Introduction
There has been a cold war between the United States and Cuba since the island was under the rule of Spaniards. Cuba lies only ninety miles of the coast of Florida, and this proximity has lent a viewpoint of many American decision-makers. This proximity to the United States also meant that their harbors were of strategic importance. Cuba's harbors could be used by enemies to threaten the US, and conversely, the US could use the harbors as its first line of the defense against its enemies. This island was factored into the United States economic system, and its economy was significantly impacted. The trade expanded with the two countries exchanging commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and tourism. As time went by, the US start to have more stakes in Cuba, and it became more prevalent among the United States' policymaking (Carman, John and Anthony 75).
Many of the Cubans viewed the annexation and thought that it would bring stability and wealth to Cuba if the two countries would not encounter any opponents. Cuba gained its independence after the Spanish-American War, and the relationship between Cuba and United States grew strongly. The US further got stake in both politics and economy of Cuba. The investment in this island meant that the United States was to assist Cuba financially, militarily, and politically to some extent. During the world wars, both countries stayed together, the US supported Cuba with weapons, and training its military to fight communism (Carman, John and Anthony 76). With the victory of the revolution led by Fidel Castro and the seizure of Cuba by communist powers, the friendly relationship between the United States and Cuba ended. Just after Cuba sided with the Soviet Union in the cold war, the US placed embargoes against it.
The United States and Cuba relations
In 1960, the president of US placed an economic embargo and the diplomatic relations between the two countries was severed in the following year. In the same year, all the US businesses in Cuba were nationalized without compensation. Spain found that the best course of action for the US was to leave it to conduct a military operation to enhance neutrality policy and leave the Cuban citizens living in the United States from sending supplies and weapons to the insurrectionists ("Understanding Military Doctrine" 21). During the Cuba’s colonial period, the Spaniards did not have good relations with the US and left the island with the fear that Americans might attack them. The American embargo was later made permanent in response to the shooting down of the US aircraft that was operated by the Miami-based Cuban exiles (Carman, John, and Anthony, 81). The cold war moves were intended to contain communism but soon seemed the measure that would be overtaken by some dramatic moves. The US-backed Bay of Pig invasion of 1961 was a disaster that was carried out by the Cuban exiles, and it became one of at least eight futile American attempts to oust Castro in the 1960s. The Bay of Pigs was followed by the Cuban missile crisis a year later. A US-Soviet stare-down and ended up with Moscow withdrawing its missiles from the island.
The changes in the two countries' relationships were more evident in Washington. The old pro-American government had been overthrown, and the labor changes threatened its interests as it saw the structures that it had established being dismantled. The United States had established itself in Cuba, but all the changes adversely affected its interests. The lesser crisis came and went in the years that followed, but embargoes continued. The US succeeded in keeping Cuba poor and isolated but also served as a badge of defiance for the Castro's ruling who later came to blame their shortcomings on the United States policies (Carman, John, and Anthony, 87). Despite the embargoes, Castro's regime did not seem to be severely affected internally, but the US policies appeared to develop its contradictions. Many Americans felt that Castro's move was not fair especially to the US that has been assisting Cuba economically and regarding security, and therefore, the embargo was tightened with some series in the 1980s and 1990s.
President George Bush’s regime deteriorated the relations with Havana. The US embargo on Cuba had had an increasing criticism from the international community and more particularly the Latin America. The weak relationship between the two countries has it originates in the cold war. When Fidel Castro and a team of revolutionaries came to ruling in Havana, he further worsened the ties. However, despites the misgivings about Fidel’s communist ideology, the United States recognized his rule. Castro's regime increased the trade with the Soviet Union while nationalizing the United States' businesses and properties as well as hiking taxes on American's imported commodities (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 23). USA responded by escalating the economic retaliation, for example, after slashing sugar imported from Cuba, Washington instituted illegalization in almost every export meant for Cuba that Kennedy expanded it to embargo that concerning strict travel restrictions.
