The Cuban Missle Crisis
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KOMITET GOSUDARSTVENNOY BEZOPASNOSTI Te Cuban Missle Crisis BACKGROUND GUIDE Letter from the Dais Dear Delegates, My name is Celeste Abourjeili and I am your chair for the KGB committee in this year’s Joint Crisis Committee. Although this is the frst SciMUNC to ever be held online, I hope to welcome you to our conference virtually and run the best committee in SciMUNC this year. Currently, I am a frst year in the Dual BA program between Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris campus of Menton. Tis unique program allows me to Krish Shah spend two years studying political science on the French Riviera followed by two years at Columbia University in my home city of New York. I live in Menton, France where I am Secretary-General specializing in the Middle East and learning French and Arabic to get closer to my Lebanese background. My hobbies include traveling, reading, and taking long walks. You Byul Sak may notice that it will be dark outside in my Zoom background because I will be Director-General attending this conference 6 hours ahead of you! I am also a Bronx Science Alumnus from the class of 2020, and I competed on the SciMUN team for three years. I served as a Varsity Coach for the team in my junior Omar Darwish year and Crisis Director in my senior year. I also chaired the UN Women committee in USG of Administration 2018, and I oversaw the organization of our six crisis committees as Crisis Director in 2019. Finally, I ran a Women in MUN curriculum among our team at Bronx Science, and I am continuing to address the problems faced by women in diplomacy on my Vincent Harwood current MUN team. Deputy-USG of Administration I am so excited to be participating in this Joint Crisis Committee with all of you, and I can not wait to join you as you collaborate with (or, more likely, against) the CIA Benjamin Raab committee. Feel free to reach out via email if you have any questions or concerns about USG of General Assemblies SciMUNC, Model UN in general, or anything else. We are all here to learn so don’t be and Specialized Committees shy if you have any reservations. See you soon comrades! Your Chair, Karen Phua Celeste Abourjeili ([email protected], [email protected]) Deputy-USG of General Assemblies Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti and Specialized Committees Lars Zeana-Schliep USG of Crisis Committees Rehan Yazdani Deputy-USG of Crisis Committees Diane D. Steiker Faculty Advisor 75 West 205th Street Bronx, NY 10468 [email protected] www.scimun.com SciMUNC XIV | Page 1 Committee Description Te Cold War bombs in a war, they are far from the only ones to have developed them following their initial Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in use against Japan. One of these countries, the Europe and Japan in the Pacifc, the end of Soviet Union, developed their own nukes a World War 2 in 1945 set the stage for a mere four years later in 1949. Tus, the advent psychological battle which lasted for decades; of nuclear warfare led to one of the defning otherwise known as the Cold War, this battle features of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the was the political confrontation between the Cold War as a whole: the arms race. Needless to United States of America and the Union of say, the competitive arms race between the US Soviet Social Republics. While these two and USSR resulted in extremely high military countries were allies during WW2, the political spending. For the United States in particular, tension between them skyrocketed following around $50 billion was spent annually on the end of the war. Te communist states in defense and assistance towards other nations Eastern Europe were dubbed by Winston such as Korea in the name of mitigating the Churchill as an “iron curtain” that had spread of communism. descended across Europe, making the Soviet Union seem impenetrable and the rise of Along with forcing the United States’ hand in communism unstoppable. Tis “iron curtain” the nuclear development front, the Soviet separated the world in two, with the countries Union’s decision to have a Berlin Blockade put inside it largely unable to interact with those the United States in a difficult position very outside. Te president of the United States at early on in the Cold War. Joseph Stalin’s the time, Harry S. Truman, proclaimed they decision to block off all land and water routes would assist all democratic countries who were into the parts of Berlin under Western control in danger of falling to communism. Fully was a direct attempt to weaken the infuence of abandoning the United States’ isolationist the United States over the divided country. Te policies, this Truman Doctrine demonstrated United States would soon counter via a massive the country’s desire to limit the rise of airlift which rendered the blockade completely communism on the global stage. Tis led to useless. Regardless, this blockade, along with multiple conficts