The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in October 1962, during the Cold War. In Russia, it is termed the "Caribbean Crisis" (Russian: Карибский кризис, Karibskiy krizis), while in Cuba it is called the "October Crisis." The Cuban and Soviet governments in September 1962 placed nuclear missiles on Cuba. When United States intelligence discovered the weapons its government decided to do all they could to ensure the removal of them.

The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war. The Americans feared the Soviet expansion of communism or socialism, but for a Latin American country to ally openly with the USSR was regarded as unacceptable, given the Russo-American enmity since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Such an involvement would also directly defy America's Monroe Doctrine, which held that European powers should not get involved in American matters.

In late 1961, President of the United States John F. Kennedy engaged Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations against the government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. They were unsuccessful.

Publicly, in February 1962, the United States launched an economic embargo against Cuba.

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