The US in 1961 severed the political connection and started to pursue covert operations that were intended to overthrow Castro’s rule. The “Bay of Pigs” attack of 1961; a botch that was a CIA-strategic had tried to overthrow the government increased the Cuban luck of nationalism and trust. It led to an undisclosed agreement permitting the SU (Soviet Union) to construct a destructive missile (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 33). The US found the plans in 1962 and set of a standoff for fourteen days. The United States ships imposed a naval quarantine around Cuba, and President Kennedy demanded the destruction of the missile sites. The Cuban missile crisis was put to an end after a signing about the site would be destroyed only if the US guaranteed to stop any invasion in Cuba.
In relation to the incidences of 1961-1962, the diplomatic and economic isolations become main issues of the United States' policy towards the island. The relations proceeded regardless of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States affirmed the impediment with Cuba Democracy Act of 1992 and Helms-Burton Act of 1996. The United States’ blockade was not to be relived until Cuba held democratic elections and form a transition government that would be transparent and to exclude Castro lineage. Some adjustments had been made over time to engage standoffs that would permit the export of some United States agricultural products and medical supplies to Cuba. The island estimated that over 50 years of restricted trade created a loss exceeding a trillion dollars.
The US President Obama when he got to power sought a better assignation with Cuba. In 2009, he reversed the imposed restrictions concerning travel and remittances that were set by George Bush, his predecessor. Obama’s first term permitted companies dealing with communication to provide more satellite and cellular services, and it allowed United States citizens to conduct or send transfers to other non-community or family members in the island and tour Cuba for education and religious purposes. Further, the two countries opened more engagements pending when Cuba when Alan Gross was arrested, a United States’ subcontractor of an agency known as Agency for International Development (USAID). The contractor had traveled to the island to deliver communication equipment and provide access to internet for the Jewish community (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 41). The Cuban government alleged that he was trying to destabilize its government and he was sentenced to imprisonment of fifteen years. Similarly, Castro demanded to release of the Cuban 5 who were arrested in 1998 and condemned in 2001 at Miami; the two had become the national heroes in the island.
Another issue of rivalry between the Cuba and US concerns Cuba's designation done by the State Department that was a sympathizer of terrorists. The status observed in 1982 in the light of Castro Fidel's training of objectors at the Central America hide outs. Castro had earlier announced that the island would cease from supporting any insurgents from outside. The State Department’s annual report of 2013 stipulated that there was no indication that the state delivered weapons or training to the terrorists. Cuba has continued grudge was a key barrier to the dialogues about the restoration of diplomatic affairs subsequent from the 2014 reunion (Rotblat 22). Human activists in Cuba became a distress for the US policy makers. The 2014 report on human rights established that Cuba repressed groups and individuals who criticized the state or called for the fundamental human rights. They were silenced through travel ban, beatings, detentions, or compulsory exile.
The United States domestic politics made the détente of the two countries to be politically dangerous. The Cuban-American societies in the southern part of Florida influenced the United States policy towards the island. The Democrats and Republicans, therefore, feared to alienate a significant balloting bloc in a significant swing government concerning the presidential elections. Further, the Cuban immigrants in Miami, who make about five percent of the inhabitants of Florida, were a key pillar of Republican followers in the presidential elections of 1980. However, there was a change in the 2012 elections when Obama, who was a Democratic candidate, secured a win during the Cuban-American voting in Florida (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 48). On 17 December 2014, President Obama and Raul Castro came to an agreement that led to the announcement of the intention to restore full diplomatic ties for the first time in fifty years. The decision resulted in the release of the Cuban 5 prisoners in the exchange of the United States' intelligence personnel, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, who had been in prison in Havana for almost twenty years. Gross was also released the same day on humanitarian reasons. The agreement came after the eighteen months of secret talks between the two countries’ officials brokered by Pope Francis.
