Was there a winner in the Cuban missile crisis? And if so, who? During the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the U.S. leaders and the Soviet Union leaders were involved in a 13-day political and military impasse in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba. President John Kennedy notified Americans of the missiles and emphasized that his government was ready to employ military force to neutralize this seeming threat to its national security. Following this declaration, a lot of people were in fear that a nuclear war was almost unavoidable.
However, this possible nuclear war was mitigated when the U.S. gave in to the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the missiles and in return have the U.S. vacate the Cuban territories. Apart from assenting to this agreement, President Kennedy also secretly agreed to have the U.S. missiles removed from Turkey. Following the U.S. avoidance of the perceived national security threat was a preservation of the complexion of the nuclear rivalry that saw the country dominate over USSR. This paper will argue that it would be justified to proclaim that the U.S. emerged strong during the Cuban Missile Crisis.