The Cuban Missile Crisis Russia
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EthicalMUN II The Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis Russia Chairs: Olivia Pollack and Owen Park Crisis Director: Josh Sacca and Jackson Davis EthicalMUN II Hello Delegates, We are delighted to welcome you to Ethical MUN II and we are looking forward to two full and exciting days of debate. The topic for this committee is the Cuban Missile Crisis and we are really looking forward to seeing your unique solutions. We hope that this topic will Theo Dassin stimulate your creativity and make for an amazing weekend. We have seven experienced Co-Secretary General chairs and crisis directors who are eagerly anticipating the conference. Please take time to thoroughly read the background guide and conduct research of you own so that you can have the best position papers possible. Iva Knezevic Co-Secretary General This background guide is simply a starting point for your research, and much more research is necessary to prepare for this committee. For those of you who are new to Model UN, this Alex Keswani committee is a crisis committee which means that there will constantly be new problems Chief of Staff (provided by our lovely crisis directors Jackson Davis, Josh Sacca, and Nick Shiland) that you must solve. In addition, this is a JCC which stands for joint crisis committee, in one Ryan Kelly room there will be delegates associated with the USSR and Cuba, and in the other will be delegates representing the American EXCOMM committee. The two groups will be in Vice-Secretary of constant communication throughout the conference. We want both groups to fully represent Committees their positions while working together to come up with a solution for this Crisis. Olivia Becker This committee will be starting in October of 1962, right after United States discovered the Vice-Secretary of Soviet Missiles in Cuba. Anything before this is set in stone, but anything after is all up to Administration you. Emphasis will be placed on not copying exactly what occurred in real life, as we want you to come up with interesting and creative solutions on your own. Please do not try to copy what actually occurred in committee, as the wonderful crisis staff will be introducing Halle Friedman new crises often, many of which did not historically occur. Vice-Secretary of Outreach We are very excited to hear your solutions and ideas on the complicated issues we will be dealing with over this conference. We fully welcome any questions you have, and we look Leilani Elkaslasy forward to seeing you in May! Community Service Director Your Chairs, Abby Gewirtz Olivia Pollack ([email protected]) Owen Park ([email protected]), Director of Photography Ben Greer ([email protected]), Lucas Saidenberg ([email protected]) Prez Thomas, Ben Kaiser, Max Zalta, and David Runte Senior Staff EthicalMUN II Hello Comrades, Welcome to Ethical MUN II! My name is Olivia Pollack and it is my pleasure to serve as the chair of the JCC Soviet Union. I am looking forward to what promises to be an amazing conference, and most importantly, I am excited to meet and engage Theo Dassin with you all. Co-Secretary General I am currently a freshman at Fieldston and have been attending the school since I Iva Knezevic was in Kindergarten. I first got involved in Model UN in 6th grade when I joined my Co-Secretary General school’s team. Since then, I have won five awards, most recently being at the ILMUNC at Penn. Some other organizations that I am part of on campus include Alex Keswani Math Club, Girls Varsity Soccer, Finance Club, and I am about to start the Fieldston Softball team. In my free time, I like to play soccer, read, watch movies, and bake! Chief of Staff Our other chair, Owen Park, is an experienced debater who enjoys playing soccer, Jacob Greene watching movies, playing the drums and listening to music in his spare time. We Chief of Staff will be working with a talented crisis staff during this committee. Nick Shiland, Josh Sacca and Jackson Davis will be in the committee room frequently to accept notes Ryan Kelly and present crises. Vice-Secretary of Committees While this committee may start with the primary Cuban Missile Crisis, they will present many other crises pertaining to the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, Olivia Becker which you will also be tasked with solving. This requires an in-depth knowledge of Vice-Secretary of the topic and outside research. When this committee begins, on October 15, 1962, Administration the United States will have just received knowledge of the missiles you placed Cuba. Halle Friedman In this committee, you will be tasked with solving crises relating to this and figuring out a diplomatic way out of this solution while still leveraging the threat placed in Vice-Secretary of Cuba and hopefully gaining in the process. Throughout the committee, new issues Outreach will be introduced for you to debate and solve as a committee. In the months leading up to the conference, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions Leilani Elkaslasy regarding Ethical MUN II or Fieldston. I look forward to meeting everyone in the Community Service spring! Director Sincerely, Olivia Pollack ([email protected]) Co-chair of the USSR committee JCC: USSR EthicalMUN II Joint Crisis Committee Description History of the Cold War During October of 1962, tensions During World War II, the United rose dramatically between two major States and the Soviet Union fought together powerhouses of the world; The Soviet Union as allies against the Axis powers. However, and The United States of America. The Cold the relationship between the two nations was War was fought mainly through spies and a tense one. Americans had long been wary secrets and was essentially oil for a possible of Soviet communism and concerned about upcoming nuclear war. The Cold War had Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, been heightening in intensity for years blood-thirsty rule of his own country. For before, but when The Soviet Union installed their part, the Soviets resented the mid-range ballistic nuclear missiles just 90 Americans’ decades-long refusal to treat the miles off U.S. territory in Cuba, the stakes USSR as a legitimate part of the were at their highest. United States President international community as well as their John F. Kennedy and Soviet Union Premier delayed entry into World War II, which Nikita Khrushchev began a thirteen-day resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of standoff, with a third World War seeming Russians. After the war ended, these inevitable. The committee will start on the grievances ripened into an overwhelming October 16, 1962 when the American sense of mutual distrust and enmity. Postwar ExCom committee was established. Your Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe main goal is peace or victory, the way you fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian achieve that, however, is up to you, the plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the delegates. We hope this will be an exciting USSR came to resent what they perceived as and interesting committee for all American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms participants. Most importantly, Have fun! buildup and interventionist approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable. By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a 1 JCC: USSR EthicalMUN II Joint Crisis strategy called “containment” as a result, weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or America’s only choice was the “long-term, “superbomb.” Stalin followed suit. patient but firm and vigilant containment of As a result, the stakes of the Cold Russian expansive tendencies.” President War were perilously high. The first H-bomb Harry Truman (1884-1972) agreed. “It must test showed just how fearsome the nuclear be the policy of the United States,” he age could be. It created a 25-square-mile declared before Congress in 1947, “to fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge support free peoples who are resisting hole in the ocean floor and had the power to attempted subjugation…by outside destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent pressures.” This way of thinking would American and Soviet tests spewed shape American foreign policy for the next poisonous radioactive waste into the four decades. atmosphere. The containment strategy also The ever-present threat of nuclear provided the rationale for an unprecedented annihilation had a great impact on American arms buildup in the United States. In 1950, a domestic life as well. People built bomb National Security Council Report known as shelters in their backyards. They practiced NSC–68 had echoed Truman’s attack drills in schools and other public recommendation that the country use places, the Cold War was a constant military force to “contain” communist presence in Americans’ everyday lives. expansionism anywhere it seemed to be The fight against subversion at home occurring. To that end, the report called for a mirrored a growing concern with the Soviet four-fold increase in defense spending. threat abroad. In June 1950, the first military In particular, American officials action of the Cold War began when the encouraged the development of atomic Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army weapons like the ones that had ended World invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the War II. Thus, began a deadly “arms race.” In south. Many American officials feared this 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of was the first step in a communist campaign their own.