Cuban Missile Crisis: The Fallout

Discuss the outcome of the Cuban missile crisis. How was the strategic balance affected? What was the impact on relations between the superpowers and with their allies? What were the political results for Khrushchev and Kennedy? 

The Cuban missile crisis ended peacefully with the public soviet withdrawal of its missiles in Cuba and the secret withdrawal of NATO missiles in turkey. Although the Soviets tried to portray the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a win for them, it was Khrushchev who in the end backed down and removed his weapons publicly from Cuba. Although the Soviets may have gotten NATO to remove its nuclear weapons from turkey in return, this wasn’t publicly known at the time and was perceived as a huge concession by Khrushchev and an embarrassment to the Soviet Union as a whole.

The questions on how the balance of power was affected is a complex one. It has been argued that even the initial placement of the soviet missiles in Cuba had no real strategic significance when considering the vast arsenal of weapons in the hands of both powers. Secretary of state, Robert McNamara stated to the Guardian at the time that he believed that the placement of the WMD’s in Cuba did very little to alter what he called the “Grim ratio of nuclear strength” between the US and USSR.

The withdrawal of Soviet Missiles from Cuba was infuriating to Castro who felt betrayed by Khrushchev. While the Soviet Union had gotten the US to formally agree not to invade Cuba again in the aftermath of the crisis, this was not something that Castro felt he could depend on, considering he had been the target of many assassination attempts by the CIA as well as the target of a full-blown invasion at the Bay of Pigs. While the United States had no intention of invading Cuba again after the embarrassment at the Bay of Pigs, this was not necessarily something that the Cubans could comfortably know or trust.

The Cuban missile crisis had an effect on Sino-Soviet relations as well. There had long been tension between Beijing and Moscow about the direction that the global communist revolution should take. Mao believed that the Soviet Union had grown untrustworthy and was willing to jeopardize the interests of the Revolution in order to avoid conflict with the United States. The Cuban missile crisis exemplified Mao’s belief and showed that the Soviet Union was willing to make deals with the capitalists and abandon their communist allies in Cuba. Khrushchev responded to Mao by saying that his policies would lead to nuclear war. The culmination of these tensions by the end of the Crisis in Cuba is known as the Sino-Soviet split. The de-facto alliance that the Chinese and Soviets had by virtue of both being communist was no more, and they severed communication with the Soviets and most of the rest of the world.

The political results of the aftermath were quite beneficial for Kennedy. The withdrawal of the missiles was credited to Kennedys strategic genius at negotiating with the Russians. His failures during the bay of pigs were largely forgiven by the public and a direct phone line was placed between the white house and the Kremlin in order to prevent more situations like this arising from a lack of communication between the powers. The results for Khrushchev were significantly worse. His perceived failures and weakness when confronting the United States embarrassed the Soviet political elites, and he was ousted from power less than two years after the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis. While he avoided being outright shot in the alley behind the Kremlin, he left office with an official reputation of being a reckless decision maker with an inability to run the nation.