Fortunately, the reason those non-nuclear warhead missles were not launched was the same reason why Kennedy and the Soviety leader were looking for a way out that would save both of them face with their political counterparts – self preservation. That one would allow brinksmanship to come so close was not so uncommon as many might believe. Though the missle crisis was public, the ongoing paranoia of the cold war had us virtually a few strokes before midnight on that nuclear clock all the time.

Am not going to defend the Soviets for their brutality to their own people and those in the Warsaw block, however, they had legimate fears of the U.S. not just because of our anti-communist fever but with our own inability to see ourselves no different than the nations of Europe and their empires and thus avoid the lessons learned from their use of military force to expand their influence and control beyond their own borders for their own exploitation by the use of military force. Russia had a history of being attacked for many reasons and now it was due to anti-communist hysteria brought on by a combination of paranoia and self-interest on the part of the West as a suddenly emerging super power at the end of the second world war. We succumbed to the entrapment of all the nationalist faults associated with dominance that only manifested our own vision of virtue, self-righteousness and manifest destiny to justify all of our own injustices both home and abroad – and needed an enemy to sustain that.

So of course, the Soviets made moves to protect themselves by installing puppet governments to protect their borders and the development of their own atomic weapons which we saw not as a defensive measure on but as part of a goal for international communist domination. And what we refused to recognize was that What we refused to allow ourselves to see was that even though the Soviets defeated Germany, the USSR was by all means and purposes a defeated country itself – it was in ruins itself.

Yet despite that madness, it was each other’s own natural instinct for surivival and self preservation that prevented that madness (mutually assured destruction) to occur.
Though we did not have the likes of Buck Turdison calling the shots, the Soviets were indeed fearful of the influence of those like Curtis LeMay inside the White House.

Regrding the Kenneds, strongly recommend the revisionist biography of JFK written by Thoms C. Reeves titled “A Question Of Character”.

But what all this has to do with Cowgill going 3 for 4 I will never know.

FYI to Hotstreak and that’s why you’re a XXX%%###$. One team net worth is in the billions, while the other owes in the billions. You can’t be that stupid not to know which is which, but you are a Mets fan so I could be wrong. It’s a runaway train wreck waiting to happen. You are talking about the Mets here with their two historical chokes of ’07 & ’08 right. The Mets have never recovered from that. They just got from bad, to worst, to one of the worst teams in all of baseball. Don’t hold 2014 as the light at the end of the tunnel. The losers are still years away from being a major league ball club let alone a contender. The Mets have been on a five (5) year plan for the last 27 years. How’s that working out? LOL. Later loser

Hotstreak FYI
For Your Information: Losing 4 in a row to Boston in the playoffs was the ultimate collapse. There are some Yankee fans with class but your a spoiled brat just like the majority of Yankee fans. When the Yankees are losers you will discard your Yankee gear just like the good old BS (CBS ownership ) days.

The war with the Yankee and Met fans shall continue: Let’s unite here.

But the hold up on Attacking was they also had Short Range missiles that had a range far enough to hit the southern part of the country….Oddly enough where most of the Military bases were to keep them further away from the Russian missiles that would come over the North Pole!

The Medium range could cover most of the US and the rest of the Hemisphere….
But if we attacked them they could launch some of those short range missiles at Florida and Texas, New Orleans even as far north as the carolinas and maybe Washington.

And your right they also had tactical Nukes (usually fired by Artilery shell) to repel any invasion…

the Movie “Thirteen Days” was the most recent attempt to tell that story…The DVD even came with a Commentary track by McNamara (not comments made for the movie they just pieced them together)…

Since then more has come out as it got declassified…

In the end all we really did was trade Cuba for Turkey and there is even some reports that they some of the more concealable nukes remained until the fall of the Soviet Union.

The only other time we have come that close to being nuked was when Reagan was president and the Russians thought some readiness excersize was the real thing!

After that you hurt us about as good as anyone has ever!

You want to debate the intelligence of attacking us at all fine…
But anyone who is interested in being Cuba’s friend is only interested because it is a land mass that they can attack us from that they can’t do from where they are!

The administration knew from it’s U2 missions the earliest that the missles could have been ready to be fired and thus the time frame in which we had the chance to knock them out before that came into play. Though we were concerned about Russian retailation in Berlin, Robert MacNamara admitted the administration was unaware of, however, were the the nucleur weapons that the Russians had already provided Castro with and how Castro was prepared to use them in a naval invasion.

Even though the missles in Cuba would have been more a theoritical deterent for Russia’s protection in the geo-political chess game since the U.S. had first strike capability and weapons in Europe and subs virtually surrounding the USSR, Nikita Krustchiev took way too much a risk because he felt that Kennedy would not stand up to him.

As most knew, it didn’t matter where the missles were or who had first strike capability or not. Once the third world war began everyone involved knew that the fourth one would then be fought with sticks and stones.

I was 11 when the crisis was occuring but to be honest, I didn’t realize the seriousness of it till after that time.

