Cuban Missile Crisis Ideology

Register to read the introduction… Although it certainly contributed to the overall conflict, ideology was not the main concern that brought about the Cuban Missile Crisis but rather the threat of national security that it imposed on the US, Cuba and Soviet Union. The reason the crisis occurred was due to distinct differences in views on how society should be run and not simply based on rivalry amongst the superpowers. The US believed in democracy, and due to Soviet influence, Cuba supported a communist regime. It is undeniable they both became blindsided to each other’s views and had not assessed the consequences of their actions. The US were concerned that a communist state was now located only seventy miles from their borders. The “domino theory” greatly worried the US; this was the idea that if South Vietnam fell to communism then all of South Asia would follow. With this in mind, once Cuba had turned communist, the US was worried that the idea of democracy would be undermined and seen as a weak ideology. It is argued that ideology is the evident reason that led to actions made by the US to create such conflict and hostility between the three nations, for example the Bay of Pigs invasion that in turn led to the Cuban Missile …show more content…
Although the US claimed there was no missile gap between the two, the USSR was clearly behind in the race. This was particularly fearful for the Soviet Union who did not want the US to launch a first strike from Turkey which was merely 150 miles away. The decision made by Khrushchev to build launch sites in Cuba is likely because “Khrushchev was attracted by the idea of appearing to gain greater military strength relative to US”(IBID, 168). This came from domestic issues brewing in the USSR, where it is was essential to appear strong and convince both the citizens of the Soviet Union and the rest of the world that socialism was equally if not stronger than the US and their democracy. Therefore, all weaknesses, in this case military, needed to be concealed and so the idea the USSR were now on par with the US in nuclear missiles arguably encouraged Khrushchev to continue gaining greater military strength. However, the US missiles in Turkey could strike almost anyway in the USSR, this proved an issue to the Soviet Union whose missiles could only reach Europe and revealed the imbalance that the USSR were trying to level out. It concerned the Soviet Union that this would sway the US to pursue a first attack. It is clear that it was a combination of events that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis and not one single affair. However, it has been argued that it was the Bay of Pigs invasion that was the central event that led to a downward spiral to the crisis and although conflicting views in ideology and economic issues certainly played a part, the invasion arguably gave Khrushchev the excuse he needed to initiate a defence plan for Cuba. Without the invasion, Khrushchev could have been seen to have acted out of