BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Ever since the end of World War Two, tensions between once allied Russia and the United States began to flourish during what would be known as the ‘Cold War.’ In the late 1940’s, the two nations had begun to immediately expand each others spheres of influence in the world with the introduction of the United States' Capitalistic society and the Russian Socialist society to foreign lands. Besides the resentment each nation had towards the other’s society, feuds also emerged based on each other's actions and claim to authority in the world. The United States had become weary of “Postwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe” (Cold War History) while the Russians were enraged that twenty million of their military men were killed because “Americans and British had waited so long to open a front in France” (The Cold War Erupts). Therefore, a series of threats, technology races, and fights would occur over the course of the next 44 years.
One of the biggest threats that arose during the Cold War era was a race between the United States and Russia called the “Arms Race”. Each nation would produce vast amounts of nuclear weaponry along with test dropping them to keep the other nation at bay. The Arms Race unofficially began with the dropping of the nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Suspicions emerged that the bombs might have been used “to warn the Soviet Union to be amenable to American wishes in the construction of the postwar world”(Swift).
It wasn't until 1949, when Russia had detonated its first nuclear bomb, that the arms race was kicked up to speed The United States would respond with larger nuclear weapons along with the introduction of nuclear warhead missiles, capable of being fired from long distanced. This back and forth action continues and eventually, the Russians test drop the largest nuclear weapon ever created called the “Tsar Bomba” in 1961 as a means of intimidation towards the US. The arms race would continue all throughout the Cold War until the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty is signed in 1990.
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In 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba’s dictatorship under Fulgencio Batista, the United States began to grow suspicious of the new leader’s communist ideas and dictator-like tactics. Castro would again and again “denounce the United States and to seek support from the communist bloc nations” (Castro and Communism in Cuba) which resulted in the United States cutting relations with Cuba while encouraging its allies to do so as well. But, in 1961, the United States had set up a plan to train Cuban revolutionaries in Guatemala and attack Cuba with the hopes of overthrowing the communist rule (known as the Invasion of Pig Bay). The mission was a complete failure as the ‘top secret mission’ was compromised and many were taken in as prisoners of war. As a result, Cuba turned to communist Russia for support and signed treaties allowing Russian military presence in Cuba.
Here is a map of the Nuclear Warhead distance capabilities on America if placed in Cuba... Cuba is therefore positioned perfectly in order to have a nuclear attack on America, making it more desired for America's enemies
