The Cuban Missile Crisis

[Thumpalumpacus]

What was the real case here? Before the crisis the US had missiles in Turkey and afterwards they didn't. The Soviets gained an advantage, at least as they saw it, while the US gained a PR advantage.

With the missiles we had coming online, such as the Polaris, Titan, and Atlas, Jupiter missiles became a sacrificial pawn while the US in fact increased its ability to target the USSR. It was good PR for the people of Turkey, and a sound military decision by the Kennedy Administration.

From the Soviet point of view, it allowed them to claim a status of equality with America that was previously insupportable. It also scared the crap out of them, and fueled another round of spending on their part in ordere to make that putative equality actual.

eta: Also, Chuck's points about the conventional/nuclear balance are spot-on.

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I always think it's funny when people use Atheism forums to find out stuff like this. Have you ever heard of https://www.google.com/ ?

I like the fact that a website can have a broad array of members who have a mass of knowledge about a broad array of matters, and that furthermore, because I have interacted with them before, I can do at least a rough assessment of their credibility.

Additionally, because there's often disagreement even amongst authorities, coming to a site that doesn't address the topic du jour from an authoritative standpoint means one is more likely to get a diversity of views, and leads, in order to guide one's research.

This site would be pretty boring if the only thing we talked about is "God doesn't exist."

[Anomalocaris]

Atlas, Titan and Polaris were already in service in 1963, and contributed to the overwhelming nuclear superiority which Khrushchev sought to cancel by placing medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba.

It is true Jupiter's role was being taken over by far more flexible and secure Polaris, which the soviets could not take out preemptively, and which could prepare for launch without giving the soviets any sign. So it is likely Jupiter missiles in turkey were not long for the world anyway.

However, one should keep in mind the entire Cuban gamble by Khrushchev was not a long term play in the first place. Technological advances were rendering obsolete America's bombers, which were the mainstay of strategic superiority. Soviet Union had technological parity with the US in strategic missile technology, and it's only a matter of a few years at most before Soviet Union build up a stockpile of uninterceptable nuclear missiles that could wipe out the US from soviet territory. It could be expected that with or without Cuban missiles, american's freedom of action resulting from overwhelming strategic nuclear superiority will go away within 5 years.

So the ploy to deploy missiles in Cuba, even if it worked, would only help the soviet for 5 years tops. After that they don't need those missiles in Cuba anymore. So yes, Jupiter's weren't long for the world, but since the whole strategic picture was going to flip anyway in 5 years, getting rid of the Jupiters earlier by even 2 years is significant gain for the USSR compare to limited duration of objectives of khruschev's Cuban gamble.

So I can't say Jupiters were a throw away. It was not a small concession from soviet points of view compare to the gains they hoped for from Cuba.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Atlas, Titan and Polaris were already in service in 1963, and contributed to the overwhelming nuclear superiority which Khrushchev sought to cancel by placing medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba.

I know this. They weren't, howevere, fully deployed, which was why I used the present-tense transitive.

So I can't say Jupiters were a throw away. It was not a small concession from soviet points of view compare to the gains they hoped for from Cuba.

We had one squadron in Turkey, consisting of fifteen missiles. They could be, and were, replaced by one Polaris submarine which was much harder to counteract. It was a throwaway pawn, in my view.

[Anomalocaris]

It was a throwaway pawn for the US, but it was not a negligible gain for the USSR.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It was a throwaway pawn for the US, but it was not a negligible gain for the USSR.

No disagreement about that, at all.

[naimless]

one time i accidentally

joey coco diaz came in

pooped in the urinal

i dint know what to do

i threw it

stoned as fuck

like a cuban missile crisis

[Rev. Rye]

It did, and it wasn't considered much of a concession because the Jupiter missiles stationed there were obsolete anyway.

And, from what I understand, Kennedy had previously ordered the missile bases in Turkey dismantled, but, apparently, the people who were actually supposed to do it couldn't be bothered to actually do it.