The whole reason for having a LAND base at all is because you can see a Navy coming and can’t hide it like you can weapons on land.

Truth is no one is going to militarize Cuba they are just going to be friendly enough to make us think they could.

Cuba is in transition now…Castro is stepping down in a few years and whoever takes over will probably open up a bit to us without the Castros loosing face….

All China (and Russia) is doing against us is keeping us tied up in the middle east and the Iranian and Syrian (which is also all about Iran) things so that we can’t pivot to the Pacific where they actually have interests.

China wants to control the Pacific. Russia just wants to be a pain in the butt to feel like they are still a Super Power….
Iran is the only real revolutionary exporter these days ….
And the only ones who have a need for a land base to threaten us because they can’t do it where they are!

“Not military power anyway”
Well Cuba sure doesn’t offer any ECONOMIC advantage does it?
It’s only importance is as a lunch site for missiles against the US! Hell it’s not even a good dtaging point for an invasion since we already HAVE a base there that could stop that effort before it even got to the island!
SO again WHY would the chinese have any reason to be Cuba’s Patron?

They can already hit the US with whatever missiles they have if thats what they wanted to do…

Iran and North Korea are the only two that might want to hit us with Missiles and still don’t have the Missiles to do it!
They NEED a place like Cuba to launch from….

And lets face it North Korea is more likely to need Cuba’s assistance than Cuba needing theirs!
The Iranians can at least keep them in Oil which is how Venezuela helps them now.

“Iran’s not even the biggest dog in their own neighborhood”
Yeah who is the biggest dog pray tell?
Kuwait?
Iraq?
Palestine?
Afghanistan?
Syria?
Lebanon?

Maybe Jordan and Saudi Arabia and why is that?
Because of us! How do you weaken them? Weaken the USA!
and other than Syria and Iraq the rest want nothing to do with them!
Just some pissants in Gaza who they use as Proxies and have lost every battle they have started.

If they lose Syria they lose Lebanon too….

The Russians already had logistical support in Cuba, they weren’t holding a position in the sense of invading it. The missiles were flexing. That wasn’t what prevented an invasion. If anything, it got our attention more.

“What neither of you are considering is that China has as much to lose with our demise as we do!”

No, I’m well aware of that and tell that to anyone who gets all scared that China’s trying to go to war. Neither side wants it. We’d both probably lose in every sense of the word.

Nothing with Missiles but no need to have one until this administration of ours fumbles and lets them get Nukes!

they have one non-nuclear Soviet castoff aircraft carrier that may not even be fully functional yet. Never mind the support craft that has to go along with it…unless they want to make one of our sub commanders famous.

“What they don’t have is any interest in threatening or extending thier power in our hemisphere”

Not military power anyway.

“The whole reason the Iranians are so close to Venezuela is to use them as a foot in the door of our side of the planet….
And if Venezuela stops supporting Cuba then they will also not be with Iran and Iran will support Cuba more directly.”

Iran’s not even the biggest dog in their own neighborhood. And again, how exactly are supposed to project power in the face of our Navy?

You don’t need a strong Navy to support Cuba what you need is a lot of commercial shipping to smuggle weapons in great enough quantities that it will be too late to have to worry about defending them via sea and all they need to defend themselves is already on the Island.

Russian Navy didn’t show up during the Missile Crisis….They sent a SUB with the commercial ships to defend them.

And if you think Missiles can’t hold territory I suggest you review the Historical Occurrances on the Missile Crisis because the main reason we didn’t just invade when we first saw them was because if we had they might have launched those missiles that were ready before we got to them!
Also why we didn’t just send planes over to bomb them cause if you didn’t get them all they would have launched and they would have all the justification for launching them they needed because we attacked first!

What neither of you are considering is that China has as much to lose with our demise as we do!

They are making all the products our American Companies sell!
Why would they shoot the hand that feeds them and drives thier economic success?

If there is a regime change in Cuba that is looking for a new benefactor, said benefactor is going to be the US.

http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2012-04/chinas-navy-horizon
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2087973,00.html

This is all about threatening Tiawan and the other nations in the area…Not us!

What they don’t have is any interest in threatening or extending thier power in our hemisphere…

China needs us for thier continued economic success. Thats why the agreed to buy up all our debt.
If they want to hurt us all they need to do is cach in those markers…They don’t need Cuba at all…

the Iranians will jump to Cuba’s lap if Venezuela changes it’s Anti-American tune….
Which isn’t likely anytime soon….

The whole reason the Iranians are so close to Venezuela is to use them as a foot in the door of our side of the planet….
And if Venezuela stops supporting Cuba then they will also not be with Iran and Iran will support Cuba more directly.

And it’s not China who will take over for Venezuela (although it’s not clear yet that anything significant is going to change in that country, just his flunkies taking over where he left off and they have been running things all this time while he was sick) It will be Iran!

We might even be headed to a second Cuban Missile Crisis! LOL