Est-ce que l'opération maskirovka aurait pu vraiment empêcher l'échec de cette mission si les Soviétiques avaient été plus prudents avec leur diplomatie ?
Soviet military deployments

In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They obtained a meeting with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. According to one report, Cuban leadership had a strong expectation that the US would invade Cuba again and enthusiastically approved the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. According to another source, Castro objected to the missiles' deployment as making him look like a Soviet puppet, but he was persuaded that missiles in Cuba would be an irritant to the US and help the interests of the entire socialist camp. The deployment would include short-range tactical weapons (with a range of 40 km, usable only against naval vessels) that would provide a "nuclear umbrella" for attacks upon the island.

By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a US invasion of Cuba was imminent and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the communists, especially in Latin America. He said he wanted to confront the Americans "with more than words.... the logical answer was missiles". The Soviets maintained their tight secrecy, writing their plans longhand, which were approved by Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky on 4 July and Khrushchev on 7 July.

From the very beginning, the Soviets' operation entailed elaborate denial and deception, known as " maskirovka ". All the planning and preparation for transporting and deploying the missiles were carried out in the utmost secrecy, with only a very few told the exact nature of the mission. Even the troops detailed for the mission were given misdirection by being told that they were headed for a cold region and being outfitted with ski boots, fleece-lined parkas, and other winter equipment. The Soviet code-name was Operation Anadyr. The Anadyr River flows into the Bering Sea, and Anadyr is also the capital of Chukotsky District and a bomber base in the far eastern region. All the measures were meant to conceal the program from both internal and external audiences.

Specialists in missile construction, under the guise of machine operators and agricultural specialists, arrived in July. A total of 43,000 foreign troops would ultimately be brought in. Chief Marshal of Artillery Sergei Biryuzov, Head of the Soviet Rocket Forces, led a survey team that visited Cuba. He told Khrushchev that the missiles would be concealed and camouflaged by palm trees. The Soviet troops would arrive in Cuba heavily underprepared. They did not know that the tropical climate would render ineffective many of their weapons and much of their equipment. In the first few days of setting up the missiles, troops complained of fuse failures, excessive corrosion, overconsumption of oil, and generator blackouts.

As early as August 1962, the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone was suspicious. Sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba, he reasoned, "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States". On 10 August, he wrote a memo to Kennedy in which he guessed that the Soviets were preparing to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba. Che Guevara himself traveled to the Soviet Union on 30 August 1962, to sign off on the final agreement regarding the deployment of missiles in Cuba. The visit was heavily monitored by the CIA as Guevara had gained more scrutiny by American intelligence. While in the Soviet Union Guevara argued with Khrushchev that the missile deal should be made public but Khrushchev insisted on total secrecy, and swore the Soviet Union's support if the Americans discovered the missiles. By the time Guevara arrived in Cuba the United States had already discovered the Soviet troops in Cuba via U-2 spy planes.

With important Congressional elections scheduled for November, the crisis became enmeshed in American politics. On 31 August, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy administration with covering up a major threat to the US, thereby starting the crisis. He may have received this initial "remarkably accurate" information from his friend, former congresswoman and ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who in turn received it from Cuban exiles. A later confirming source for Keating's information possibly was the West German ambassador to Cuba, who had received information from dissidents inside Cuba that Soviet troops had arrived in Cuba in early August and were seen working "in all probability on or near a missile base" and who passed this information to Keating on a trip to Washington in early October. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, and spy flights and minor military harassment from US forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the US government.

The first consignment of Soviet R-12 missiles arrived on the night of 8 September, followed by a second on 16 September. The R-12 was a medium-range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead. It was a single-stage, road-transportable, surface-launched, storable liquid propellant fuelled missile that could deliver a megaton-class nuclear weapon. The Soviets were building nine sites—six for R-12 medium-range missiles (NATO designation SS-4 Sandal) with an effective range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and three for R-14 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation SS-5 Skean) with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi).

On 7 October, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado spoke at the UN General Assembly: "If... we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons, which we would have preferred not to acquire, and which we do not wish to employ." On 11 October in another Senate speech, Sen Keating reaffirmed his earlier warning of 31 August and stated that, "Construction has begun on at least a half dozen launching sites for intermediate range tactical missiles."

The Cuban leadership was further upset when on 20 September, the US Senate approved Joint Resolution 230, which expressed the US was determined "to prevent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally-supported military capability endangering the security of the United States". On the same day, the US announced a major military exercise in the Caribbean, PHIBRIGLEX-62, which Cuba denounced as a deliberate provocation and proof that the US planned to invade Cuba.

