Describe the events of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis Essay

Describe the events of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Do you think there was anything the U.S. could have done to handle these two events better - Essay Example The Bay of Pigs was an unsuccesful military invasion of Cuba by the paramilitary group sponsored by the CIA in April 1961. Two years before the invasion, Fidel Castro drove his guerrilla army into Havana and overthrew the president Fulgencio Batista (an American-backed President), paving the way for the communist rule in Cuba. For two years, the U.S. state department and the CIA attempted to overthrow the communist government, thus in 1961, the CIA launched a full-scale invasion of Cuba. However, the invaders were outnumbered by the Cuban forces and were defeated within less than 24 hours of fighting. The aftermath of the invasion at the Bay of pig led to a stronger tie between the Soviet Union and Cuba with the United States perceiving Cuba as a threat (Dunne, 448–458). The Cuban missile crisis was another scenario where the cold war exploded into actual combat war. The Cuban missile crisis was a thirteen-day confrontation between the Unites States and the Soviet Union over the latter’s ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. The Cuban missiles were a response to the invasion of the Bay of Pigs. Additionally, the presence of American missiles in Italy and Turkey that was seen by the Soviet as a threat to their security prompting retaliation from USSR. The Russian missiles in Cuba were thus stationed as a means of protecting Cuba from future harassment by America. The Cuban missile crisis was resolved following a period of negotiation between President Kennedy and Khrushchev, with Soviet Union agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba with a promise U.S will not invade Cuba without direct provocation (Schwarz, 73-81). Concerning the Bay of Pigs, the United States had little options other than to prepare a secret invasion team into Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the communist government. However, to make the invasion a success, the US government ought to have done a thorough assessment of the opponent before commencement of