Pros and Cons of the Options that the United States Considered Regarding Cuba

When the US government learned that the USSR had begun setting up nuclear missiles in Cuba, they began considering different ways of how to remove them. The debate boiled down to four main options: air-striking Cuba, invading Cuba, blockading Cuba, or trying to reach a diplomatic solution with the Russians. However, each of these options had its own benefits and consequences. Air striking Cuba was the first option of everyone's list. It would quickly destroy Russian nuclear missiles without endangering too many American lives. However, this would be an act of war so it could possibly trigger a nuclear holocaust. Additionally, it was possible that the strike could miss some of the missiles which were hidden and/or hard to see, and then the Russians could set them up and fire them. Another option was invading with armed forces. This would be better than the airstrike because it would guarantee that all of the missile would be captured or destroyed, but it wold be worse because there were 43,000 Russian soldiers as well as Cuban forces guarding the island which would result in many American casualties. Also, like the airstrike, invading would be an act of war. The next idea was a blockade. The blockade was a less violent approach because they wouldn't be attacking Cuba, however the blockade wouldn't be as effective as the previous options because it only stopped ships coming to Cuba so it wouldn't get rid of the missiles already there. Also, creating a blockade was technically an act of war and the US had no international authority to stop foreign ships in the open sea. To try to play it off and a non-war action, the US government called the option a "quarantine" instead of a blockade. The last option was a diplomatic approach. The diplomatic approach would be the safest option because it would not be an act of war or aggression which could lead to war like the other options did. However, this wasn't a preferable option because it would be the most difficult to make happen, because it would be very hard to convince the Russians to remove their missiles and they could simply say no. At the end of the meeting the first choice on everyone's mind was the airstrike, however because the US didn't want to jump into aggressive action, Kennedy chose to do the "quarantine". By the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the method used to finally rid the island of the missiles was through diplomatic negotiation, where the US agreed to not use American nuclear missiles in Turkey and to not invade Cuba if the USSR would take their missiles and soldiers out. By the end of the Cold War, it was learned that the Russians had had operational missiles on Cuba at the time of the planning, which means that it is a good thing we didn't air strike or invade because an invasion force would have been obliterated and they would have nuked American cities.