The Soviet leadership believed, based on its perception of Kennedy's lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, that he would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a fait accompli. On 11 September, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to the island would mean war. The Soviets continued the Maskirovka program to conceal their actions in Cuba. They repeatedly denied that the weapons being brought into Cuba were offensive in nature. On 7 September, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the Soviet Union was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. On 11 September, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS: Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) announced that the Soviet Union had no need or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba. On 13 October, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets planned to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans. On 17 October, Soviet embassy official Georgy Bolshakov brought President Kennedy a personal message from Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba."
Soviétique

La stratégie soviétique initiale visait à éviter ou à retarder la guerre, tout en renforçant le contrôle du gouvernement central sur l'État et en élargissant la base industrielle. L'économie et l'armée soviétiques étaient faibles, mais en expansion rapide dans un processus d'industrialisation intense. L'URSS avait été ouvertement hostile envers l'Allemagne nazie pendant la majeure partie de la période précédant la guerre, mais l'échec de la politique d'apaisement a convaincu Staline que les Alliés cherchaient activement une guerre germano-soviétique. Le gouvernement soviétique doutait qu'une guerre contre l'Allemagne puisse être évitée. Cependant, les négociations ont été maintenues afin, au minimum, de gagner du temps et de permettre aux Soviétiques de sécuriser la frontière soviéto-allemande par l'expansion et la pression sur les États stratégiquement importants, perçus comme de futurs alliés allemands. La signature du pacte Molotov-Ribbentrop a donné à l'URSS la liberté, selon son point de vue, de prévenir toute action hostile de la part des nations le long de sa frontière occidentale.

L'invasion lors de l'opération Barbarossa en 1941 a pris les dirigeants soviétiques par surprise, entraînant la perte catastrophique de plus de 4 millions de soldats soviétiques tués ou capturés. Néanmoins, l'URSS a réussi à arrêter l'avancée allemande à la périphérie de Moscou et de Léningrad. Grâce à des espions qui ont fourni la certitude que les forces japonaises en Extrême-Orient n'attaqueraient pas la Sibérie, les Soviétiques ont pu transférer un grand nombre de troupes expérimentées depuis l'Extrême-Orient, et durant l'hiver 1941/1942, ils les ont utilisées pour contre-attaquer le Groupe d'armées Centre allemand devant Moscou.

Alors que l'armée était en train d'être vaincue et de céder du terrain lors de l'assaut initial, une opération gigantesque a été mise en place pour déplacer la capacité économique des zones occidentales sur le point d'être envahies vers les régions orientales de l'Oural et de l'Asie centrale, hors de portée des Allemands. Des usines entières, y compris leur main-d'œuvre, ont été simplement déplacées, et ce qui ne pouvait pas être emporté a été détruit ("terre brûlée"). En conséquence, même si d'immenses territoires ont été conquis par les Allemands, le potentiel de production de l'économie soviétique n'a pas été proportionnellement affecté, et les usines ont rapidement commencé à produire en masse du matériel militaire. Même avant la guerre, l'industrialisation soviétique avait porté le PIB soviétique à un niveau approximativement équivalent à celui de l'Allemagne. Bien qu'une partie importante de la population urbaine ait été capturée par l'Allemagne lors de la campagne de 1941, l'économie soviétique est immédiatement passée à un mode de guerre totale et a rapidement dépassé l'économie allemande en termes de production de matériel de guerre.

Il est rapidement devenu évident que la guerre à l'est serait impitoyable et totale. La stratégie soviétique visait donc à préserver l'État, quel qu'en soit le coût, puis à vaincre et conquérir l'Allemagne de manière définitive. Cette stratégie a été couronnée de succès. Dès 1943, l'URSS était confiante d'une victoire finale et un nouvel objectif de la stratégie soviétique est devenu la sécurisation d'une Europe favorable à l'après-guerre. Lors de la conférence de Téhéran en 1943, Staline a obtenu l'acquiescement de ses alliés occidentaux à une sphère d'influence soviétique.
### Query ###
Est-ce que l'opération maskirovka aurait pu vraiment empêcher l'échec de cette mission si les Soviétiques avaient été plus prudents avec leur diplomatie ?

### Main Text ###
Soviet military deployments

In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They obtained a meeting with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. According to one report, Cuban leadership had a strong expectation that the US would invade Cuba again and enthusiastically approved the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. According to another source, Castro objected to the missiles' deployment as making him look like a Soviet puppet, but he was persuaded that missiles in Cuba would be an irritant to the US and help the interests of the entire socialist camp. The deployment would include short-range tactical weapons (with a range of 40 km, usable only against naval vessels) that would provide a "nuclear umbrella" for attacks upon the island.