The elections that were conducted shortly after the Cuba-United States announcement in 2014 found that the Americans supported reestablishing diplomatic ties. Pew Research showed that a greater percentage of the Americans supported the diplomatic relations and would like the embargo on trade to be lifted. Those in the Washington wanted the ban on travel to be ended. Also, in June 2014, Florida International University indicated that a majority of Cuban-Americans also supported normalizing the relations and put an end to the embargo signaling a general shift in attitude towards Cuba. The support for the normalization of the two countries was also overwhelming, especially in Latin America (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 65). The year 2013, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution that condemned the United States embargo for twenty-two consecutive years. Many countries backed the resolution and only the United States, and Israel was opposing.
Explanatory theories
Theory of rational or optimum arms races
The theory asserts that states does the international environment present unitary actors whose behaviors are guided by constraints and opportunities. It makes the role of information explicit and the others' motives in defining the international context and influences the magnitude of the security dilemma (Glaser 7). The theory provides answers to structural realism, offensive realism, and how a state can adopt arming policies for its security. It assesses the military ability to perform and the combination of factors like power and offense-defense variables. It also considers how much benefits a country gets from increasing armament about power.
Contingent realism theory
This argument makes clear that the standard of the structural-realist claims about states’ competitive military policies is not plausible. Structural realism plays a good role of explaining the cold war, but it is severely challenged as the cold war ends, and it runs counter to the theory's supposed prediction of competitiveness. It focuses on state's behavior and particularly features of its leaders (Glaser 19). It holds that during the cold war a state tends to increase security by increasing armament.
Arms racing
Arms control is the most important foreign policy issue in all the nations. When there is no crisis-taking place, then it is often seen as the most significant aspect of the United States-Soviet relations. No other foreign policy or defense policy can engage a significant public interest and activism. It seems that no other issue is seen comparable to the East-West relations and the overall performance of the government and its performance in the foreign policy. Bernard Brodie in 1976 wrote that most of those who write articles on arms control do it emphasizing on the race of weapons. In some years back, the nuclear freeze movement indicated how the arms races influence powerful arms regulation proposals (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 75). The plans to freeze all the nuclear weapons made some are convicted since the arms race control was specific to weapons that were so dangerous.
The focus on the arms race control has been shifting unpredictably and rapidly carried out by the Strategic Defense Force, Intermediate Nuclear Force, and the nuclear freeze. Arms racing are believed to have begun early and started to rely on military equipment to wage war. In the twentieth century, however, technology pushed the concept to unknown levels. For instance, the British-Germany arms race of the Navy was arguably the modern one, with the most sophisticated ships with ultimate weapons. The drive of the atomic and the fusion bombs were some of the examples of the races in which the goals were based on some leaders like Hitler of Germany and Stalin of the Soviet Union.
Since the cold war, the understanding of the term arms race had become loose and extensive. It has been understood now to mean any substantive development, the build-up in weapon acquisition, and progress that it takes to complete (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 80). The more restrictive definition that Gray Colin gave is probably more useful. He defined it as two or more parties perceiving themselves to be an adversary relationship, who are increasingly improving their armament and restructuring their respective military positions with some attention to the past, present and anticipated political and military behaviors of other parties. The above definition omits the alacrity and unplanned connotations that are suggested by the arms race. In the framework of the development of nuclear weapons and other dangerous ones or the weapons of mass destruction had the most significant strategy and political influence that now best exemplify the arms races.
The two types of arms races are type-type-II and I arms races. Type-I depends on the respective primary drivers and it stems from the counterforce strategies as demonstrated in the 1970s and 1980s’. The debate on the Midgetman and MX missiles. They were supposed to close a window vulnerability that was opened by the Soviet capability to exert disarmament striking on the United States intercontinental ballistic missiles. The development of the independently targetable reentry vehicles warheads by the United States was primary because of the Soviet defensive and offensive buildups. The escalation of armament especially was a result of ‘escalation dominance’ that was exemplified by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force. The weapon was made in response to target the Soviet Union that threatened Europe with some nuclear strikes, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could not respond kindly.