across the world in which the the United States’ Marshall Plan which sought US and USSR would assist countries in to bring back economic prosperity to European determining what political ideology they would countries out of Stalin’s grasps, demonstrated be governed by. the tense relationship between the two superpowers at the time. Due to Japan’s relentless nature at the tail-end of WW2, the United States resorted to using Sworn into the presidential office in 1953, atomic bombs that were created via the Dwight D. Eisenhower offered the United Manhattan Project. Tese weapons of mass States a fresh new approach to the Cold War destruction laid waste to Hiroshima and and the arms race that was intrinsically linked Nagasaki, resulting in hundreds of thousands of to it. Believing that the economic expenditures deaths. Additionally, the testing of hundreds of undermined the democracy of the country, nuclear weapons since WWII has caused lasting Eisenhower opted to lessen Cold War wages in impact on the environment. While the United a process he called “waging peace”. Along with States are still the only country to use atomic this, Eisenhower’s Cold War strategy also Page 2 | Central Intelligence Agency revolved around the idea of “Massive and Syria and outright full blown war between Retaliation”; if a country attacked the United the US against China and the USSR. States, they would have to face the full force of Troughout the next two decades after the War, the country’s nuclear power. Tis foreign policy America used all possible resources to subvert used under the Eisenhower Administration any expansion of communism, even if that would later result in Robert McNamara coining meant subverting democracy. Time and time the term “Mutually Assured Destruction” again, America threw its massive weight behind (MAD): the psychological military theory that oppressive dictatorial regimes. two nations with nuclear weapons under their control would not attack each other as the In addition to foreign policy, there was a demise of both countries would be assured. change in America domestically. With Tis theory would well and truly be tested widespread inclusion of women in the labor during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the force during the war and desegregation in the thought of nuclear warfare became a armed forces, America became more horrifyingly close reality. revolutionary. Te 1950’s saw the birth of the civil rights and women’s rights movements, Following Stalin’s death in 1953 and its laying the foundation for the counterculture of consequent power struggle, Nikita Khrushchev the mid-to-late 1960’s. As with foreign leftist became the man to lead the Soviet Union movements, the United States moved quickly through a large section of the Cold War, and with subverting domestic revolutionary more specifcally, the Cuban Missile Crisis. movements. Te Counter Intelligence Program Unlike past leaders, Khrushchev made it his (COINTELPRO) of the FBI is just one goal to improve relations with the United example of domestic political persecution by States. Known as “peaceful coexistence”, this the American state. Economically, America political theory revolved around how the US underwent massive growth over the 50’s and and USSR could coexist peacefully rather than 60’s. In fact, the entire capitalist world constantly go head to head. Still, at times underwent what has been dubbed the Golden tensions rose, and threats and insults from Age of Capitalism, which has been largely Khrushchev were not unheard of. At the credited to the international cooperation Kitchen Debate between Khrushchev and Vice fostered by the United States through the President Richard Nixon, Khrushchev harshly Bretton Woods system and the United Nations. criticized American consumerism and Legislation also introduced the Council of intelligence. Economic Advisers at home, institutionalizing economic analysis and placing it front and America before the Crisis center in economic policy. America was Te end of the Second World War brought an booming in terms of its economy. end to the unsteady alliance established Alas, the United States was not entirely between the US and the USSR. With the fall of dominant. Te arms and space races were core the Axis Powers, there was an immediate shift to the competition between the world’s of focus in American foreign policy, that being superpowers. With the launch of Sputnik and strict anticommunism. Under Truman and Laika, the Soviet Union claimed victory (for Eisenhower, aggressive American now) and demonstrated the technological interventionism led to regime change in Iran SciMUNC XIV | Page 3 prowess of the communist system. Reactively, Te Soviet Union formed strong diplomatic the Eisenhower administration formed the and economic bonds with Cuba following its National Aeronautics and Space Administration transition to communism, engaging in trade (NASA) and dedicated massive amounts of and providing aid to this new communist funding to the space race.