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The U.S. and Cuba: Friends and Adversaries
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13848 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1988 |
3,107 Words |
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Michael J. Mazarr
Michael J. Mazarr is a research analyst in international
security studies at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, D.C., and the author of Semper Fidel:
Cuba and America, 1776-1988 |
At a recent cocktail party in Havana the head of U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba, John J. Taylor, hosted about 20 Cuban human rights activists and a few foreign diplomats. He intended to discuss current conditions in Cuba in a low-key fashion and anticipated little attention. The Cuban government, however, condemned the party as a "rude provocation" designed to portray a "distorted image" of Cuban reality. This small episode again illustrated the principle—if it needed reiteration—that U.S.-Cuban relations can never be taken for granted. Relations with the "colossus to the north" have for centuries been a key variable in the Cuban economy and polity.
This year is a propitious time to reexamine U.S. Cuban relations. In the 1988 presidential campaign, foreign policy assumed center stage—yet the issue of Cuba was almost totally neglected. Given the degree to which U.S. foreign policy is affected by Cuban behavior, a reexamination of U.S. Cuban relations is an essential task for the next administration. And any analysis must begin with a review of the history of the relationship.
Cuba in the mid to late nineteenth century was the last significant jewel in the Spanish colonial crown. Spain routinely imposed severe tariffs on the island, and the Spanish colonial government was repressive and corrupt. As in many such contexts, a local middle class, known in Cuba as Creoles, came to oppose the rule of the colonial power. The foundations of Cuban nationalism had been laid some time earlier, and the revolt of most of Spain's Latin American colonies encouraged similar aspirations in Cuba.
U.S. interest in Cuba was long-standing. During his administration, Thomas Jefferson "looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states." Until the 1840s, however, U.S. efforts were aimed primarily at barring European influence from Cuba rather than at acquiring the island. This process culminated in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
U.S. acquisitiveness peaked in the Manifest Destiny period of the 1840s. The Polk administration tried to obtain Cuba by various means, including purchase and the threat of war. Its efforts were encouraged by the annexationist movement in Cuba among Creoles who favored incorporation into the United States. But Polk failed, as did Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan after him, primarily because Spanish public opinion prevented debt-ridden Spanish governments from selling Cuba.
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