The Cuban Missile Crisis was, and still is to this day, one of the most tense, and dangerous events to transpire between the United States and a separate nation, in this case the USSR. It nearly initiated a global nuclear war, the likes of which the world may not have recovered from. Thankfully, both the Soviet Union and the United States were able to avoid such strife before it was too late due to an brilliant display of international negotiation by both President Kennedy and President Khrushchev. This crisis helped to exemplify exactly how quickly a situation could become gravely deleterious. In a sense, this was a victory for both sides as the Crisis helped The U.S. and The USSR to understand that when it comes to global survival, they were on the same team.
Essentially, the basic motives of the US and the USSR were fairly similar, they just fell on opposite sides of the spectrum. The Soviets wanted to spread the idea of communism while at the same time hinder western world capitalism, and the US was doing the same, just vice versa. In relation to the motives that contributed most directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis the motivation becomes much more specific. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1962, Khrushchev became nervous of the idea of actually losing Cuba as a communist ally. Cuba was a very strategically located allied country that was less than ninety miles south of Florida and Khrushchev was fully intent on using it as means to contain the US. It seemed obvious that the US would plan another attack on Cuba and Khrushchev took the evasive action that he believed was necessary to defend the Soviet ally, Cuba. This meant moving nuclear missiles a mere ninety miles from the beaches of Florida.[Brito] Not only did the Soviet Union wished to protect its ally against US imperialism, but they also simply wanted to keep up with American military movements across the globe.