Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Comparison and Contrast Between the Cold War in Europe and Asia. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. In the western hemisphere, the peak cold war confrontation manifested in the form of the Cuban Missile crisis. It was the year 1961, under the leadership of President John F. Kennedy. the world came perilously close to a deadly confrontation between the two major powers. The Soviet Union was under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Lying only 145 km from the coast of the USA, Cuba had always been of concern to the United States (America still maintains a naval base there to the present day at Guantanamo). The relations between the two nations took a U-turn with the onset of the communist revolution in 1959. Fidel Castro’s consequent rise to power made Cuba a real and present danger. The pressing concern for the United States was the potential symbolic threat that a communist neighbor would prove to be. The fiasco that was the Bay of Pigs invasion, intended to dispel and if possible eliminate Castro, was an affair of big embarrassment for the Kennedy Administration. This further strained the diplomatic relations between the two countries.

At this juncture, Castro was left with little option but to strengthen relations with the Soviet Union. It benefited the Soviet Union to respond to Cuba’s call for protection, as setting up a base so near the American coast was of strategic importance. The events of these fortuitous days for mankind unraveled in the backdrop of the cold war. The ’50s were a period of economic and technological advancement for both superpowers. Paralleling this prosperity was the escalating ideological conflict between democracy and communism. The tense couple of weeks that would later be called the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest this planet came to complete annihilation. Soviet missiles with capabilities to wipe out all major cities in the eastern United States were positioned just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. A last-minute command from Khrushchev to soviet ships heading to Cuba saved the planet from a potential Armageddon.