro, burning and poisoning sugar crops
What was “OPLAN 312 and 314”?
Air strikes/invasion plan
What was “Operation Quick Kick”?
A symbolic show of US military power
- 40,000 US soldiers supported by air cover carry out a mock invasion of Cuba
- practice run for invasion - convinces Castro they’re coming for him soon
Why were US military responses important?
For US integrity and security which rests on getting Castro out of office
What nuclear weapons do the Soviets decide to deploy on Cuba?
Bombers, troops, missiles and launchers
What were the reasons for Operation Anadyr? (mindmap)
- US deploy Jupiter nuclear missiles in Turkey (Oct 1962), needing missiles on foreign land for leverage (retaliation)
- US military plans
- Spread revolution - ‘threat of a good example’ -> back Cuba in breaking away from US domination to undermine the Monroe Doctrine
- Exploit Kennedy’s failure at Bay of Pigs -> inexperienced
- Khrushchev’s triumph over Kennedy during discussions at the Summit convinced him that he was a weak President -> wouldn’t react if the USSR placed missiles in Cuba
- Counter Soviet reliance on conventional forces
- Only had mid range missiles so placing it in Cuba could deter an invasion force and close the missile gap
- Defend Cuba from further US attack
- Khrushchev relished the chance to ‘throw a hedgehog down Uncle Sam’s underpants!’ -> strategic balance of CW altered once the SU had the capacity to fire medium range missiles at the USA
- Khrushchev trying to compensate for diplomatic embarrassment of the Wall by having a diplomatic victory, enhance Soviet prestige
- Exploit situation in Cuba to expand their influence
- Khrushchev’s erratic personality
- Increasing Sino-Soviet rivalry -> Mao trying to replace USSR with China as leading force of communism, contest with Mao in the third world
- propaganda
What quote about Khrushchev demonstrates that his motivation was idealistic?
He intended his missile deployment ‘chiefly as an effort to spread revolution throughout Latin America’ (Gaddis)
What word describes the US and Soviet Union walking to the edge of a cliff?
The idea of non-proliferation
- go to the brink of thermo-nuclear war
What were US actions and motivations in the Cuban crisis?
- The Cuban revolution of 1958-59 was a deeply unpalatable development for the US gov
- Both Eisenhower + Kennedy determined to overthrow Castro’s regime -> tried repeatedly
- Bay of Pigs fiasco (April 61’) -> Kennedy needed some sort of success in his Cuban policy
- Kennedy determined to demonstrate his toughness and resolve (challenged at Vienna summit 1961)
- US intelligence ruled out possibility that the Soviet Union might try to place nuclear missiles in America’s hemisphere before crisis -> photos taken by U-2 planes on 14 Oct 1962 shook Kennedy gov to the core
What does Tony Judt stress about the Cuban crisis?
The Kennedy government remained fixated on Berlin: ‘They saw in the missile emplacements in Cuba a Soviet device to blackmail a vulnerable America into giving away Berlin’
What was the Cuban context?
- Castro’s acceptance of Khrushchev’s request in the summer of 1962 to station nuclear missiles in Cuba
- Was the best way of defending the socialist revolution
- From the concerted US campaign to quash the Cuban Revolution and from Soviet-Cuban efforts to save it by deterring the US through missile deployment
- Punitive economic sanctions imposed by the US -> meant Cuba needed to find a new source of economic support
- The Soviet Union offered itself up as a willing partner