The type-II arms race is more the phenomenon that existed during the cold war. The Asian arms racing were fueled by the political rivalries and were qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. It involved the United States, China, and Russia. China and Russia did not have the willingness to race the same way as the Soviet Union, but the United States did during the cold war. Russia and China were only seeking to maintain the ability to strike the United States and not to have the best missiles or the highest number of warheads.
The adverse effects of the strategic competition among the countries tended to be exaggerated with the notion that the weapons in Asia needed to be handled with care. Following the said reason, the United States policymakers suggested the national missile defense program of the country to assemble many more nuclear weapons and so to China, India, and Pakistan. Therefore, it was more likely that the conflicts between them would involve nuclear weapons. The Western policy makers were wise to avoid the Asian arms competition because they had their reasons. First, the contest was happening due to the acute tensions between the continents that carried the risk of taking the risk of armed clashes that involved nuclear weapons. Secondly, the increase in some nuclear arms in Asia would not be proportional, and there was a need to balance the high consequences (Van 21). Aldo, though disarmament was not primarily for development, the increased procurement budget that would accompany the arms racing would lead to a budgetary crisis in some countries. Fourthly, the augmentation of the ballistic missiles dominated the Asian arsenals and increased in the broad part of the world, and Europe technically would be at risk from the distant countries. Additionally, the Asian strategic arsenals would have spillover effects on the Middle East. Lastly but not least, the Asian strategic grown would make the Western nuclear states and others like Russia be more prudent on nuclear disarmament.
Notably, because of this armament, the United States had a stock of arms of various kinds and most of it was the most dangerous nuclear weapons acquired from China. This country, therefore, accumulated many weapons because of the fear of those countries that often equip their arsenals and the cold war between them. Apart from the weapons acquired, the United States got many technological skills on how to make and use the weapons. The attempts of disarmament did not seem to succeed because of the lack of reliable information and the countries’ fear that their counterparts could be having more powerful weapons than they could.
The term arms race often made the speeches that were made in the cold war to reduce the complex interaction of terms that the people comprehended. One would build an image that conjured the United States and the Soviet Union that were the two principal races. They developed and deployed new nuclear weapons at a rapid delivery system. The common arms that were exchanged were missiles, nuclear weapons, and bomber aircraft. The races between the two competitors were approximately equal in nuclear capability with only a little edge. The plans for each party were not clear, and there was a tendency to assume that the worst existed. The old nuclear arms race ended, and it is unlikely to recur in the near future. What is present is the new security environment termed as new arms race that is different from the competitive armament of the cold war time. The new arms race has its competitors and currencies changed, and it involves several countries with a variety of weapons. However, the United States has the superior military capability, and the competitors are looking for ways to offset that superiority. The new arms race requires different strategies to be adopted by the United States towards the achievement of the arms control and force plan.
In the old arms race era, the Soviet Union pose a significant threat to the Western Europe and Japan, and the United States got in attempting to support its allies to defend against this menace. The fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Warsaw pact, and the severe economic crisis in Russia actually changed the threat. The United States faced the superior Soviet Union, who heavily relied on a strategy of deterrence on the threat of great retaliation with nuclear weapons.
Technologically, the period between 1950 and 1980 showed some immense changes in the nuclear deterrence. The nuclear warheads shrank in size and weight and the missile accuracy dramatically increased. As a result, it would be possible to deploy multiple warheads and a single missile. Both sides deployed the weapons and heightened the defense against them thus intensifying the competition. Since the past decades, military technologies have been going on, but little of it affects the strategic nuclear weapons.
