Cuban Embargo Essay Research Paper The Cuban

Cuban Embargo Essay, Research Paper

The Cuban Embargo: Punishing the Children for the Sins of the Father

The key to understanding the foreign policy of a nation state is understanding that

state.s national interest. The key to successful foreign policy is, as Henry Kissinger

stated in 1998, defining .an achievable objective.. Thus United States policy towards

Cuba fails because it neglects these two key ingredients of foreign policy. The US

embargo of Cuba is four decades old and no longer serves the country.s national interest,

rather it has proven to be a economic and political hindrance for the US. The embargo

also falls short in terms of having an achievable goal, since many of the requests that

embargo legislation calls for are simply not within the ability of the Cuban state. By

examining the sanctions and their economic, political, and humanitarian affect on both

the Us and Cuba a strong case can be made for a revision of US policy.

US policy towards Cuba and the government of Fidel Castro has, since the

1960.s, been a policy based on the objectives of removing Castro, instituting a

democratic system, and gaining reparations for confiscated US holdings. The initial

sanctions were instituted because the US considered the close proximity of a communist

state to be a national security threat, and also because Castro.s regime confiscated US

holdings, and thus US control, on the island. By enacting a policy that unilaterally cut

Cuba off from economic and political contact with the US, the US felt that it could force

Castro from power. In the decades since the embargo.s conception legislation has been

created to even further enforce these concepts. In 1992 Congress passed the Cuban

Democracy Act, which prohibited US subsidiaries abroad from having business relations

with Cuba (Ratliff and Fontaine 22). This law pushed Cuban profits even further from

the grasp of US businesses. Three years later when the economic sanctions of the Cuban

Democracy Act had failed to oust Castro from power, the US Congress once again

increased the standards Cuba most adhere to for the embargo to be lifted. It

accomplished this by passing the Helms-Burton Law. Three of the stated purposes of the

helms-Burton Law focus on the democratization of the Cuban government, two deal with

protecting the US, and the last one is concerned with global sanctions. The law also

increases the amount of compensation Cuba most pay before the US will drop the

sanctions. The Helms-Burton law, by insisting that Cuba pay compensation to over

400,000 Cuban Americans, makes it literally impossible for the Cuban state to reach the

US.s terms.

Embargo supporters claim that sanctions against Cuba must be maintained

because Cuba is still a national security threat to the US, however current facts about

security reveal this to simply be untrue. Initially, Castro.s socialist platform and alliance

with the Soviet Union did indeed pose a threat to American security. The reason for this

is that the state of international politics in that era was one of bipolarism between

liberalism and communism. This meant that the US felt that its balance of power in its

own hemisphere was being threatened by the Soviet.s presence in Cuba. Also the

Soviet.s armament of Cuba posed a severe threat to US security, as was seen during the

Cuban missile crisis. However, with the fall of the Soviet bloc, Cuba ceased to be an

issue of national security. Present day Cuba does not have the economic ability or

military ability to be a threat to the US. This conclusion was supposedly supported by a

classified report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1998 (Ratliff and Fontaine

31). Many embargo supporters disagree with this statement saying that Cuba is still a

base for intelligence activities and that Castro could develop biological weapons to use

against the US. If these concerns are actually warranted, then would not US security be

better served by lifting the embargo so that the US intelligence community can better

monitor these Cuban .threats..

The US embargo proves to be ineffective in both democratizing Cuba or

removing Castro from power. US sanctions against Cuba have been held for the last

forty years or so and Cuba is still very socialist society. Also Castro.s power has not

wavered in any significant way that would indicate that the embargo was working. US

policy makers feel that by debilitating the Cuban economy that it will be able to

influence the Cuban people to rise up in rebellion against Castro. In many ways the

embargo has exactly the opposite effect on reformers with in Cuba. By tightening

sanctions on the island the US is hurting those people who would be the most likely to

revolt, the people of Cuba. Sanctions have made it necessary for the Cuban people to

rely very heavily upon the government for basic needs like clothing and food. Since there

are no out

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