The Cold War: The Operation Bay Of Pigs

"In the Chinese language, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity."- John F. Kennedy, October, 1960. The then young Senator from Massachusetts, already had an unique insightful outlook on the term crisis. Kennedy spoke of this before he held presidential office, led the country through the closest brush with nuclear war, all while having highest approval rating in history. In the 1960s many knew that the United States was headed down a path of likely destruction. After sighing relief of World War Two being over, the U.S quickly found themselves once again engaged in a friction filled war that spanned oceans. The Cold War, which began in 1947, would last decades and tested political
Operation Bay of Pigs was a military mission started by Eisenhower, but actually carried out by Kennedy. Eisenhower had started recruiting ex-cubans in early 1960 to have the CIA train for their mission in case Cuba went rouge. When it was clear that Cuba was involved with the Soviet Union and their ways of communism, the recruits were taken for intense training from the CIA and others. The plan was for the recruits to pose as members of the Cuban Military in order to destroy their air force by stealing their planes and bombing their hangars. The next day they would destroy Cuba’s remaining planes and the third day they would invade with troops all without the Cubans knowing that the United States was the perpetrator. However, the mission was changed from its initial plan. The location was changed weeks in advance, but very last minute Kennedy canceled the second part of the plan due to a NATO meeting the Cubans had called. This mission was not considered a military mission because Kennedy had a feeling it may not be as successful as it sounded. He did not want the military associated with it in case the powerful nation lost to a small Caribbean island. Kennedy’s inclination was correct. The mission failed miserably, a large majority of the 1400 recruits had been killed or jailed in Cuba. This was a very public event that was broadcast
The term “brinkmanship” came about in the late 1950’s by the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles when he said, “You have to take chances for peace, just as you must take chances in war. Some say that we were brought to the verge of war. Of course we were brought to the verge of war. The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war lathe necessary art. If you cannot master it, you Inevitably get into war. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.” The tactics of brinkmanship are essentially to keep pushing boundaries of the possible regardless of safety or any other measure, until the other side backs down first. In this strategy you push your opponent so far that what you are promising you almost cannot fulfill but keep going anyways. Basically, it is the foreign policy and international affairs versions of the childhood games of chicken or mercy. It can also be considered playing only aggressive offense and little to no defense. Both countries wanted to assert their dominance over the other and did not want to appear weak. In the decade before the Crisis, they had been fierce competitors in the nuclear weapon and missile race. The U.S had been trying to out succeed the Soviet Union and vice versa but they had always stayed on their own soil. The first act of severe brinkmanship was when the