THE LOGIC OF INTRANSIGENCE

CUBA'S FOREIGN POLICY – THE LOGIC OF INTRANSIGENCE
2010-02-23. Focus on Cuba, An Information Service of the Cuba Transition
Project, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of
Miami, Issue 118, February 22, 2010
José Azel*

(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- The most remarkable characteristic of
Cuba's foreign policy is that it seems to capture the world's
imagination. What is it about this rather insignificant, impoverished,
Caribbean island of 11 million people that has held our collective
attention for over half a century?

Cuba has certainly projected its foreign policy onto the international
stage. In 1959, the Cuban revolution and its leader, Fidel Castro,
fascinated the world with a romanticized image of a domestic social
revolution. Then, the world knew little about Castro's anti-Americanism
which dated to his university years.

By 1961, with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban
revolution had solidified its image as a mythical David successfully
confronting the hated Goliath to the north. The following year, in 1962,
the world stood still as the United States and the Soviet Union came
dangerously close to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.

For the next two and a half decades, with the Soviet Union as its patron
and benefactor, Cuba played an important role in the Cold War with its
proxy armies and operatives fighting in support of Marxist regimes and
insurgencies in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

During this period the Castro government supported the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979,
as well as the abhorrent and bloody regimes of Idi Amin in Uganda and
Nguema Macias in Equatorial Guinea.

Cuba's foreign alignments have been described as being based on
socialist ideology or on the congruency of economic models. But Cuba's
foreign policy has been ideologically inconsistent, supporting, at the
same time, liberation movements, brutal dictatorships, foreign
occupations, theocratic regimes, and more.

Historically Cuba's geopolitical alliances have transcended profound
political, economic, and even theological differences. Cuba's foreign
economic policies have been far from rational, if we understand
"rational" to be a desire to improve the well-being of the Cuban
population. But Cuba's foreign policy has been eminently rational if we
understand the term to be an uncompromising desire to remain in power
and to oppose the United States.

Cuba's foreign policy follows its own logic and rules of engagement. If
it is not political ideology or economic pragmatism, what then is the
centerpiece of Cuba's foreign policy? And perhaps more importantly, has
it changed under Raul Castro?

Our failure to understand Cuba's foreign policy stems from the fact that
our analysis is framed by Western economic rationality. When we
extrapolate our logical model to the Castro brothers we are trying to
understand from our cultural and analytical environment actions arising
from another. Cuba's foreign policy cannot be fully understood if viewed
exclusively from the mindset of Western economic and political rationality.

Cuba's foreign policy follows two uncompromising principles: First, to
remain in power, and second, an unmitigated hostility towards liberal
democracies and market economies in general and towards the United
States in particular. Historically, Cuba's foreign policy has had as its
principal focus the forming of anti-American alliances determined to
undermine U.S. national interests.

In 1958, while still in the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro wrote, "I have
sworn to myself that the Americans are going to pay dearly for what they
are doing. When this war ends, for me will begin a much longer and
bigger war: the war that I am going to wage against them. I realize that
this will be my true destiny." (1)

The root cause of Cuba's intransigence is not adherence to Marxists
principles, but rather Fidel Castro's pathological megalomania. Fidel's
intransigence is best understood as megalomaniacal rather than ideological.

It is this pathology that will foil any diplomatic initiatives by the
international community or the United States to induce the Castro
brothers to undertake political or economic reforms that may undermine
their absolute control. If Cuba's foreign policy can be described as
ideological at all, it would be based on an ideology of hate towards the
United States

Cuba's regime has managed to outlive ten U.S. administrations, the
collapse of the Soviet Union, an abysmally poor economic development
track record, and the pauperization of the country. Intransigence is the
leitmotif of Cuba's foreign policy.

It has served them well for fifty years. It is a legacy that the Castro
brothers are unwilling to compromise. Consequently, as irrational as it
may seem to us, diplomatic overtures by the Obama administration and the
world community will not move the Castro regime to grant Cubans civil
liberties or political rights.

Often, Raul Castro has been characterized as a more pragmatic leader
than his older brother. And while this may indeed be the case in some
aspects of governance, it is not a pragmatism that will lead him to
embrace policy changes that may jeopardize his hold on power. More
likely, it is a pragmatism that will induce him to formulate practical
policies designed to perpetuate power.

Undoubtedly, in time, Raul Castro will imprint his own governing style.
But Raul Castro is not a peripheral participant in a system created by
his brother; he is a central co-creator of that system. The changes that
we have seen in Cuba since Raul Castro assumed the presidency are no
more than a simple division of labor.

The more mundane tasks of running the country have been delegated to the
younger brother while Cuba's foreign policy remains the sole
proprietorship of Fidel Castro. In this context it may be useful to
remember that when Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, Castro
reportedly warned him that "if you open a window [To Democracy] you will
lose all power."

Even after his brother's passing, Raul Castro is unlikely to open the
window.

Notes:

(1) Fidel Castro's letter to Celia Sanchez, June 5, 1958.

* Dr. José Azel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for
Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami. The CTP can be
contacted at P.O. Box 248174, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3010, Tel:
305-284-CUBA (2822), Fax: 305-284-4875, and by email at
ctp.iccas@miami.edu. The CTP Website is accessible at
http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu.

CUBA'S FOREIGN POLICY – THE LOGIC OF INTRANSIGENCE - Misceláneas de Cuba
(23 February 2010)
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=25849