Summary Of Challenges To The Cold War And The Cuban Revolution

Osama bin Laden and Cuban Revolution

The reading “Challenges to the Cold War II: The Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Missile Crisis” told that in 1959, Cuba experienced an upheaval. Before that, Cuba was a colony of Spain until 1898. Then it became independent with the American’s assistance. As a result, American power replaced over the Spanish rule. Following that, for decades, Cuba became a tourist playground of rich Americans. This became an incentive for the organized crime groups to use Cuba to “launder” money, and the successive governments operated in a corrupt way. Also, United States often intervened politically and militarily. In 1959, Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The Castro’s decision
Khrushchev helped Cuba economically and militarily, by which Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles into Cuba. The consequence showed that United Stated and Soviet Union needed to defuse Cold War tensions. After that, Kennedy’s successor’s efforts, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) became motivations to decrease Cold War tensions. Besides, the Cultural Revolution put China into chaos. Thus, border skirmishes broke out among Soviet Union and China. Then Nixon and Kissinger coupled “détente” with an effort to maintain the balance between Soviet Union and
Cuban dependency on the United States seemed to be very high, and most of the Cuban decisions were under the hands of the United States. The document showed, “The United States often intervened politically (and sometimes militarily).” The peak source of income of the Cuba was on sugar, and most of the sugar plantations were under the hands of the Americans, which means the sugar would be exported or the money. Again, only elites and Americans were sharing this profit. As a consequence, this also had its side effects, such as poverty, inequality, unemployment,