Why did the Soviet Union take the risk of deploying missiles to Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Upvote:7
The Wikipedia article may have painted an overly simplified impression. In the age of the nuclear arms race, the scale of a capability was a vital aspect of consideration. As unthinkable as it may be to us, destroying one city vs destroying one hundred cities is not a trivial difference in military strategic planning.
What the passage you cited failed to mention is that, at the time, the US had a massive advantage in first strike capabilities. Despite the panic over a supposed "missile gap", the US in fact had many times more operational ICBMs than Russia: some 170 vs perhaps 20. Moreover, the US had missiles deployed in Turkey - right under Russia's underbelly. True, they could not eliminate a submarine based second strike, in the unthinkable event that a thermonuclear war breaks out despite MAD, the US would've had a major advantage.
Deploying the missiles to Cuba was, therefore, a way for the Soviets to even the scores a bit, so to speak - the Soviet answer to American missiles in Turkey, if you will. Due to Cuba's proximity to Florida, the missiles put most of the Continental US within the range of Soviet nuclear missiles (as opposed to the unreliable and numerically limited ICBMs).
Furthermore, Soviet leadership reasoned that this gave them a bargaining chip to demand concessions in exchange for leaving. And in the event, the Kennedy administration agreed to retire the US missiles in Turkey.
More post
- 📝 In what incident did a resistance press leak cause a concentration camp commander demotion?
- 📝 Who was the first monarch?
- 📝 What is the backstory behind the White Sun of Angola?
- 📝 Why is Lady Jane Grey called Lady instead of Queen?
- 📝 Has an individual ever purchased an entire country?
- 📝 How popular was the name Imhotep?
- 📝 Was the Roman Empire based on a 'plunder economy'?
- 📝 Once formed, could a Confederate militia company find replacements to remain an effective force? How?
- 📝 How was the modern geographic boundary between Europe and Asia decided?
- 📝 How was President Andrew Jackson able to eliminate U.S national debt in 1835?
- 📝 What was Wilson's mistake in the 1918 Congressional election?
- 📝 Was there an increased interest in 'the spirit world' in the aftermath of the First World War?
- 📝 Why did the Ballahoo and Cuckoo-class schooners earn a bad reputation?
- 📝 How much resemblance did the industrialization of the Soviet Union bear to those of the rest of the world?
- 📝 Why was only the Silver medal awarded for music at the 1932s Olympics?
- 📝 Could the warriors of the Tollense battlefield be considered the world's first standing army?
- 📝 Did the Balkans campaign delay Operation Barbarossa for the Nazis and was it therefore an important reason why they lost against the Soviets in WWII?
- 📝 How did NATO handle the military coups and juntas in Greece, Turkey and Portugal?
- 📝 Why were the Mongolian armies able to to use greater percentages of archers than (Medieval) Europeans?
- 📝 What was the Hundred Years' War called at the time?
- 📝 How long was a coach journey from Coburg to St Peterburg in 1790s?
- 📝 Where are Genghis Khan's Mongols?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great name Saint Petersburg, Russia with a foreign styled name?
- 📝 Did the North give the South its debt after Civil War ended?
- 📝 What did Central America export in the early 20th century other than coffee and bananas?
- 📝 Why Did the Founding Fathers Create the Electoral College?
- 📝 Could the "Taffy" Groups have been reinforced by air during the battle of Leyte Gulf?
- 📝 How did the early settlers of Australia settle the continent?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union hand over thousands of Jews to the Nazis in the spirit of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact?
- 📝 How much did a telephone call cost in the USA around 1920?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union take the risk of deploying missiles to Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union lift the Berlin Blockade?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union out-pace the US during the space-race?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union close its borders and restrict travel abroad?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union get 3 seats in the UN?
- 📝 Why did Jodrell Bank assist the Soviet Union to collect data from their spacecraft in the mid 1960's?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
- 📝 How and Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?
- 📝 Why didn't Imperial Japan attack the Soviet Union during World War 2?
- 📝 Did the U.S. and Soviet Union have a submarine battle in 1968?
- 📝 Why did Stalin and the Soviet leadership have Leon Trotsky assassinated?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union or its satellite states have any broadcast propaganda media for an international audience?
- 📝 Why did it take so long for Europeans to adopt the moldboard plow?
- 📝 Did American policymakers seriously consider scaling down Lend Lease Aid to the Soviet Union after the battle of Kursk?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union know when DEFCON levels changed?
- 📝 Why did it take so long for the Germans to develop the first tank model in World War I?
- 📝 Why did few French and no Dutch pilots (but many Poles and Czechs) take part in the Battle of Britain?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union protest against Italy building or acquiring submarines after WW2?
- 📝 Why did the Spanish take the island of Annobon in the Treaty of El Pardo in 1778?
- 📝 What determined which companies went to which post-Soviet republics after the fall of the Soviet Union as everything was centralized in Moscow?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union need both prongs to succeed at the Battle of Stalingrad?
- 📝 Did Truman threaten a nuclear strike if the Soviet Union didn't withdraw from Iran in 1946?
- 📝 Why did the Union army favor a "western" route to approaching Richmond during the American Civil War
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union's economy grow fast in the 1950's-1960's?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union hand over thousands of Jews to the Nazis in the spirit of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact?
- 📝 At the beginning of English Civil War, why did Parliament take a hard line with neutrals, thereby effectively helping Royalist recruitment?