CUBA IN SOVIET STRATEGY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000100540022-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 1999
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: November 3, 1962
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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Cuba in Soviet
CPYRGHT
by Z,bigniew Brzezinski
Uwe 4408--ld be. _A~ R if !he Soviet Onion
was a status,"yuo_ power. It could then allow the reuni-
fication of Germany under explicit guarantees for So-
viet security. But the Soviet Union is not a status quo
power; it Is a revolutionary one. Moreover, it is an
increasingly self-confident revolutionary power. Pre-
cisely because of that it has been willing to run con-
siderable risks to expel us from Berlin, and in this re-
gard the Cuban case becomes both relevant and crucial.
From the Soviet point of view, the Cuban case has
two dimensions: the long-range Communist dimension
and the. immediate Berlin dimension. Insofar as long-
range considerations are concerned, the presence of
Communism in Cuba undermines the American claim
that the Western hemisphere is immune to Communist
penetration and that the United States has the capabili-
ty to exclude Communism from this hemisphere. It thus
forces the United States to back down from a tradition-
ally proclaimed position and imposes upon it a humilia-
tion which is bound to have international implications.
In addition, it creates within Cuba the economic, politi-
cal and eventually the military bridgehead for further
Communist expansion whenever the revolutionary sit-
uation matures elsewhere. To achieve these purposes
primarily defensive weapons are initially sufficient.
In the Soviet calculations, however, Cuba has a spe-
cial and immediate' relevance to the Berlin problem, and
it is this pertinence that made desirable the deployment
of offensive weapons of mass destruction in Cuba. Sev-
eral advantages pertinent to Berlin were to be attained
by the operational positioning of such weapons:
i. An immediate strategic advantage was to be
gained by exposing the US to IRBM's which inherently
have greater reliability than more distant ICBM's. The
warning time for the US in the event of attack would be
significantly cut and the Soviets would no longer suffer
the handicap of being distant from their targets while
we-are relatively close to ours.
2. The deployment was to attain a major psychologi-
cal objective within the United States and within the
West in general. It could have the effect of deterring
counteraction in Berlin by stimulating widespread fear
in the US, as well as creating the global impression that
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI is Professor of Government and
Director of the Research Institute on Communist Af-
fairs at Columbia University. He is the author of The
Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict.
West and the East has been crossed. It would thus di-
rectly challenge the relationship of force and will `on
which the Western position in Berlin rests.
3. It would increase credibility in the seriousness of .
the Soviet intent to back their Berlin actions with mili-
tary might, since it would convey unmistakably the
degree of risk-taking the USSR is willing to run.
4. It would create the basis for a possible "settle-
ment" since at some future point the Soviet Union
might have indicated its willingness to remove these
weapons from Cuba in return for a so-called free city
in Berlin and even the liquidation of American bases
in the proximity of the Soviet frontier. This would have
been a major success from the standpoint of the Soviets
since the long-range political.significll'nce of the Castro
regime would not be affected.
A bargain involving the eventual abandonment of
Cuba altogether is in fact not possible and it is most
unlikely that it was ever seriously considered by the
Soviets. They surely realized that Castro would resist
on his own. Furthermore, he could not be certain that
the Soviets would in fact abandon him once we com-
promised on Berlin; and the Soviets could not be cer-
tain that we would compromise on Berlin if first we
were allowed to liquidate Castro. Combining the two is
simply not possible. Consequently the Soviet initiative
in suddenly pouring offensive weapons into Cuba ap-
pears to have had a twofold intent: to improve the So-
viet political bargaining. position over Berlin and to
improve, and perhaps even decisively alter, the strate-
gic position of the Soviet Union in the event of a Berlin
showdown. As their minimum objective, the Soviets
hoped to exact major concessions in Berlin in return for
some adjustments in Cuba; as their maximum, our
backdown in Berlin, terrorized and deflected by the
sudden revelation of a powerful nuclear threat from
Cuba. The Soviets furthermore hoped to confront us
eventually with ?a nuclear challenge by proxy, thereby
again avoiding a direct confrontation but benefiting by
the challenge.
The timing of the Soviet arms deliveries is a signifi-
cant clue bearing out the foregoing analysis. The deliv-
ber, after the decision to force the Berlin crisis to a head
had apparently been reached in Moscow. One may sus-
pect that the Soviets expected that the installations
would be completed by December and that the crisis
Approved For Release 1999/09/17 : CIA-RDP75-00149R000100540022-17