After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a fierce war, one without fighting, however. Called the Cold War, this war was fought on the political stage instead of the battlefield. The United States and the Soviet Union never actually went to war; in fact, they were actually allies against Germany during World War II. However, after the war ended, the Soviet Union and the United States became bitter enemies again, much like they were before the war. This "cold war," as it was called, lasted until the 1990's when the Soviet Union finally fell. At the climax of the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred during thirteen days in 1962. The Soviet Union brought nuclear missiles into Cuba and aimed them at United States targets, prompting a tense standoff between the two countries. However, this brinkmanship was necessary in that if either country had fired upon the other, nuclear war could not have been avoided. The United States demonstrated that by a show of military power they could force another country to back down, thereby avoiding nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis entailed a necessary show of force by the United States (Thomson 339).

The tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union further escalated on October 27, 1962, the worst day of the crisis. A United States U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was nearly shot down over the Soviet Union, enraging the United States Secretary of Defense McNamara. Coming back from a routine flight in Alaska, the U-2 accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace, and caused Soviet fighters to try to intercept the plane. U.S. fighters, equipped with nuclear-tipped weapons, escorted the aircraft back to safety (Finkelstein 92). Later on in the day, a U-2 spy plane that had been operating a routine mission over Cuba was shot down by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) site. The pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, was presumed dead (Fourteen Days in October). Premier Khrushchev had sent one letter to the United States government on October 26th in which he asked for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba in exchange for the removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba (Finkelstein 88). However, as reports of the U-2 reconnaissance plane being shot down trickled into the members of ExComm, a second letter from Premier Khrushchev came into the office. This letter was far more aggressive in tone than the first one, and it demanded that the United States remove the missile bases in Turkey in exchange for the missile bases in Cuba. President Kennedy and the members of ExComm were stunned at the last letter, and finally made the decision to reply to the first letter, acting like they had never received the second (Finkelstein 92-96).

This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the Island of Cuba. Within the past week unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere (Fourteen Days in October)

What hope there was now rested with Khrushchev's revising his course within the next few hours. It was a hope, not an expectation. The expectation was a military confrontation by Tuesday and possibly tomorrow (Finkelstein 98).

As tensions between the two sides escalated, the United States military level, previously set to DEFCON 3 (Defense Condition 3) was now raised on October 24th to DEFCON 2, one step before total war. This was the highest peacetime level of national military security ever placed upon the United States in history (Finkelstein 77).

If the United States had not informed the Soviets that war could possibly be on the brink, and if they had not mobilized troops and prepared for war, then the United States could very well have been involved in World War III, the world's first two-country nuclear war. Kennedy and his ExComm advisors, while preparing for war, kept their cool and handled the situation appropriately. The United States did not allow for the Soviets to gain a military advantage, and in doing so made it so that if war did actually break out between the two nations, United States' military forces would be at readiness to retaliate upon the Soviet Union. While some might call the Cuban Missile Crisis unnecessary brinkmanship, the United States' show of military force was necessary and helped to prevent an all-out World War III.