question_answer

What was Cuban Missile Crisis? Describe its main events.

Or

Explain any three reasons for the disintegration of the USSR.

Answer:

The Cuban Missile Crisis known as the October Crisis Scare in Cuba was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict.

Since Cuba was an ally of Soviet Union and received both diplomatic and financial aid from it. Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of Soviet Union, decided to convert Cuba into a Russian base. In 1962 he placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The installation of these weapons put the US, for the first time, under fire from close range.

Three weeks later the Soviet Union had placed the nuclear weapons in Cuba, the America become aware of it. The US President john E Kenned}? and its advisers were reluctant to do anything that would lead to a full- scale war but he soon determined to get Khrushchev to remove the missiles from Cuba. Kennedy ordered American warships to intercept any Soviet ships heading to Cuba as a way of warning the USSR of his seriousness. A clash seemed imminent in what came to be known as Cuban Missile Crisis.

Or

(i) Stagnating economy: The Soviet Union had grown to a size large enough to have continue state planning. The massive and intricate Soviet economy became too large to manage by state planners, who were unwilling to enable more autonomy at mid-managerial level to remain responsive down to a localized level. This resulted in failed economic policies (failure to respond timely to continuous changes), while thwarting innovation.

(ii) Afghanistan quagmire: The Soviet-friendly Afghan government was threatened by anti-communist insurgents, which grew to outnumber the Afghanistan army. The USSR supplied tens of thousands of troops and war machines. However, support transformed into an invasion followed by occupation of various cities and towns, bogging the Soviets down into a guerrilla war with an increasingly growing and zealous Afghan resistance movement. By the time of the Soviet withdrawal from 1987-89, nothing concrete had been gained, and the USSR left damaged and humiliated.

(iii) Local Nationalism: With declining public perception of the Soviet government (due to political blunders), nationalism grew within each of the individual republics, creating independence ambitions in republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.