Who was to Blame for the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Zain Cassis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was considered the most dangerous moment, not just of the Cold War,
but of all human history. Most people either believe that one side or the other, (US or Soviets) were to
blame. I deducted that neither party was the initiator of this crisis, although both countries provided
negative reinforcement to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I believe that fear was to blame. We both feared each
other so greatly, that both sides tried to sneak their operations into the others territory. The US had military,
factories, and scientists in Turkey. The Soviets had operations running in Cuba. Fear was to blame for the
13 days that almost destroyed the world.
The Soviets were pouring an absurd amount of money and resources into creating more and more
powerful nuclear weapons. The government of the US knew how fast the Soviets were proceeding, and
they knew they had created a lot of nukes. The US got afraid that the Soviets were going to attack them,
and so to insure the security of the US, the US tried to destabilize their opponents. They put military into
Turkey, a country bordering more than a few Soviet controlled countries. This decision was motivated by
the fear of the Soviets power.
Both the US and the Soviets were growing rapidly, and both had nuclear capabilities. That is the
main reason we didnt try to provoke each other. If the Cold War was a staring contest, the two opponents
would have chainsaws pointed at each other's eyes. So when the Soviets learned of the US using Turkey,
they got scared. They decided that they need to retaliate nonviolently. So they started supporting Castro,
and began shipping nuclear missiles into Cuba. From Cuba the Soviets could send a nuke to almost
anywhere on the hemisphere, including Washington DC. That was the first part of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
and it was motivated by fear. The fear of the US controlling a country so close to Soviet territory.
Both the Soviets and the US knew the consequences of a nuclear war. That is what scared them
the most, and what motivated most of their actions. MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction meant that if one of
us launched a missile or attacked the other, we, along with the rest of the world, would be destroyed. But
they thought that in every war, someone has to come out on top. No matter how much they lost, both sides
were constantly trying to insure that, if a nuclear apocalypse were to occur, they would at least survive.
That is the core reason that the Soviets put missiles into Cuba, that is the same reason the US put their
military into Turkey, and both of those decisions were motivated by fear. They feared that they would lose.
Fear, not one side or the other, was to blame for the Cuban missile crisis. The US and the Soviets feared
each others power. That's all there is to it. We were so afraid of each other that we created weapons of
mass destruction, snuck operations into each other's territories, and spied on each other. The tension was
millimeters close to snapping, the world on the tip of the iceberg, people knowing that if one thing went
wrong they would all die. All because of the two superpower countries feared each other. Fear was to
blame for the 13 days that almost destroyed the world.