After World War II, the two powers led by the United States and the Soviet Union went to the road of confrontation, the two sides competed for control on a global scale, but always maintained rationality and calmness, even if the sword was sharpened, there was no gunfire, and the vicious competition between you and me did not break out into serious conflicts, so it was called the Cold War, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Among them, in 1962, the closest to the outbreak of a hot war between the United States and the Soviet Union was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost triggered a global World War III, but fortunately, the two sides finally ended with the Soviet Union compromise and the United States falling down the donkey, even so, both the Soviet Union and the United States were shocked into a cold sweat.
Why do you break out in a cold sweat? Because at that time, if both sides did not back down, once a nuclear war broke out, it would destroy the existing resources of the earth, whether the analysis at the time or the later declassified data showed that the nuclear warheads of these two superpowers at that time were enough to make the earth nirvana, and whether they could be reborn was unknown.
This crisis that lasted for 13 days can be said to be thrilling, if the Soviet Union does not budge, then, in order to safeguard its own interests and image, the United States can only harden its scalp, as for the consequences, it can only be fought first, and then say, once the war breaks out, what means are used, it is not something that reason can control, and the hot war to nuclear war is a matter of course.
In this regard, US President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev are not fools, and they both know the consequences of a nuclear war, so at the critical moment, both sides did not act arbitrarily, but always left room for maneuver for the other side.
For example, although Kennedy ordered the United States to prepare for war at the first level, weapons including nuclear warheads were put into a state of war, sent troops to blockade the sea, and sent aircraft to reconnoiter everywhere, all of which showed unusual toughness, but his speech to the outside world was very soft, indicating that all this was isolated and preliminary.
In the first contest, no one wanted to lose without slipping away, so Khrushchev went one step further and continued to speed up the transport of missiles already armed to Cuba, while Kennedy's counterattack was to directly blockade Cuban waters and load nuclear warheads at any time.
He first took the lead in declaring to the world from a self-defensive standpoint that the Actions of the United States are all for the sake of protecting themselves, are passive, portray the Soviet Union as a provocateur, and the United States does not want to fight, but the premise is that the Soviet Union must withdraw its missiles and not provoke, so that there is world peace, after all, we all love peace, right?
It has to be said that Kennedy's pre-emptive strike is very clever, cleverly a table, portraying himself as a victim, a defender of peace, the Soviet Union into a provocateur, a situation destroyer, this is a human design, and no matter how the Soviet Union responds, it is passive.
If you attach yourself to the United States, lose face and let the jokes not look good, force your scalp into the war and have no confidence, originally wanted to go to the door of the people's homes to demonstrate, who knew that all of a sudden, lost ground, and then subject to human control, once the situation fell into passivity, and would have been a provocateur, it was ironclad not to please.
Fortunately, the United States reserved room in advance, that is, to maintain peace, the Soviet Union tried to win back a round, wanted to withdraw Cuban missiles in exchange for the United States to withdraw Italian and Turkish missiles, but was handled by the United States, indicating that these are two different things, we are now talking about Cuba, the other is too far away, and the two can not be compared.
In this way, the attack was bold, the retreat was faceless, and the round field was rejected, and the face was lost, and the United States occupied the moral high ground in advance so that the passive Khrushchev could not do anything, and finally confessed and announced the withdrawal of Cuban missiles, while the Americans returned the favor, announced the end of the blockade against Cuba and withdrew the bombers over Cuba within 30 days. The missile crisis is over.
Looking back at the whole process, whether in terms of strength or crisis handling ability, Kennedy was superior in skill, occupying the moral high ground, and making the other side extremely passive in the design of the people who pretended to be a peace defense war, and Khrushchev originally thought that it was a step of counterattacking the United States was interpreted as a provocateur by himself, and the final goal was not achieved.
The reason for this is that first of all, the arrogant attitude of the Soviet Union has turned itself into a provocateur, underestimated the reaction and determination of the United States in the process of handling, and lacked confidence in its own strength, lack of desperate courage to be seen through by the United States, crisis handling ability is not as good as the United States, all kinds of measures are to counter the United States, never have the lead, so that you can only follow the footsteps of the United States, there is no initiative at all.
The United States, relatively speaking, without these shortcomings of the Soviet Union, has taken the initiative from the very beginning, and it is only reasonable to laugh at the end. The Soviet reaction was somewhat self-righteous and comical.
It's like, a person goes to your door to make a move, you don't go to catch him and beat him up and drive him away, but you are willing to go near and far to run to the other person's door and do the same thing, being blocked by people, making a disgraced face can not blame others.
Now it seems that when the United States first deployed missiles in Turkey and Italy, the Soviet Union had the courage to directly blockade Turkey and Italy, and then copy Kennedy's actions once, perhaps, and finally the United States was disgraced. Unfortunately, Khrushchev missed the best opportunity.
Of course, there is another hypothesis that Khrushchev will not accept defeat and continue to go to the brink of war, who will suffer the most? It is distorted that with the boldness and determination of the United States at that time, Cuba would probably be directly erased and become a sacrifice of the Soviet Union against the United States, and the biggest loss would be Castro's Cuba, and with the disappearance of Cuba, the war would also end.
The irony is that Castro was tougher than Khrushchev at that time, always thinking that the winner would be him, after all, he could take a bad breath, in fact, when Khrushchev decided to withdraw, he did not even inform him. After all, protecting his own interests from damage is the king, and he was a pawn of the Soviet Union from the beginning, and people did not intend to stand up for him.