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The Relationship of USA and Russia: Cuba's Negative Impact Essay

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The Relationship of USA and Russia: Cuba's Negative Impact

The relationship between the two superpowers of USA and Russia worsened between 1959 and the summer of 1963 because of Castro’s revolution in Cuba. This increased tensions between the two superpowers, as Castro was a Marxist who had overthrown Batista who was a pro America dictator. This angered America as now they had a communist country right next to them. America did not want communism to spread out of Eastern Europe, and they were using policies of containment to stop the spread. This revolution led America to stopped buying Cuban sugar, which caused a further build up of tension between the USA and Russia. They stopped buying …show more content…

In the U2 spy plane incident Russian shot down an American spy plane over the Ural Mountains and it crashed near Sverdlousk. This gave Russia proof that USA was spying and made Eisenhower very unpopular. Just before this event there was a “thaw” taking place in the cold war in which progress between the two nations improved but this incident ended that progress and therefore made tension increase between the superpowers. Relations between the superpowers leaders also worsened because of the U2 incident as Eisenhower refused to meet Khrushev’s demands, to apologise, stop future flights and punish those responsible. The Berlin wall being built also created tension between the superpowers as this event signalled the end of the wartime alliance Russia and America had been in. This event also set the trend for the rest of the cold war as USA and Russia used tactics to threaten but not to kill.

All of these were big factors to why Russia and Americas relationship deteriorated but I think the most important reason was Russia placing missiles on Cuba. This increased tension, as America was very scared because for the first time their citizens were under direct threat as the Cuban missiles could bomb a range of 2000 miles into America with a flight time of 17 minutes, killing up to 800 million Americans. It also increased tension between the two powers as Russia had lied to

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