A More Perfect Neighborhood

In the first debate of the 2008 presidential campaign, Senator John McCain attacked then-Senator Barack Obama’s foreign policy platform of opening dialogue with America’s geopolitical adversaries. “Senator Obama,” he accused, “twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and Raul Castro without precondition.” Senator Obama emerged from this debate—and the entire campaign—victorious. But aside from the immediate political ramifications, McCain’s remark succeeded in making one thing clear: American policy toward Cuba is woefully out of date. In the transformative spirit of the 2008 election, President Obama should significantly revise our relationship with the reclusive island by lifting the embargo and re-establishing diplomatic relations.

For more than four decades, Cuba has been an international pariah of sorts. The reclusive dictatorship was expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962 at Washington’s request, and Cuban-American relations have been officially nonexistent for even longer. While this policy of economic and political isolation may have made sense during the Cold War—when the Soviet Union was actively supporting the Castro regime through military and economic aid—the policies currently in place are anachronistic and actually harmful to regional stability. Nor has the international community been silent in the condemnation of the status quo. Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has voted nearly unanimously—with the exception of the United States and Israel—for an end to the unilateral embargo and a normalizing of relations.

In particular, the American embargo of Cuba has proven spectacularly unsuccessful in its stated goal: bringing down the Communist dictatorship. It has, however, succeeded in impoverishing the general population and placing the Cuban people in a state of cultural isolation, such that they have no opportunity to see the beneficial side of our mixed-market economic system and continually view the United States as a dangerous aggressor and a cause of their poverty. Today, many experts agree that ending the costly and counterproductive embargo would almost certainly contribute to an end to the Castro regime. Its continuation does little but galvanize support for Cuba’s outdated and undemocratic governmental system.

The United States has not budged on the Cuban embargo for several complex reasons. First, many Cuban refugees in the United States directly oppose any open gestures of amity toward their former oppressors. Second, many United States companies who possessed property in Cuba before the government seized and nationalized it during the early ’60s still stand strong in lobbying against an end to the embargo. While both of these admittedly powerful constituencies have legitimate grievances against the brutal Communist regime, the Cuban government has not and will not become more accommodating to their interests on a mere whim. Dropping the embargo would allow us to facilitate the change we hope for without holding ignorantly to egotistical positions that do nothing but broaden the rift.

Moreover, there is a strong geopolitical argument for dropping the embargo: the re-emergence of the Russian Federation as a global power. Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has made restoring a close strategic relationship with Cuba a priority in Moscow. This alone should be more than enough evidence that the embargo is counterproductive. In 1962, the world watched with bated breath as Kennedy and Khrushchev faced off in the Caribbean, and many historians today recognize that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest that the world had ever come to nuclear holocaust.

The increase of Russian influence in Cuba reached a new grade in mid-December when three Russian warships sailed into Havana’s harbor. This is the first time that the Russian navy has visited Cuba since the end of the Soviet era and represents a clear effort by the Russian Federation to flex its muscle in America’s neighborhood. Nor have Russian moves been limited to the Caribbean. The invasion of South Ossetia last summer and the Bush administration’s plan to construct a NATO-backed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic are just two reminders of how tense Russo-American relations have become in the post-Soviet era. Instead of encouraging further tension in this relationship by fixating on the ideological character of the Castro regime, it is imperative that the United States defuse tensions in the Caribbean and limit the Kremlin’s opportunities to stir up trouble in our southern backyard.

For once, there is an inclusive and internationally respected way for the United States to advance its foreign policy interests. Dropping the embargo will allow us to reincorporate Cuba into the inter-American community, reopen a dialogue with a government not more than 90 miles from United States coastline, and allow an influx of American culture and influence that is expected to bring social change to the Cuban people. As such, it would behoove the Obama administration to place the normalization of relations with Cuba high on its list of foreign-policy goals.


Jeffrey J. Phaneuf ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a history and literature concentrator in Dunster House.