Cuban Missile Crisis, brinkmanship from "summary" of The World Was Going Our Way by Christopher Andrew
The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear conflict. The crisis was a result of the Soviet Union installing missiles in Cuba, within striking distance of the United States. The United States, under President John F. Kennedy, responded by imposing a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of missiles. This tense standoff lasted for thirteen days, with both sides on the brink of nuclear war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a strategy known as brinkmanship. Brinkmanship is the practice of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster in order to achieve a desired outcome. In this case,...
Similar Posts
Kennedy's personal life was complex
Kennedy's personal life was a tangle of contradictions, a mix of intelligence, charm, and restlessness. He was a man of many ta...
NATO provided security for Western Europe
NATO's creation in 1949 marked a turning point in the Cold War. The alliance was formed to counter the Soviet Union's growing i...
CIA, MI6, Mossad, BND
The intelligence agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and Germany played crucial roles during the Cold War in...
Economic competition drove Cold War policies
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a fierce competition that extended beyond military capab...
Nuclear power plants pose longterm risks
In the absence of human intervention, nuclear power plants present a daunting challenge to the world around us. These facilitie...
Berlin Blockade heightened tensions
The Berlin Blockade, initiated by the Soviet Union in response to Western efforts to create a separate West German state, had f...
The Fukushima disaster raised questions about nuclear safety
The Fukushima disaster in 2011 shook the world's confidence in the safety of nuclear power. The triple meltdown at the Fukushim...