DBWI: Bay of Pigs Failed

Cuba would have been invaded by the US, it is literally right next door, we could not let them be communist

I'm not quite sure the Soviet Union or the world community in general would be happy about that. I think everyone is vastly overestimating the capabilities of the United States. The United States was able to get away with the operation because 1.) it was covert and 2.) it was a success. Should the Bay of Pigs fail, both the Cuban and Soviet leadership are going to use it as a rallying cry. Cuba is going to have Russian backing for a long time. Castro is likely to be replaced with someone else though.

In addition, if the Bay of Pigs failed it would probably tarnish Kennedy and Eisenhower's reputations. It wouldn't ruin them, but it would create problems.
 
I'm not quite sure the Soviet Union or the world community in general would be happy about that. I think everyone is vastly overestimating the capabilities of the United States. The United States was able to get away with the operation because 1.) it was covert and 2.) it was a success. Should the Bay of Pigs fail, both the Cuban and Soviet leadership are going to use it as a rallying cry. Cuba is going to have Russian backing for a long time. Castro is likely to be replaced with someone else though.

In addition, if the Bay of Pigs failed it would probably tarnish Kennedy and Eisenhower's reputations. It wouldn't ruin them, but it would create problems.
We still have the strongest navy in the world and the Russians knew just how unfavorable the nuclear balance of forces at the time really was to them at the time, we would have found an excuse to invade, it is literally less than 100 miles from the US and has a US base on the Island

Honestly the international community didn't care about our other Latin American interventions, it wouldn't care about this one

Agree with you on the reputation tarnishing though
 

NothingNow

Banned
What I meant was how is Cuba going to be different than any other poor Latin American country, they don't have oil like Venezuela, where will they get the money for this, all they have is sugar, tobacco and some fruit

More likely than not Cuba ends up a poor, corrupt country like the rest of Latin America

They've also got you know, shit tons of mineral reserves, and before the purges following the Bay of Pigs had a rather educated population. Of course, killing something like 10% of the island's population in an orgy of violence eliminating all those who openly sided with the 26th of July Movement was probably more responsible for wrecking the Cuban economy than anything Castro and his folks did.

Seriously, some of the folks from Miami made Che look well adjusted in the period after the counter-revolution. At least he just killed folks with a baseball bat.

I read somewhere that Castro had bragged that he would create such a strong national health system that Cuba would have more doctors-per-patients than anyone else in the world.

Do you think that alone puts this in ASB?

I think the United States has something like four hundred patients per doctor, and that's with our national system of medical schools, etc.
Not with the system they had outlined on paper. They could have pulled something like 20 patients per doctor off with that system.
 
Not with the system they had outlined on paper. They could have pulled something like 20 patients per doctor off with that system.
On Paper. On Paper Sealion was a good idea, communism was a good economic system, Fascism made the trains run on time and the Great Leap Forward massively increased agricultural production

Putting something into practice is much different than actually doing it
 
We still have the strongest navy in the world and the Russians knew just how unfavorable the nuclear balance of forces at the time really was to them at the time, we would have found an excuse to invade, it is literally less than 100 miles from the US and has a US base on the Island

Honestly the international community didn't care about our other Latin American interventions, it wouldn't care about this one

Agree with you on the reputation tarnishing though

Only a few in the top of the hierarchy knew just how unfavorable the balance was. The others were as jingoistic as their American counterparts and fully believed that they could win in a nuclear war against the Americans.

As for the second point, there are no casus bellis that the United States could write up that wouldn't seem as flimsy as the paper they were written on after the Bay of Pigs. Cuba does not yet look like a significant threat and if the plot blows up, the country is going to look overwhelmingly like the aggressor. The world community only ignored the Latin American interventions because they were usually covert. They aren't going to accept such boldfaced aggression. Continuing to pursue Cuba after that will only further disrupt the balance of power and push neutral nations closer into the Soviet sphere.

Kennedy is not going to want that. He'll stay out of it because he knows that even if they are successful, the problems created outweigh the reward. Some in Congress might castigate him for it like they did with Vietnam but he knows it is not worth it.
 
Never said it would be a good idea, or look reasonable, simply given the attitudes of the time a communist Cuba was unacceptable, if Kennedy doesn't then his successor will, the USA of the time would not tolerate a communist Cuba

Frankly response to this would be similar to responses to the USSR intervening in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. If not then the USA will be a bit more isolated for a few years, then the USSR will do something stupid again and things go back to normal

That said I never personally gave this more than a 70% chance of happening
 
I see where you are coming from, but I am still unsure. As unreasonable a communist Cuba might be to Washington, they still don't want to lose the support of their constituent or give the Second World more propaganda. An invasion after a failed Bay of Pigs has the potential to get really nasty and could disillusion the country's allies.

Maybe instead of overt military action, the US would try to use economic and political pressures to bring down Cuba? Enact embargoes, halt immigration, encourage allies to do the same. Maybe even a blockade? It certainly looks a lot better than invading, both to the world community and voters.
 
Frankly response to this would be similar to responses to the USSR intervening in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In other words a few months ranting about "American Imperialist Meddling" than then things back to normal. The USSR wasn't about to start WWIII over Cuba.
 
Only a few in the top of the hierarchy knew just how unfavorable the balance was. The others were as jingoistic as their American counterparts and fully believed that they could win in a nuclear war against the Americans.

As for the second point, there are no casus bellis that the United States could write up that wouldn't seem as flimsy as the paper they were written on after the Bay of Pigs. Cuba does not yet look like a significant threat and if the plot blows up, the country is going to look overwhelmingly like the aggressor. The world community only ignored the Latin American interventions because they were usually covert. They aren't going to accept such boldfaced aggression. Continuing to pursue Cuba after that will only further disrupt the balance of power and push neutral nations closer into the Soviet sphere.

Kennedy is not going to want that. He'll stay out of it because he knows that even if they are successful, the problems created outweigh the reward. Some in Congress might castigate him for it like they did with Vietnam but he knows it is not worth it.

Kennedy was right about Vietnam that country had little value to the cold war and fighting for it would have been a waste of blood and treasure. For all of his faults the man knew when to hold them and when to fold them.
 
Actually those who say that is not probable a direct American intervention, I suspect it would be necessary. Khrushchev always considered Kennedy a paper tiger, and if McNamara in his memories does not lie he resented that a lot. A boot in Cuba would shot up the Soviets. And I always considered that cabinet a more lot hawkish than usually considered, after all Vietnam is 10000 kilometers away, Cuba instead ...


(ooc: and if Fujimori is still in prison, he deserves more thank-you cards for putting that monster [Guzman] into prison, but I digress.)

ooc: He did not, the one who arrested that bastard was a single policeman with absolutely NO official help at all ( IIRC The film "Pasos de Baile" is a more or less reconstruction of the investigation )
 
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