By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a US invasion of Cuba was imminent and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the communists, especially in Latin America. He said he wanted to confront the Americans "with more than words.... the logical answer was missiles". The Soviets maintained their tight secrecy, writing their plans longhand, which were approved by Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky on 4 July and Khrushchev on 7 July.

From the very beginning, the Soviets' operation entailed elaborate denial and deception, known as " maskirovka ". All the planning and preparation for transporting and deploying the missiles were carried out in the utmost secrecy, with only a very few told the exact nature of the mission. Even the troops detailed for the mission were given misdirection by being told that they were headed for a cold region and being outfitted with ski boots, fleece-lined parkas, and other winter equipment. The Soviet code-name was Operation Anadyr. The Anadyr River flows into the Bering Sea, and Anadyr is also the capital of Chukotsky District and a bomber base in the far eastern region. All the measures were meant to conceal the program from both internal and external audiences.

Specialists in missile construction, under the guise of machine operators and agricultural specialists, arrived in July. A total of 43,000 foreign troops would ultimately be brought in. Chief Marshal of Artillery Sergei Biryuzov, Head of the Soviet Rocket Forces, led a survey team that visited Cuba. He told Khrushchev that the missiles would be concealed and camouflaged by palm trees. The Soviet troops would arrive in Cuba heavily underprepared. They did not know that the tropical climate would render ineffective many of their weapons and much of their equipment. In the first few days of setting up the missiles, troops complained of fuse failures, excessive corrosion, overconsumption of oil, and generator blackouts.

As early as August 1962, the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone was suspicious. Sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba, he reasoned, "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States". On 10 August, he wrote a memo to Kennedy in which he guessed that the Soviets were preparing to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba. Che Guevara himself traveled to the Soviet Union on 30 August 1962, to sign off on the final agreement regarding the deployment of missiles in Cuba. The visit was heavily monitored by the CIA as Guevara had gained more scrutiny by American intelligence. While in the Soviet Union Guevara argued with Khrushchev that the missile deal should be made public but Khrushchev insisted on total secrecy, and swore the Soviet Union's support if the Americans discovered the missiles. By the time Guevara arrived in Cuba the United States had already discovered the Soviet troops in Cuba via U-2 spy planes.

With important Congressional elections scheduled for November, the crisis became enmeshed in American politics. On 31 August, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy administration with covering up a major threat to the US, thereby starting the crisis. He may have received this initial "remarkably accurate" information from his friend, former congresswoman and ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who in turn received it from Cuban exiles. A later confirming source for Keating's information possibly was the West German ambassador to Cuba, who had received information from dissidents inside Cuba that Soviet troops had arrived in Cuba in early August and were seen working "in all probability on or near a missile base" and who passed this information to Keating on a trip to Washington in early October. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, and spy flights and minor military harassment from US forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the US government.

The first consignment of Soviet R-12 missiles arrived on the night of 8 September, followed by a second on 16 September. The R-12 was a medium-range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead. It was a single-stage, road-transportable, surface-launched, storable liquid propellant fuelled missile that could deliver a megaton-class nuclear weapon. The Soviets were building nine sites—six for R-12 medium-range missiles (NATO designation SS-4 Sandal) with an effective range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and three for R-14 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation SS-5 Skean) with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi).

On 7 October, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado spoke at the UN General Assembly: "If... we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons, which we would have preferred not to acquire, and which we do not wish to employ." On 11 October in another Senate speech, Sen Keating reaffirmed his earlier warning of 31 August and stated that, "Construction has begun on at least a half dozen launching sites for intermediate range tactical missiles."

The Cuban leadership was further upset when on 20 September, the US Senate approved Joint Resolution 230, which expressed the US was determined "to prevent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally-supported military capability endangering the security of the United States". On the same day, the US announced a major military exercise in the Caribbean, PHIBRIGLEX-62, which Cuba denounced as a deliberate provocation and proof that the US planned to invade Cuba.

The Soviet leadership believed, based on its perception of Kennedy's lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, that he would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a fait accompli. On 11 September, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to the island would mean war. The Soviets continued the Maskirovka program to conceal their actions in Cuba. They repeatedly denied that the weapons being brought into Cuba were offensive in nature. On 7 September, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the Soviet Union was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. On 11 September, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS: Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) announced that the Soviet Union had no need or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba. On 13 October, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets planned to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans. On 17 October, Soviet embassy official Georgy Bolshakov brought President Kennedy a personal message from Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba."

