The Bay of Pigs

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the U.S.-assisted invasion of Cuba by the exiled Cuban forces, called the Bay of Pigs, led to a complete disaster for both the United States and the exiled forces. The author points out that there are nine core principles of war: Objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise and simplicity. The paper relates that the CIA plan ignored some of these applicable principles of war by designing an invasion plan that did not make use of the intelligence provided to them by the U.S. Navy, which during the course of the operation proved to be a huge obstacle in achieving the goal.

From the Paper:

"One might wonder that when everything was clearly planned out and the plan of action was simple and concise, why Americans had to still face shame and what was the cause of their plans crumbling. The problem rested in the fact that although the site which CIA chose was the best available, Castro had all the reasons to expect an attack from that site. Therefore the element of surprise was one thing which lacked in their plans. To adhere to the principle of simplicity, the element of surprise was abandoned. However it should be noted that the CIA did not imagine Castro to be expecting this site to be used as landing."

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