The United States believe that the nuclear weapon that it has are adequate and finds no need to develop new weapons or delivery systems. However, it seeks to extend the life of the existing strategic arming systems. This situation is much different from that of the 1960s and 1970s when the United States was developing and deploying various nuclear warheads and revising the delivery systems regularly.
Doctrine theory
Military doctrines are critical components of the national policy also known as grand strategy. A great strategy is a military-political and means-end theory, and it looks for ways in which a state can best secure itself. Arguably, the theory includes an explanation of why the approach is expected to work. A grand strategy must identify the likely threats that a state security can face, and it must devise an economic, political, military, and other remedies for those threats. Priorities must be established among the threats and also remedies because the number of possible risks is great when given an anarchical international environment. When there is an inescapable limit of the national economy, the resources become scarce. Since the resources are limited, the most appropriate military means must be selected to achieve political ends in a view. Grand strategies are almost never stated in such strong form, but the conceptualization might guide the analysts in an attempt to ferret out a grand plan of the state and to make a comparison of these strategies.
Some people use the term military doctrine to mean the subcomponent of grand strategy that deals explicitly with the military means. The means that can be employed and how they can be used are important issues to understand. Priorities must be set in the various types of military forces that are available to the modern state. A set of prescription should be put in place to specify how military forces should be structured and used to respond to the recognized threats and opportunities. Typically, the modes of cooperation between the different types of forces should be specified.
After the World War I, modern states have been using land, sea, and air forces to achieve their goals. Since the termination of the World War II, some have had nuclear powers, and states have stressed some types of forces over the others for geographic, economic, technological, or political reasons. Within these forces, different sorts of weapons could be highlighted for instance navies might have stressed submarines or aircraft carriers. Air forces might have deliberated on long-range bombing or short range support of army formations. The choices of the above combinations fall into the realm known as tactics.
Military doctrine can include the preferred mode of a group of services, a single group or a service for fighting wars. It reflects the decisions of the professional military officials and to a lesser extent those of the civilian leaders about what is militarily pliable and vital. Those judgments are based on the appraisals of the army technology, adversary capabilities, national geography, and the skills of military organization. The doctrine that relates to combat is strongly reflected in the forces that the military organization requires. The force posture, inventory of weapons, and military organization control can be used as evidence to reveal the military doctrine. Military operations can be categorized into three categories, offensive, defensive, and deterrent (Griffin 320). Offensive ones aim to disarm an adversary and destroy their armed forces. Defensive doctrines are meant to deny an enemy the purpose that he or she seeks. Lastly, deterrent doctrines target to punish the aggressor and raise the costs without reference to reducing their own.
The powers that were in place on the eve of world war I held offensive doctrines. France is known for their commitment to offense to the limit. After its commitment, the act came to be referred to as the cult of offensive. The entire doctrines called for an early and intense attack and all included significant preemptive strains.
An example that is well-known defensive theory is the complex of policies in France. Much are misunderstood and are symbolized in the current discourse by the Maginot line. The ease with which the Germans in 1940 flanked the line has given the defense a bad name. There was a plan to protect part of the United States strategic bomber deterrent in the 1950s with concrete blast shelters that were derided by the US Air Force. In the British Empire, a large fleet and a small army provided the element of what was a defensive doctrine.
A good example of a deterrent doctrine is that association with the present day France and its forces. This country has managed to build enough atomic-powered and nuclear-armed submarines to secure at least one sea at a given time. Eventually, the umber would rise to two and France maintained thirty-three strategic bombers and eighteen intermediate-range ballistic missiles. They believed that even a small size of this force would make it more vulnerable to surprise attack than that of the United States. The French held that the threat to eliminate even a smaller number of the most significant Soviet cities is quite enough to discourage aggression by its most probable adversary (Griffin 317).
Deterrent doctrine can be achieved with conventional military technology like that of the modern Switzerland. Its army had little hope of denying much of the country's vast and determined adversary. The air force and the army are deliberately structured so that the price of action against Switzerland could rise. It was of critical importance that the initial defense would be firmly built, but also, painful resistance could continue over an extended period. The Swiss could not deny their country to an adversary but can make it pay for the privileges of entry and punishment for staying around.