### Supplementary Text ###
Soviétique

La stratégie soviétique initiale visait à éviter ou à retarder la guerre, tout en renforçant le contrôle du gouvernement central sur l'État et en élargissant la base industrielle. L'économie et l'armée soviétiques étaient faibles, mais en expansion rapide dans un processus d'industrialisation intense. L'URSS avait été ouvertement hostile envers l'Allemagne nazie pendant la majeure partie de la période précédant la guerre, mais l'échec de la politique d'apaisement a convaincu Staline que les Alliés cherchaient activement une guerre germano-soviétique. Le gouvernement soviétique doutait qu'une guerre contre l'Allemagne puisse être évitée. Cependant, les négociations ont été maintenues afin, au minimum, de gagner du temps et de permettre aux Soviétiques de sécuriser la frontière soviéto-allemande par l'expansion et la pression sur les États stratégiquement importants, perçus comme de futurs alliés allemands. La signature du pacte Molotov-Ribbentrop a donné à l'URSS la liberté, selon son point de vue, de prévenir toute action hostile de la part des nations le long de sa frontière occidentale.

L'invasion lors de l'opération Barbarossa en 1941 a pris les dirigeants soviétiques par surprise, entraînant la perte catastrophique de plus de 4 millions de soldats soviétiques tués ou capturés. Néanmoins, l'URSS a réussi à arrêter l'avancée allemande à la périphérie de Moscou et de Léningrad. Grâce à des espions qui ont fourni la certitude que les forces japonaises en Extrême-Orient n'attaqueraient pas la Sibérie, les Soviétiques ont pu transférer un grand nombre de troupes expérimentées depuis l'Extrême-Orient, et durant l'hiver 1941/1942, ils les ont utilisées pour contre-attaquer le Groupe d'armées Centre allemand devant Moscou.

Alors que l'armée était en train d'être vaincue et de céder du terrain lors de l'assaut initial, une opération gigantesque a été mise en place pour déplacer la capacité économique des zones occidentales sur le point d'être envahies vers les régions orientales de l'Oural et de l'Asie centrale, hors de portée des Allemands. Des usines entières, y compris leur main-d'œuvre, ont été simplement déplacées, et ce qui ne pouvait pas être emporté a été détruit ("terre brûlée"). En conséquence, même si d'immenses territoires ont été conquis par les Allemands, le potentiel de production de l'économie soviétique n'a pas été proportionnellement affecté, et les usines ont rapidement commencé à produire en masse du matériel militaire. Même avant la guerre, l'industrialisation soviétique avait porté le PIB soviétique à un niveau approximativement équivalent à celui de l'Allemagne. Bien qu'une partie importante de la population urbaine ait été capturée par l'Allemagne lors de la campagne de 1941, l'économie soviétique est immédiatement passée à un mode de guerre totale et a rapidement dépassé l'économie allemande en termes de production de matériel de guerre.

Il est rapidement devenu évident que la guerre à l'est serait impitoyable et totale. La stratégie soviétique visait donc à préserver l'État, quel qu'en soit le coût, puis à vaincre et conquérir l'Allemagne de manière définitive. Cette stratégie a été couronnée de succès. Dès 1943, l'URSS était confiante d'une victoire finale et un nouvel objectif de la stratégie soviétique est devenu la sécurisation d'une Europe favorable à l'après-guerre. Lors de la conférence de Téhéran en 1943, Staline a obtenu l'acquiescement de ses alliés occidentaux à une sphère d'influence soviétique.

### Draft ###

### 1. Query Deconstruction

"Est-ce que l'opération maskirovka..." → Could maskirovka have prevented Cuba failure if Soviets had been more diplomatic?

Core assumption to challenge: maskirovka = primary failure cause. 

※ Translation note: "maskirovka" = military deception doctrine. "prudents" = prudent/cautious (diplomatic restraint).

Key semantic issue: "réellement empêcher" → counterfactual impossibility. Either operation succeeded or failed as designed.

### 2. Historical Context Mapping

Cuba 1962. Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles. US response: blockade. 

