Navy - Cuban Missile Crisis with National Defense Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Cold War Service Medal Ribbons - MugThe Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962 (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre), the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: , tr. Karibsky krizis, IPA: [kripskj krizs]), or the Missile Scare, was a 13 day (October 1628, 1962) confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union initiated by Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full scale