Traditionally, the balance of power theorists focused on the formation of the coalition as the primary means of balancing behavior. This concept of action balancing should logically be expanded to include internally generated military and economic preparations for possible wars. If another power increases its capability by building a coalition, armament, or any other means that can be construed as threatening the state’s security, a reaction in the form of coalition or arms racing is probable. A good deal of diplomatic can be loosely informed by how international politics work. History of relations among states is based on all sorts of action and reaction political and military phenomena.
Offensive military doctrines promote arms racing in two ways. First, a tenet of the doctrines is that an effective first strike can successfully end a war and therefore, a state can support the first attack with adequate resources. Secondly, since offensive doctrines imply a belief in the superiority of offensive actions over defensive actions, states feel significantly threatened by the increase of others' army or military capabilities and react quite strongly to the increases. The Soviet-America nuclear arms race shows how the offensive doctrines of two great powers affect the views of each state and hence their military preparations (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva Myrdal 134). Each interprets the other’s military doctrines as offensive and in some measure, each imitates each other. Both states tend to extend their ability to attack each other, and they allocate very substantial resources to the military competition.
The current Western views of the offensive character of the Soviet military doctrine are well known. The Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces doctrine appears to aim at disarming the United States. It is assumed that deterrence theory would have nothing to do with the Soviet doctrine (Fairbanks, Charles and Alva 136). Nonetheless, a careful observer of the United States military forces would agree that the Strategic Air Command had always targeted the nuclear forces of the enemy thus targeting them. In response, the United States had tried deploying sufficient forces to allow a counterforce mission to be completed in case the Soviet would first strike.
Organizational theory
The theory assumes that government leaders may intend to behave rationally, but constraints and organizational actors influence them. Organizational rationality is bounded in organization’s use of standard operation procedures and routines. The members are also heavily influenced by the experiences. The apparent contradiction lies in the people's understanding about nuclear weaponry and deterrence (Rotblat 22). In addition, it is widely believed that nuclear weapons were a significant factor in the long peace between the United States and USSR during the cold war. The two superpowers avoided war despite the military ability and the deep geopolitical rivalry as well as prolonged arms race and repeated crisis. Besides, it was widely believed that the continuing spread of the nuclear weapons would significantly increase the risk of nuclear war. The nuclear powers with similar characteristics of rivalry are unlikely considered to maintain stable deterrence.
It is argued that professional military organizations display strong proclivities toward the organizational behaviors due to the common biases, parochial interests, and inflexible routines. On the other hand, the widespread psychological critique of rational deterrence doctrine maintains that a majority of political leaders lack emotional stability and cognitive capabilities to make deterrence workable (Griffin 319). This organizational analysis holds that professional military organizations are unlikely to fulfill the operational requirements for nuclear deterrence if left on their own. Such regulatory proclivities can effectively be countered by civilian control of the military. Unfortunately, the future nuclear-armed states will lack these active mechanisms of civil regulation of weapons and armed forces.
The various strategies that the United States employed in Afghanistan in the past decades were the most ambitious and costly. Counterinsurgency doctrine was mostly valued in the Afghan surge. Counterinsurgency was rediscovered by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006 by the US Army and the Marines.
During the said period, the Cuban government's economy was not in a position to sustain a war with the United States. However, the conflicts between the two countries were in the old cold war terms and both governments assembled arms and trained more army. For instance, Cuba behaved like a backlash state that not only spied on the military secrets and trafficking arms with China but also supporting terrorists like Colombian guerrillas (Van 9). Cuba received assistance regarding technology and weapons from ‘backlash-states' such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya that were mostly the rivals or enemies of the US.
