The roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis can be traced back to the 1950s, where both superpowers were neck-to-neck with each other in the stockpiling of nuclear arsenal back in the 1950s, which is often termed as “The Arms Race”.
In retrospect, the arms race was really a waste of budget and it was essentially the reason the Cuban Missile Crisis even occurred.
The soviets were intimated by the amount of missiles the US had, who were capable of striking the entire Soviet compared to the their own missiles which can only go as far as Europe. More importantly, the US had missile bases in Turkey, just 150 miles from the Soviets. The Soviets felt threatened by the US and felt that by basing their missile bases in Cuba, 90 miles of the coast of the US.
Was it the US who started it by placing their bases in Turkey, at such close range to the USSR? Or was the USSR’s fault who overacted to the US and constructed so many missile sites in Cuba? Who really started the Cuban Missile Crisis?
-Nicky
