Cuba crisis (october 1962)

Résumé du document

In autumn 1962, the United States of America and USSR were on the verge of starting a war owing to arrival of Fidel Castro as the ?head of power' in Cuba. In April 1961, the American Army tried to invade Cuba in order to overthrow Castro from his position but the efforts went in vain and the failure experienced was overwhelming for Kennedy and the United States of America in totality. In retaliation to this invasion, Cuba turned to communism. Khouchtchev decided then to help Castro and Cuba, by rendering a helpful hand to implement a defensive force. However, the consequences of these events were totally unexpected! In the first part of the essay I will try to summarize the different steps of this crisis and then go on to vividly describe the American strategy to the tackle the crisis. Finally to get a better perception of this case, I will try to apply Hoefstede's theories to gain more lucidity on aspects like how cultures influenced the bargaining? How the values defined by Hoefstede characterized the talks between USSR etc..

Extraits

[...] Indeed, every ship which were 800 miles far from Cuba had to stop and being inspected. If they had offensive weapons on board, they had to go back from the quarantine zone The begining of the negociations On Tuesday 23rd, because of the mobilisation of American troups, Krouchtchev decided the Soviet one. However, still believing in the implementation of the weapons in Cuba, he made a public declaration, published by the press agency TASS. On the one hand, Khroutchev denounded and rejected the American strategy of quarantine because of the international rigths : as for him, with this blocade, United States violated the international rights concerning shipping. [...]

[...] The masculinity index was created to measure the difference between nations favouring notions such as domination, performance, money, to the detriment of life quality, solidarity, intuition . For both of the two countries, we can say that masculinity ouclass feminity, since human relationships are situated after business for instance. This index is very important if we want to study cultural differences and their consequences. In masculine societies perchasing success is essential, so as to ambition and self-confidence. In addition conflicts are solved by force. [...]

[...] Instead of that, President Kennedy assessed that USSR should be satisfied with this sign of good willing, and that they have no interest to tell it to the rest of the world! 4. Masculinity and feminity According to the different events in the world for centuries experience show that masculine countries try to solve international countries by force, feminine countries xith compromise and negociation. That is why weapons expenditures in a state are linked with the index of masculinity or feminity. [...]

[...] Indeed he faced with his military staff to make his ideas be respected: he was against an attack, which could have led to a new war. He wanted to avoid all the risks and to take the best step, instead of letting the US forces show their superiority to Cuba, to USSR and to the rest of the world (by the way this seems to be an habit: show their superiority by the force . ) In addition the same way was used by USSR, characterised by a high uncertainty avoidance index. [...]

[...] However, thanks to new photos, President Kennedy as informed that within 36 hours, every rockets in Cuba would be ready to be launched. Thanks to his brother's advice, President Kennedy finally deceided to accept the first proposal of Krouchtchev, being unaware of the second letter : he made the promise not to try to invade Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal of Soviet rockets in Cuba. He also gave an ultimatum to Krouchtchev, since he declared that attacks would be launched on Monday morning if no reply were given. [...]