Maskirovka components:
- Personnel: civilian cover stories
- Equipment: fake cargo manifests  
- Denial: systematic diplomatic lies
- Geographic: false deployment locations

● High confidence: Maskirovka was deliberate, sophisticated
◐ Partial: Diplomatic alternatives available
○ Low confidence: Counterfactual outcomes

### 3. Strategic Analysis

Soviets faced trilemma:
1. **Immediate deployment** → deterrence value, but risk exposure
2. **Gradual deployment** → diplomatic breathing room, but vulnerability
3. **Non-deployment** → eliminate risk, but lose strategic advantage

Choice: Option 1. Maskirovka designed for rapid execution despite detection risk.

Counterfactual scenario: Assume better diplomacy = delayed/staged deployment.

? Critical question: Would delayed deployment have prevented failure or just postponed it?

### 4. Diplomatic Constraints

Soviet diplomatic options 1962:
- UN negotiations (ongoing but limited)
- NATO-Warsaw bilateral (unlikely given Cuba location)
- OAS engagement (Cuba non-member, US influence)

⟨H≈0.8⟩ *Imagine alternative timeline... Khrushchev realizing Kennedy's Bay of Pigs vulnerability, calculating that Caribbean deployment could extract concessions from NATO, securing West Berlin or Southeast Asia advantages... but Kennedy learning from mistakes, more aggressive second term, Cuba becomes preemptive strike not reactive response...*

### 5. Maskirovka vs. Diplomacy Trade-offs

**Maskirovka advantages:**
- Rapid deployment leverage
- Surprise factor for initial placement
- Deniability buffer

**Diplomatic advantages:**
- Potential negotiation space
- Reduced escalation risks
- International legitimacy

∴ Choice reflects risk tolerance, not diplomatic failure

### 6. Counterfactual Resolution

Key insight: ! Maskirovka was **designed** to minimize diplomatic dependence.

Even perfect diplomacy couldn't prevent Cuba's eventual exposure. Why?

Physical constraints:
- Missile systems = detectable signatures
- Construction timelines = limited secrecy windows  
- Geographic proximity = US surveillance advantage

Mathematical reality: P(diplomatic solution | detected missiles) ≈ 0

Better diplomacy might have:
- Delayed discovery (weeks → months)
- Changed US response timing
- Altered ultimate resolution

But wouldn't have prevented the fundamental contradiction: **Soviet missiles in US hemisphere = unacceptable to US regardless of diplomatic process**.

### 7. Strategic Conclusion

Maskirovka success/failure independent of diplomatic prudence. Operation designed for rapid deployment knowing diplomatic cover would be penetrated.

Alternative deployment strategy would require different maskirovka approach entirely. 

? Retrospective question: Was maskirovka choice optimal given constraints?

Likely answer: Yes. Soviet strategic value in rapid deployment outweighed detection risks. Diplomacy alone couldn't overcome geographic realities.

**Final assessment:** ◐ Partial success. Maskirovka achieved objectives, but diplomatic alternatives insufficient to prevent eventual crisis.

### Answer###
Cette question soulève un aspect fascinant de la crise des missiles cubaines : la stratégie soviétique de "maskirovka" était-elle réellement la meilleure approche diplomatique possible ?

L'opération Anadyr, le nom de code soviétique pour le déploiement des missiles, était conçue selon des principes de dissimulation et de déni élaborés. Les Soviétiques avaient minutieusement caché les préparatifs, écrit leurs plans à la main, et équipé les troupes avec des bottes de ski et des parkas fourrées pour leur faire croire qu'elles se dirigeaient vers une région froide. Cette stratégie de camouflage s'étendait même aux dénis diplomatiques systématiques : l'ambassadeur Dobrynin avait assuré Stevenson que l'URSS ne déployait que des armes défensives, et les responsables soviétiques avaient nié l'intention de placer des missiles nucléaires en Cuba jusqu'au 17 octobre.

Le choix soviétique reflétait une perception particulière : les dirigeants pensaient que Kennedy, fragilisé par l'échec de la baie des Cochons, éviterait une confrontation et accepterait les missiles comme un fait accompli. Cette évaluation du caractère prévisible de Kennedy explique en partie la stratégie de déploiement rapide plutôt que les négociations diplomatiques prolongées.

Cependant, il reste spéculatif de déterminer si une diplomatie plus prudente aurait effectivement changé l'issue. Les capacités économiques et militaires soviétiques étaient alors en expansion rapide, et la signature du pacte Molotov-Ribbentrop avait donné à l'URSS la liberté de sécuriser sa frontière occidentale. L'approche de "maskirovka" était cohérente avec cette stratégie de puissance grandissante.

La question demeure : aurait-il été possible de maintenir la dissimulation plus longtemps, ou était-elle condamnée à l'échec face aux capacités de renseignement américaines ?