Causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis Cuban Missile Crises Introduction Considered to be one of the most serious conflicts between the U.S and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Cuban missile crises brought the World a clash of democracy V.S communism with a deadly nuclear outcome. Known to the World as the Cuban Missile crises, to the Russians as the Caribbean Crises and to the Cubans and the October Crises it lasted sixteen days in October. The main characters involved were U.S President John F. Kennedy, Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban President Fidel Castro. The sixteen days in October 1962 was the closest time that a full out nuclear war was about to take place Background America USSR Free election No elections or fixed elections Democratic Autocratic / Dictatorship Capitalist Communist ‘Survival of the fittest’ Everybody helps everybody Richest world power Poor economic base Person al freedom Society controlled by the NKVD (secret police) Freedom of the media Total censorship The Cuban missile crises’ origins began at the end of the World War 2. After the war about to end the United States and the USSR started to disagree on the main ideas of how a post war Europe should look like. The American’s main aim of the war was to spread democracy and to spread their company’s economic opportunities into Europe. This was very different to what the USSR wanted, the USSR suffered a lot during the war, and they lost a lot of people and suffered a lot of economic and social problem directly resulting from the war, because of this the USSR main post war thoughts were to protect themselves from other wars that may happen and to spread communism across the globe.   These differences between the two countries were obviously great and were bound to cause tension and problems. Origins of Russian-American Tension Ideological: The United States and the Soviet Union represented two completely different forms of government. In the United States, the government is chosen by free elections. The people have the right to form political parties so that they can voice their political opinions. They also have the right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the Soviet Union, the government is chosen by the Communist Party. The people do not have the right to form their own political parties; they do not enjoy the right freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Since these two systems of government are completely different to one another, this is bound to cause friction between the United States and the Soviet Union. Economic: The United States wanted to encourage free trade throughout the world. The Soviet Union wanted to close off her itself from international trade. Russia was afraid that trade with the West would open up Russia to western influences which would have ruined the strength of the o ne-party communist regime. These differences led to much bad feeling between the United States and the Soviet Union. Power rivalry: After the Second World War, with the decline of Europe, power was shared between the Soviet Union and the United States. As one superpower wanted to dominate the other, conflicts were to be expected.