The Cold War And The Cuban Missile Crisis

Whether they were formally declared by the President or not, American has been involved in multiple wars over the course of its history. One war stands out as an outlier and unlike any war, the Cold War. This war was fought between two physical nations at odds but also two opposing ideologies. Very soon after World War II had ended in 1945, the Soviet Union showed no indication of allowing democracy to flourish in neighboring countries, specifically Poland and other Eastern European counties. This hindrance to democracy obviously did not line up with America’s values, considering it is a model of a democracy for other countries. This sparked policy changes in America. The two main changes were nuclear deterrence and containment. These two new doctrines were very important at this time. Nuclear deterrence is the prevention of attacks because of fear of retaliation. If there was a possibility of an attack, especially a nuclear attack it had to be stopped before it began. Deterrence at this level could only be achieved by a country with a powerful military, strong political and ideological beliefs, and most importantly, nuclear weapons. Containment was another doctrine that was advanced during the beginning stages of the Cold War. Containment meant that the United States would try to halt any attempt made by the Soviet Union to further expand their communist influence on other countries. Both of these doctrines were further strengthened by legislation policies. The Truman Doctrine, created in 1947, was a U.S containment policy to assist Turkey and Greece against any Soviet threats. However, the assistance was strictly economic, not military based. The U.S spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this program, however President Harry Truman trusted that it was well worth it. He believed that this was a defining moment if history and that the success in stopping the spread of communism was more important than the money spent on achieving this. Second, the Marshall Plan again provided economic assistance to Western European countries that never fully recovered from WWII. They believed that since communist parties were gaining ground by taking advantage of economically depressed countries, aiding those countries would stop the spread of communism. Finally, the formation of the North Atlantic Trade Organization, also known as NATO, in 1949 meant the very first forming of a peacetime military alliance. This treaty united the United States and its European allies if they are attacked. This was a huge step into a fully committed internationalist America. Evidence was found in 1949, that American was not the sole holder of nuclear weapons; the Soviet Unions also possessed them. This would …show more content…
One major reason for this success was that we thought outside the normal way of thinking and created a team of highly intelligent officials to aid President John F. Kennedy in navigating through this crisis. This group was called ExCom. The Soviet Union decided to install their nuclear missiles on the shores of Cuba, which is roughly 90 miles off U.S shores. President Kennedy’s first move, after much deliberation, was to issue a blockade against the island. ExCom along with the President had to carefully get the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba and avoid a possible nuclear war. Finally, after a little over two weeks the Soviet Union removed their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the U.S word to not invade