What really interests me is not the crisis, but the Bay of Pigs invasion, showing that the "they'll greet us as liberators" mentality didn't begin with Dubya. I'd love to see a Tora!Tora!Tora!-style movie about it, but I know it would require a level of cooperation between the American and Cuban governments that is not only impossible, but likely illegal.

[ManMachine]

So what was the truth here? On the one hand the Soviets climbed down and Kennedy claimed a victory, which is the way the West saw it. On the other hand the Russians got rid of a perceived threat, if not an actual one. I wonder if it was actually a fair deal in the end. Maybe the Soviets came out on top because of the removal of the threat from Turkey. They also found out about how good US surveillance was from the presentation they made in public.

It amuses me when I hear of media that presents the Soviets as anything less than sophisticated. Their intelligence was as good as the west, we know that now from records released after the collapse of the USSR. We forget, while the USA got a man to the moon the Soviets got the first satellite in orbit and the first man in space, they were no slouches. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the Cuban Missile Crisis achieve exactly what the Soviets set out to achieve.

MM

[Anomalocaris]

So what was the truth here? On the one hand the Soviets climbed down and Kennedy claimed a victory, which is the way the West saw it. On the other hand the Russians got rid of a perceived threat, if not an actual one. I wonder if it was actually a fair deal in the end. Maybe the Soviets came out on top because of the removal of the threat from Turkey. They also found out about how good US surveillance was from the presentation they made in public.

It amuses me when I hear of media that presents the Soviets as anything less than sophisticated. Their intelligence was as good as the west, we know that now from records released after the collapse of the USSR. We forget, while the USA got a man to the moon the Soviets got the first satellite in orbit and the first man in space, they were no slouches. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that the Cuban Missile Crisis achieve exactly what the Soviets set out to achieve.

MM

Cuban missile crisis may have achieved what some others in the Soviet Union would have sought to achieve, but it served to defeat the chief goal of the administration of Nikita khrushchev, who was actually the main instigator of the crisis.

A main goal of Nikita Khrushchev was to break out of the cycle of ruinously expensive full spectrum army, navy, air force arms competition with the US that he inherited from Stalin by emphasizing innovative and asymmetrical technological solutions, usually involving missiles, to deal with soviet union's strategic problems.

The fact that soviet missiles in Cuba was forced out by a US naval blockade, and the Soviet Union could neither break the American blockade, nor had the ability to mount a blockage of her own should the situations be reversed, convinced many in soviet leadership that khrushchev's attamept to gain strategic parity with the US on the cheap using mainly missiles won't work, and Soviet Union needed to go back to Stalinist policy of trying to match every aspect of American military capability, including conventional navy and Air Force.

Keep in mind in the Soviet Union, the strategic missile forces were not part of army, navy, or air force, but a completely separate branch of armed services. There is no doubt the soviet navy and air force was not displeased with the outcome of the Cuban missile crisis, because it showed missiles can't do everything, and the budgets of the navy and Air Force would soon be vastly expanded.

Khrushchev was discredited in the politburo as a result of the Cuban missile crisis, and was soon forced out. The influence of strategic missile forces and the part of the military industrial complex behind the missiles declined, while the influence of the army, navy and air force grew, and the part of the military industrial complex that built warships, tanks, and airplanes became dominant.

This set the stage for the Brezhnev era, when Soviet Union drove itself into the ground by its attempt to match all aspects of American military power, precisely the thing Khrushchev sought to avoid.

So in a wide sense, Soviet Union was a huge loser in the Cuban missile crisis because it caused her to question her grand strategy, and encouraged her to change course and adopt a new direction which would ultimately ruin her.

[downbeatplumb]

one time i accidentally

joey coco diaz came in

pooped in the urinal

i dint know what to do

i threw it

stoned as fuck

like a cuban missile crisis

There was a south park episode on urinal pooping, is this a thing in the US? Over here people pretty much use the toilet.