Some people argue that he won the missile crisis as it made the USA remove their missiles from turkey.
Is Nikita Kruschev "overrated"?
Some people argue that he won the missile crisis as it made the USA remove their missiles from turkey.
Only after nearly causing a nuclear war? The same type of people would say that Reagan's escalation also won the Cold War, or that Nixon doing the same may have let us achieve peace in Vietnam. Madman theory is bupkis.
Except that the US withdrawal of those missiles was a secret. So despite that it was still a loss.
Risking total annihilation to get obsolete IRBMs pulled when the USN had the far superior George Washington Boomers on patrol with far quicker response time than any Thor or Jupiter.
There are people who claim that Reagan escalation won the cold war. I don't know about Nixon.
They withdrew never the less. Not even the Soviet government knew that?
And he still did it, the gamble payed off.
Didn’t matter. The Soviets withdrew publicly, the US did so secretly. That paints a clear public picture that the Soviets lost.
It's actually Kennedy who nearly caused the nuclear war, as the USA has no right to tell anyone where they may relocate their military and weapons to.
With hindsight of almost 60 years, both Khruschev and Kennedy were absolute madmen risking global devastation over minor gains for just a period of a few years. Both US and USSR knew that in space of a few years US would risk serious devastation with expansion of Soviet ICBM capabilities - so the ruffle over Cuba was meaningless.
Nobody really knew how rockets will work out in 10 years at that time, except maybe some of the eggheads developing rockets but those were people who generally knew nothing of geopolitics and strategy.
Yes they did, Soviets already had R-16 (SS-7) ICBM in service, although in small numbers, R-9 (SS-8) coming into service soon etc. Deploying missiles to Cuba was totally unnecessary risk-taking. At the same time, risking nuclear war to remove Soviet IRBM's was an irresponsible act too, since US vulnerability to strikes was just a year or two away anyway.
This, of course, with hindsight. But as we know, both Khruschev and Kennedy realized the play had gone too far and took steps to avoid it later on.
It was a PR disaster for the USSR, after Adlai Stevenson displayed the U-2 Photos to the Security Council, after the USSR denied any missiles were present.
Kennedy was the one holding back.
"The big Red dog is digging in our backyard, and we are justified in shooting him" --Curtis LeMay
Everyone in power remembered Pearl Harbor, and were not going to allow that again.
USSRs only real way to get IRBMs in Cuba, is to be open about it, and link the Turkish and Italian missiles from the Start, and then only after Cuba was an actual member of the Warsaw Pact, for a true apples to apples comparison that anyone could see.
That's a flowery way of justifying interference in foreign countries affairs by threat of nuclear holocaust. Today i think we call such things "state terrorism", it's precisely what many are saying North Korea is doing and no one in their right mind would call anyone at fault but the North Koreans for that, except maybe North Koreans themselves.
Sadly, things havent changed much since then, judging by the USA's threats towards the EU and larger world when dealing with the Iranian issue.
Isn't that was exactly what the USSR was doing, sneaking in missiles that could do a decapitation Strike on DC in a few minutes flight time?
Unless they planned to sneak them into the USA itself, something which i'd consider remotely possible... no, not really.
Well no. Time is the critical factor here. Soviet missiles in Cuba gives the US much less time to detect, verify and decide if and how they'll respond to an attack. And when juggling nuclear bombs, too little time to verify information is extremely dangerous. Especially since for the aggressor, there's the temptation to launch a decapitating strike, wiping out the enemy's communications, decision making and most of the enemy strike capacity before they are able to respond. Soviet missiles in Cuba was a big deal. As were US missiles based close to the USSR.
Further, land-based silos can be made far more dangerous than submarines. Especially given the technological limitations the Soviet submarine fleet had. A land-based silo can be built far larger (and thus have much greater strike power) and can be made more resilient than a practical submarine can. However, since the enemy can see silos on land, land-based IRBMs based near an enemy are far more risky, since there's the temptation to use them for a first strike (and for the other side a fear of your temptation and consider a first strike on you before you can first-strike them), since even an expensively hardened missile base will lose some strike power if reserved for a second strike. So from a strictly military perspective land based silos are "better", but from the political perspective they are "worse" since they encourage escalation.
As much as both sides could have handled the Cuban quandaries better (so, so much better), it really was a big deal. As were the US IRBMs stationed in the Soviet near-abroad.
fasquardon
By time of Cuban crisis US had so overwhelming nuclear capability that it could have retaliated despite any Soviet decapitation strike. Besides, decapitation strike remained a veritable scenario throughout the Cold War, for example via SSBN sneaking close etc.
Eisenhower had given out predelegated Strike Authority to the Joint Chiefs and others before Cuba had a revolution, even before the Soviets had a means to hit DC at all.
Unsure if the Soviets knew, as it seems that JFK didn't know the extent that Ike had handed out those 'Start WWIII buttons" to as many as he did until after the CMC, or that SAC had circumvented what PALs were in place, either
I'm fairly sure that Soviets, who did not even have enough nukes to take out all US strategic capabilities not to mention Polaris subs, would not count on certainty that someone would not act on his own initiative. Reading Daniel Ellsberg's "Doomsday Machine" the early 1960's strike command arrangements sound a little...worrying...
When I think of Khrushchev, I remember old plaque at my my university (Kyiv Polytechnic), which showed timeline of advancements in computer science, in two colors: Soviet in black, foreign in white. Black ones stop after Khrushchev ouster. In general he is my favorite Soviet leader after Bukharin. However I fully understand why people dislike him: he made a lot of things right, but a lot of it wrong.
You don't understand Khrushchev plan. It wasn't done to compete with USA who would,ve ramped production on their own regardless of his actions. "Missile gap" ring a bell?
Look at Red Army size after ww2. Now imagine how much that army cost to USSR. Khrushchev was slashing down Red Army to more manageable size, while at the same time increasing amount of nukes therefore (at least to him) not sacrificing defensibility of his country.
It's often memed that Yeltsin dissapointed in communism after visiting American supermarket, but what people forget is that Khrushchev was first to do so. I think it have caused cognitive dissonance in a man who fought in revolution and world war, to see that he might be wrong. That can explain his rush to overtake USA, to prove to himself that he was right. And, honestly? He was probably the only Soviet leader who come close to achieving that.
Do you honestly think that man who survived two similar coup attempts couldn't survive this one? Truth is that only reason Khrushchev lost is because he didn't fought. He got tired of ruling a superpower. Reading his actions before the coup he was all but saying "Yeah, I know and I don't care". And it was smart thing to do, Brezhnev couldn't retire even through he attempted multiple times.
You don't understand Khrushchev plan. It wasn't done to compete with USA who would,ve ramped production on their own regardless of his actions. "Missile gap" ring a bell?
Look at Red Army size after ww2. Now imagine how much that army cost to USSR. Khrushchev was slashing down Red Army to more manageable size, while at the same time increasing amount of nukes therefore (at least to him) not sacrificing defensibility of his country.
Some argue that was basically invitation to plotters, since now they didn't had to risk their lives in case of failure
It's often memed that Yeltsin dissapointed in communism after visiting American supermarket, but what people forget is that Khrushchev was first to do so. I think it have caused cognitive dissonance in a man who fought in revolution and world war, to see that he might be wrong. That can explain his rush to overtake USA, to prove to himself that he was right. And, honestly? He was probably the only Soviet leader who come close to achieving that.
he loved technology.