SOCTEC1

EA

Ryan Kenneth Lim

Zcelina Kristle Corre Oyson
Mischa Fajardo
Cristine Khay Nochefranca
Fiona Pangilinan
Joshua Romel Lintag
Yel Montiflor

A. Description of Technology

A missile is a self-propelled guided weapon system used by the modern military

which can be projected towards a target. The missiles used during the Cuban Missile Crisis
were guided rockets loaded with nuclear warheads and were supplied by the Soviet Union.
Missiles can be generally categorized by their launch platform and their target. They can be
surface-to-surface, air-to-surface, surface-to-air, air-to-air and anti-satellites. Most missiles
are guided to their targets by different forms or radiation, like infrared, lasers and radio
waves.

Missiles are powered by either a type of rocket or a jet engine. Solid fuel is used by
most missiles for easier maintenance and fast deployment and only a few larger ballistic
missiles use liquid fuel. They use guidance systems such as INS, TERCOM and GPS which
calculates the course between the location of the missile and the target. A missile also
needs a flight system which maneuvers the missile in flight with the use of the data from the
guidance system. Most missiles contain one or more explosive warheads which provides its
primary destructive power.

B. Historical context for the emergence of the technology

The Soviet Union had a conflict with Cuba and the United States. The Cuban crisis
happened in October 1962, which was viewed as the nearest nuclear conflict during the
Cold War. It is said to be the first documented case of mutual assured destruction (MAD)
that became a major factor in the international arms agreement.

On May 1962, Nikita Khrushchev suggested that the Soviet Union place nuclear
missiles in Cuba to discourage future invasion attempts after the US had placed missiles in
Turkey and Italy and failed to overthrow the Cuban regime. The construction of several
missile sites began in the late summer after a secret agreement was made.

As tensions increase between Soviet Union and US, ships of Soviet Union
attempted to run a blockade causing an immediate order to US Navy for an open fire. Due
to misunderstanding, a U-2 plane was shot down by a Soviet missile crew that brought
chaos to US navy but Kennedy refused to counter their attack and resumed negotiations

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with the Soviets.
The conflict was finished on October 28, 1962, when Kennedy and U Thant had a
settlement with Khrushchev. The weapons of the Soviets would be dismantled in public and
returned to the Soviet Union, subject to the authentication of the United Nations, in
altercation for a US public declaration and agreement to never invade Cuba. The US also
settled with dismantling all their Jupiter IRBMs, which were armed with nuclear warheads
and were set out in Turkey and Italy, secretly opposing the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union and the United States gained a quick, clear and direct
communication between each other after the tense negotiations. The halting of the
operations of the missiles and light bombers from Cuba formally ended the conflict on
November 20, 1962.

C. Social integrative role of technology

The bigger social issue at the time when the Cuban Missile crisis first arose was the
Cold War between the United States and the USSR. It was these short and immediate
ranged ballistic missiles which contained nuclear warheads that caused more friction
between the two opposing nuclear powers and it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis where
the two powers reached the highest point of tension and the nearest point wherein they
almost declared war on each other. Both powers made the use of this technology (the
ballistic missile) as a leverage or threat to the other power. They both made the use of the
ballistic missiles in order to show the world their superiority. The USA had missiles aimed at
USSR positioned at Italy and Turkey while the USSR placed missiles in Cuba in order to
even the odds. President Kennedy discovered about the nuclear missiles being built in
Cuba by the Union Soviet so he and his advisors came up with an agreement on how to
handle the situation. Seeing the nuclear missile as a lethal weapon, Kennedy put up a naval
blockade to stop the entry of military supplies to Cuba. Krushchev also saw the possibility of
a fatal nuclear war so he came up with an agreement with the US, dismantling the weapon
sites in exchange of asking for an assurance that Cuba would not be invaded anymore.
Society was obviously in a bad state because there was always fear stuck in the peoples
minds. People were afraid that a nuclear war would happen anytime soon and there was
always a high possibility of a nuclear winter.

But also through the use of the missiles during the Cold War and good leadership,
communication was opened between Washington and Moscow. Both powers realized a
need for this open communication. Through communication, the Cold War tension died
down and the situation between the two became less threatening. Realizing that the tension
that was built would lead to the deaths of lots of citizen, both sides decided to put an end to
the attempted nuclear-missile war. Since they saw the peril that this deadly technology
would bring, ending the conflict became their resolve. It seemed like the Cuban Missile
Crisis actually led to the end of the Cold War because both powers were pushed to
communicate with one another in order to prevent a nuclear war. At the end of the day, a
Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed on July 25, 1963 to prevent the possibility of a
nuclear war.

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D. References
n.a. (2014). Missile. The dictionary. Retrieved from
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/missile
n.a. (2014). Missile. Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile
n.a. (2014). Cuban missile crisis. Wikipedia. Retrieved from
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis
n.a. (n.d.). Cuban missile crisis. John F. Kennedy. Retrieved from
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Cuban-Missile-Crisis.aspx