AFP NOTES 3/26

Lecture 16: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
point of the most confrontation between US and USSR
both are acting solely on their perceptions of the other country
-both are acting based on their own assumptions based on their own experiences
-Khruschev thought he was acting DEFENSIVELY
-Kennedy believed that khruschev was acting OFFENSIVELY
-violation of the monroe doctrine, america's defense perimeter
-Castro was acting in the framework of historical US-Cuban relations
BIGGEST PROBLEM in this situation:
-MIRROR IMAGING
-assuming that others see the world the way they do
-fail to anticipate actions, reactions, based on DIFFERING experiences
-acting on the assumption that reactions will be predictable, when they're NOT based on given information
CUBA is a dependency of US interests
-US owns 80% of the utilities, 90% of the mining, and 40% of the sugar industry in cuba
-it's as close to an entirely criminally organized state as it gets

A) Cuba: Khruschev vs. Kennedy (1961-63)

Batista -> Castro
Castro leads rebellion against corrupt batista
-began as small rebellion, grows rapidly
-not initially soviet or communist
US cuts off sugar imports from Cuba
-soviets move in and buy up all the excess
-eventually (october, 1959), soviets declare solidarity with cuba
Cuba becomes the first soviet satellite state outside the defensive perimeter
-first satellite state inside the US sphere of influence

Bay of Pigs
One of JFK's first acts was to authorize the bay of pigs invasion
-plan to land cuban exiles in the bay of pigs, spark revolution
-kennedy withheld US air support
-plan FAILED miserably, was a fiasco
other sorts of pressure, economic especially
-total US embargo to cuba
Operation Mongoose, Northwoods
CIA becomes one of the largest employers in miami, taking action against cuba
NORTHWOODS
-false flag incidents
-terrorist attacks or something like that
-would say that castro did it, spark US outrage against castro, use as pretext to go to war
-even would risk US civilian lives
OPLAN 312, OPLAN 314
full-scale invasion plans
-came back to haunt administration during the missile crisis
-when it came to the cuban missile crisis, there were no small, flexible plans to use
Operation Quick Kick
Lantphibex 1-62
-two US invasion plans
-Soviets estimated that cubans would last approx. 1 week against US assault
-they thought cuba would need some sort of deterrence as defense

other problems soviets had with US included BERLIN
-there was a huge brain drain from the soviets into west berlin
-hope was that by taking a similar action- popping a small redoubt inside the US defense perimeter, attention would be taken away from berlin, soviets could take it
another issue- TURKEY
-US had just placed MRBMs in turkey, on the border with soviets
-soviets hoped that US would remove these in exchange for them removing nukes in cuba
China
-hope was that this issue would cement Soviet supremacy over china (was this ever in question?)
Cold War politics
-soviets look tough, neutral states move towards their position
Domestic Politics
-lots of domestic programs were failing
-khruschev thought that with a major foreign policy success, attention would be diverted
B) Operation Anadyr
this was the OFFICIAL name of the nuclear deployment to cuba
-funny thing was, if soviets put a tiny armed detachment of soviet troops in cuba, same goals would have been achieved
-same deterrence
-instead, nukes were deployed
over 50,000 troops and personnel were to be deployed
-this had to be SECRET
-85 ships were used, some with round trips
-only had 4 months for this to take effect

Missile Gap
repairing the missile gap was one of the top issues for US policymakers
-US was actually far far ahead of the soviets
-khruschev's only hope for equalizing the missile gap in soviet favor was to deploy MRBMs and IRBMs within range of US, in cuba
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)
Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM)
Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM)

plan was to deploy 36 R-12 MRBMs, 24 R-14 IRBMs
-this can attack any target on the mainland US
-to support them-
-4 Reinforced Motorized Rifle Regiments (14,000 men)
-42 IL-28 Bombers (6 were rigged to carry nuclear bombs)
-40 MIG fighters
-all sorts of cruise missiles and such
-6 Luna tactical nuclear missiles
-4 Foxtrot class submarines, each with a nuclear torpedo
-soviets were incorporating a tactical, short range nuclear deterrent
-MASSIVE nuclear presence, much more than US had expected
so there was central control of nuclear weapons, but with the massive distance between cuba and moscow, the control was effectively unenforceable
this was MUCH more provocative than the soviets thought
-kennedy said that if there was any indication of offensive Cuban capabilities, US would act

kennedy was notified about this on Oct 16, 1962
Issa Pliyev

EXCOM
executive committee of some sort
-immediately formed in response to the cuban missile crisis
-formed of the 'best and brightest'... fucking nerds
-entirely secret and covert
-deliberating american response
problems immediately
-are the missiles operational?
-right now, US knows that soviets are deploying missiles in cuba, but the soviets dont know they know
-immediate consensus was to set up an airstrike, take out the missiles
-air force told them that they couldn't guarantee destruction of all the missiles
-if any aren't hit, they get launched back at the US
-oh shit.
JCS
Joint Chiefs of Staff told them this ^^
kennedy closes off the airstrike option
-embargo/quarantine was put into effect
-US sets up a massive naval blockade around cuba
-nothing else was allowed in or out
-irony here was that the reason the US went to war in WWI and WWII was because of violation of freedom of the seas
-US was curtailing other nations' freedoms here, no basis in international law
-US was flexible in its interpretation of the blockade
-allowed ships that weren't carrying arms or equipment through
-Oct 24, blockade goes into effect
-Oct 26, first ship searched
-they made sure it was a ship that wouldn't have any contraband on it
-soviet ships had stopped right up against the US naval blockade
-one ship managed to slip through
-missiles hadn't gone through, but the warheads were in cuba
-the port they went to wasn't equipped to handle nuclear weapons, however, so the nukes were effectively neutralized
-US began to shadow soviet submarines
-practiced anti-submarine tactics
-launched practice depth charges at the soviet submarines
-US didn't realize that the submarines were equipped with nuclear torpedoes, whoops. dumbasses
-then EXCOM realized that the blockade had no effect on already existing nuke sites
-nobody knows what the soviet commander would have done if an invasion had occurred
-he was told NOT to use nukes, but what if he was cut off from moscow?
-first U2 was shot down
-done by accident, not under orders from soviet commanders
-both US and soviet forces are starting to act independently, leaders are losing control
-castro begs khruschev to hit the US with whatever they have
US agreed to pull their missiles in turkey out 4-5 months after the cuban missiles were pulled out
-soviets took the deal
what were long term problems?
-marginalization
-of congress- congress was cut completely out of the loop
-of allies- castro's demands were essentially ignored
-guesswork was exposed
-HUGE errors in CIA analysis of soviet actions
-HUGE HUMAN ERRORS
-norad actually believed that it was under attack by soviet missiles from cuba due to accidental test tape insertion
-hoooooly shit.

DEFCON

Adlai Stevenson

Jupiter Missiles

whos a badass? raamin's a badass