The Cuban Revolution
The Cuban's links to the Soviet Union after the Cuban Revolution might have been a great personal achievement for Fidel Castro yet it also meant that he and his country were to be heavily involved in the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. Indeed the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the point at which the Soviet Union and the United States got to fight each other in World War Three.
At the beginning of the Cuban Revolution the regime of Fidel Castro stressed that despite being openly socialist that it wanted to stay out of the Cold War. However that did not prove to be possible as the hostility of the United States government as well as the Cuban exiles based in the state of Florida drove Fidel Castro and his regime ever closer to the Soviet Union.
The Bay Of Pigs
The administration of President Eisenhower imposed economic sanctions against Cuba that were nullified to a very extent by the Soviet Union buying Cuban sugar and supplying Fidel Castro with oil and weapons. Cuban exiles backed by the Central Intelligence Agency launched the disastrously inept Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion cemented Cuba's involvement in the Cold War on the side of the soviet Union as an openly communist state. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev then decided to send nuclear missiles to Cuba to deter any direct invasion attempt by the United States.
When the United States discovered the presence of nuclear missiles on Cuba it caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. For several days it seemed as if World War Three was about to begin. Eventually Khrushchev and President Kennedy reached a compromise; the Soviet missiles were withdrawn on the condition that the United States never attempted to invade Cuba.
The Cuban Missile Crisis And Beyond
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro and his regime attempted to export communist revolution in other parts of the world. For instance Fidel Castro sent Cuban soldiers to fight in Angola. Castro was also keen to demonstrate his anti-American policies at any given opportunity.
Whilst Fidel Castro might have always taken the alliance with the Soviet Union as being very important, whilst it was developments in the Soviet Union which helped to end the Cold War.
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