Question 1: Explain how relationship between the superpowers worsened between 1959 and the summer of 1962.

During the year 1959 when President Eisenhower of the USA was in power, the relationship between the USSR and the USA started to change. This was because Eisenhower and Krushchev wanted to control the arms race. They wanted to reach ‘strategic superiority’. Neither of two superpowers wanted to look weaker than another.

Even small advantage among another country in terms of military development could change the situation. Basically, it would make another side being scared and realizing, that they were weaker. Both superpowers, the USA and USSR, wanted to control and dominate the world. Leaders of both superpowers had different views about how the country should be run. One of the factors which made the relations between the USA and USSR worse was the arms race. The USSR and USA had to catch up with each other by military developing, in order to show their strength, power, and ability to attack. It was a fight between communism and capitalism.

Eisenhower and Krushchev were suffering from the lack of communication. Before the introduction of the ‘hotline’ between Kremlin and Washington, two leaders had to send their messages over the radio. This could’ve worsened the relationship between the superpowers, because everything they were going to say was going to be heard by the public. Neither of two leaders wanted to look weak. The fact that people respected them was very important.

In 1959 Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. The same year Castro was snubbed by the US president Eisenhower when he visited New York. He was considered to be a communist and a betrayer of the USA. The USA has tried to kill Castro several times, which made Cuba being feared of the USA, which then made it turn to the Soviet side. This has worsened the relations between Cuba and the USA, but on the other hand has benefited the USSR. At the same year Krushchev and Nixon were visiting a trade fair, they spent an hour arguing over the capitalist and communist systems, which shows the difference in the ideologies and how difficult the relations between the USA and USSR were. This was a first step for building up a tension between two superpowers.

In 1960, the USSR signed a trading agreement with Cuba, which has both countries. Cuba got a financial support via trading and USSR got a trust from the Cuban side, which was beneficial for the USSR as they could spread communism to Cuba and the USA as it was very close to it.

Also, the shooting down of the U-2 American plane by USSR for spying has resulted in the collapse of the summit in Paris in 1960, which made the relations between two superpowers worse than ever.

In January 1961, the new US president John F. Kennedy has just come to the power, and the first thing which Krushchev almost instantly did was that he started putting pressure on Kennedy, in order to find out whether or not he was weak and inexperienced. In 1961, Krushchev decided to build the Berlin Wall to surround Berlin. Krushchev wanted to control Berlin and Eastern Europe, so he could spread communism over the Europe, and he also wanted to defeat Kennedy.

Shooting down of the U-2 plane, sending nuclear missiles to Cuba, summit in Paris and a couple of other events which took place between 1959-1962 altogether have build up a tension between the superpowers and as a result worsened the relationship between them. Overall, it wasn’t a real war, it was more political war where two leaders tried to introduce and spread their ideologies.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31