The Cuban missile crisis can be viewed as a very hostile and militant time period in United States History. The United States and the Soviet Union were almost at total nuclear warfare and that fate of the United States was unknown. The crisis first started after a failed United States military attack on Cuba to take over the communist regime known as the Bay of Pigs. After the failed military attack, the first secretary of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, ordered that nuclear weapons be shipped to the Cuba. The United States learned about the missiles from a U-2 spy plane. The United States president, John F. Kennedy, was in a major dilemma concerning the United States actions with the Soviet Union. The military officials wanted a full-scale search and destroy invasion of Cuba to remove the nuclear weapons from Cuba before the Soviet Union ordered a strike. The crisis lasted thirteen days until an agreement was reached between the United States and Cuba that brought the nuclear weapons back to the Soviet Union. Many lessons can be taken from this crisis so future mistakes would not occur again. .
One lesson that we can learn from the Cuban missile crisis is that the United States should have a plan of action every time there is major crisis. Crises are always going to be apart of international affairs. The United States should have a strict code of action that they could follow when settling crises. The United States had much trouble with the Soviet Union with their planning in the crisis. The United States was unprepared and did not have a good sense on what their next move might be. The United States was luckily unharmed, but this crisis should be used as a learning tool for future crises. The United States also had a hard time coming into an agreement with the Soviet Union. The United States could have resolved the crisis much better and the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union could have been less stressful.
