Cuban Missile Crisis - Assignment Example

This essay will investigate this important aspect of the Cold War in terms of the causes, effects, and resolution to understand it better. In 1956, the Cuban Revolution began as an offensive rebellion against the US’s influence and control of the island nation. Under President Batista, whom the majority of Cuban nationals considered an American puppet; Cuba’s per capita income was greater than other comparative countries. However, the United States controlled most of the nation’s primary infrastructure.

American companies controlled more than 90% of the island’s power and telecommunications infrastructure. Additionally, they owned half of Cuba’s railway assets and facilities, as well as control of over 40% of Cuba’s sugar production and export industry. Additionally, the country’s agricultural policy dictated the cultivation of sugar by the populace mandatory. By the time Batista was ousted from power, Cuba had the highest American investments in the Latin American region. Unfortunately, the distribution of these resources and any attached wealth was not equal.

The poverty gap was at an all-time high, which was ironical for a country with such high per capita scores. These were the beginnings of a dissent from the American influence over Cuba. In the years that followed 1956, Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, and Castro younger brother Raul, orchestrated a series of guerilla attacks on the government’s forces in Mount Sierra Maestra. Immediately after defeating the government’s forces with the assistance of local farmers, Fidel Castro set up a shadow government that consisted of the former government’s ministerial figures.

However, this shadow government did not last long as he dismissed them due to disagreements over his reform policies. Shortly after, he declared himself Prime Minister and assumed full control of Cuba. After taking over the Cuban leadership, Fidel Castro traveled to the United States to