Soviet decision to deploy nuclear missiles: Operation Anadyr

• Soviets willing to support Castro politically, economically and militarily
• The installation of nuclear weapons in the mountains of Cuba was only one aspect of military support
• Provided fighter planes, bombers and 14,000 ground troops 
• Nuclear weapons were both short- and medium- range – they could reach between 1100-2800 km from launch sites
• Geostrategically, Cuba was an opportunity that NK couldn’t ignore
• He acknowledged that it could take at least a decade for the USSR to establish parity with the USA’s long-range missile capacity
• Soviet missiles in Cuba would redress this imbalance 
• Reducing the missile gap would also supplement NK’s wider aims for military planning 
• A more developed strategic status would’ve contributed to NK’s objective or reducing spending on conventional military forces
• The deployment would’ve enabled NK to direct more resources into the expansion and modernisation of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, and still have resources left to invest in the non-military civilian economy 
• NK may have hoped to develop a linkage strategy between Cuba and Berlin where, despite considerable efforts between 1958-61, he had failed to remove the Western power
• Not only was this Western presence a political embarrassment to NK, it also had significant implications in terms of the security of the comm bloc in EE