Since 1980, Cuba has become the most militarized nation on earth with more than 145,000 army men with 110,000 who are ready in reserve. It had a navy of more than twelve thousand and maintained three submarines. It also had two modern guided missile frigates and an immense number of patrol craft and minesweepers. The Cuban air force was one of the most potent ones, and it had approximately 18,500 men with 250 modern combat aircraft (Van 20). It only possessed seven troop-carrying TupolevTU-154 means of transport, and Castro's ability to intervene was not possible. The Cuban military machines were considered the more potent than any other in the Latin America was. The Cuban government has said earlier that supported terrorism and that allowed the criminals to hack the US or any other nation’s internet.
The Cuban government seemed to have had technological support and had adequate armed forces that were well equipped. It is evident that such nations as Spain that did not have good terms with the US provided training to Cuban army. Others such as Iran and Iraq supported Cuba with some of the most dangerous weapons (Van 25). For example, the US Navy caught a ship that was carrying weapons including nuclear bombs that originated from Iran and destined to Cuba. Cuba had an active technology that was used by the spies to hack the US network and stole some of the intelligent information. However, Cuba would not have had adequate resources and technology to battle with the United States since 1960 to 2014.
The United States arsenal had been much equipped with the modern nuclear weapons and had acquired new military technologies during the Cold War applying the offensive doctrine. The United States capability and strategies were seen in 2001 as its ground forces operated in Northern Alliance militias and used the twenty-first-century intelligence and communications, as well as precision strike ordinance. The US forces quickly routed Taliban forces that had dominated Afghanistan battlefields for several years. The terrorist group was dismantled though not destroyed. The operation was assisted by Pakistan’s leadership who tried to reach the American military capabilities.
Conclusion
The theory that applies to the American-Cuban cold war is the doctrine argument. The theory asserts that a country increases its armament if its counterpart that might be its enemy raises its own. The military doctrine is known as offensive, and it tries to overpower or disarm an adversary. In this case, the United States tried to disarm Cuba, but it was assisted by backlash states such as Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan. A defensive doctrine attempts to deny an adversary, and it is applicable when the United States together with the United Nations banned the use of nuclear weapons (Rotblat 332). The United States, therefore, prevented Cuba from importing the nuclear bombs. It is, therefore, evident that the United States employed offensive-defensive doctrines to disarm successfully the island and restored peaceful coexistence. Deterrent doctrines, on the other hand, are used to punish the aggressor of the laid armament policies. The US punished the island and its leaders for failing to comply with the international standards on arms policies by imposing an embargo. Deterrent doctrine seemed to work well since Cuba agreed to abandon its relationship with the Soviet Union and complied with armament policies. It is true that this country would get weapons and technology to fight with the US, but it was not clear if the said nations would continue supplying them even if its economy deteriorated. The theory of rational or optimum arms race is could be significantly applied to the Cuban case. It was necessary for it to assess the economic impacts of the cold war and the benefits that it would get from armament. It is unwise for a country to invest much on armed forces and weaponry if the activities are draining its economy. For example, the Cuban economy was weak as it started the cold war with the US but deteriorated after its armament.
Works Cited
Carman, John, and Anthony Harding. Ancient Warfare. New York: The History Press, 2013. Print.
Fairbanks, Charles H., and Alva Myrdal. "The Game of Disarmament: How the United States and Russia Run the Arms Race." The American Political Science Review 72.4 (1978): 1527. Print.
Griffin, Stuart. "Iraq, Afghanistan and the future of British military doctrine: from counterinsurgency to Stabilization." International Affairs 87.2 (2011): 317-333. Print.
Rotblat, Joseph. "Technology, the Arms Race and Disarmament." New Technologies and the Arms Race (1989): 332-344. Print.
"Understanding Military Doctrine." (2013): Print.
Van Dijk, Ruud. "Nuclear weapons and the Cold War."The Routledge Handbook of the Cold War (n.d.): n. pag. Print.
