The Cuban Missile Crisis. What happened to prompt such a close confrontation

The Cuban Missile Crisis has been known in history as the closest that the USSR and the United States have ever come to the brink of nuclear war. With escalation of war rising on both sides and, the threat of first strike upon one another, government officials tried to understand the conflict, and to find a peaceful resolution to this problem being faced. With a peaceful resolution in sight both countries gained, and lost certain abilities and attributes, as well as both of the leaders gaining and losing certain abilities.

At the beginning of the crisis Cuba just had a revolution and had changed it government to that of a Communist ideology under the leadership of Fidel Castro. In 1961 the United States sent a group of Cuban exiles on a CIA operation known as the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the communist government and to reinstate a democracy in Cuba, this operation was a failure and a major embarrassment to the United States.

English:

English: Civilian employees and dependents boarded...

U.S. reconnaissance photograph of soviet missile s...

With Cuba just becoming a new communist country the USSR wanted to offer Cuba both humanitarian assistance as well as defensive weapons to help deter further US led invasions that may occur in the future. The USSR placed the weapons in Cuba for two reasons. The first was to deter an invasion of Cuba, and the second was to readdress the nuclear balance in placing warheads close to the United States, just like the US had with warheads in Italy and Turkey pointing at the USSR.

With the ending of this crisis both sides gained and lost certain abilities and attributes that they once had. The United States gained power through the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Document states that no other non North or South American country shall try to colonize or take...