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ETpro's avatar

How would the Bay of Pigs Invasion turned out if President Kennedy had supplied close air support?

Asked by ETpro (34099 points ) March 5th, 2012

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a disaster for the fledgling Kennedy Administration, coming just 3 months after he took the Presidency. Its failure is often blamed on the fact that Kennedy did not supply close air support to push back the Cuban Army and let the CIA sponsored paramilitary group get a firm foothold in Southern Cuba.

If Kennedy had committed significant US forces in an unprovoked attack on the Soviet ally, Cuba, how do you think the Kremlin would have reacted? Might they have committed Soviet air and ground forces to repel the invasion, as we did for our ally South Korea when the North and their People’s Republic of China allies crossed the 38th Parallel?

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15 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

* have turned out

How about full scale nuclear war? That would have been fun, in addition to being a reasonable response to western aggression.

wundayatta's avatar

Castro would have caved in three days. The US would have brought in a puppet regime that would have turned most people into slaves for a few wealthy capitalists. The people would have grown resentful and eventually overthrown the Americans, and elected Castro to be their leader in a truly democratic election.

Mexico and the rest of central and south America would have built an alliance that would have excluded the Americans. They would have created a superheated economic powerhouse, and America would have been relegated to the backwaters of history. Even Canada would have grown more powerful than the US.

It’s a good thing we lost and Castro won as a dictator. An alternate history would have been disastrous.

[Rolls eyes]

Under the orange tree.

elbanditoroso's avatar

My guess is that the Russians would have felt duty bound to defend their Cuban brothers, and we would have experienced a full scale soviet invasion within 6 months. THe russians would not have taken this lying down, and we would have been at war.

ETpro's avatar

@ragingloli That would be my concern as well. Even if the confrontation did not go nuclear, it would have been a massive blood bath.

@wundayatta You don’t think that the Soviets would have reacted as we did in Korea? I think they would have. Tensions were awfully high back then.

And as to what we would have done had Castro been overthrown, that is spot on. We put the previous Crony Capitalist Batista regime in power, and their abuses are what led to the Cuban Revolution that brought Castro to power.

@elbanditoroso I agree. It might have ended in a standoff, as the Korean war did. But I do believe it would have meant major armed conflict with Russian and Chinese regular army. To do less would have left all Soviet allies fearing that their protector was a paper tiger.

wundayatta's avatar

@ETpro No, I don’t the the Soviets would really have gone to war. They caved during the missile crisis, and their economy just could not have supported a war, I don’t think.

Having said that, it really doesn’t matter. This is my scenario, and it didn’t happen, and you can’t prove me wrong, unless you want to take back the question. If I say that’s what would have happened, then that’s what would have happened! [stamps foot] ;-)

ETpro's avatar

@wundayatta Let us agree the null hypothesis rules.

wundayatta's avatar

Sigh. @ETpro. But why ask the question if you are going to go with the null hypothesis in the end. Science has little to do with this question. This is about fantasy. Story telling. Who can tell a compelling story, whether it is believable or ridiculous—doesn’t matter. It can still be compelling.

The null hypothesis? Sorry. That’s a waste of time. In fact, I think it disappeared under the orange tree! ;-)

ETpro's avatar

@wundayatta Ha! I wanted to read people’s stories and snipe at them, not write my own. Color me lazy.

wundayatta's avatar

@ETpro Your sniper is going to have a hard time with my story, since it is protected by the orange tree. Bullet go in, but they never hit their target, since the target is in another dimension and you can’t actually see it from here.

By the way. In the end, Castro becomes king of the world. He brings peace to all the lands beneath our sun. But only when the sun is shining.

ETpro's avatar

@wundayatta Another dimension indeed. I truly did not see that answer coming.

wundayatta's avatar

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

ragingloli's avatar

actually, the spanish inquisition sent advance notices to the accused so they could prepare themselves.

wundayatta's avatar

And yet…..

ETpro's avatar

@wundayatta Ha!

@ragingloli Now that is something I did not know.

ragingloli's avatar

Learned it on QI

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