The Logic of Positive Engagement by Miroslav Nincic

Author:Miroslav Nincic [Nincic, Miroslav]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Diplomacy, Peace, Political Science, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9780801450068
Google: 52vde_9fSdAC
Goodreads: 12799276
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2011-07-21T10:47:07+00:00

The Punitive Pressures Phase

Although Castro did not immediately embrace Communism or an alliance with Moscow, his domestic policies made Washington uneasy. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959, which nationalized all land and was followed by the expropriation of major U.S. agricultural and mining properties, excited Eisenhower administration forebodings. By March 1960, the president approved covert action and economic sabotage to deal with the threat (Welch 1985, 48–49). The signing of a Soviet-Cuban trade agreement in February 1960 further stoked U.S. fears. By mid-October a second nationalization law effectively ended private (domestic and foreign) commercial ownership; the United States responded with its first ban on all U.S. exports to Cuba excepting food, medicine, and medical equipment (Morales and Prevost 2008, 48); two months later, it cancelled the Cuban sugar quota.4 Diplomatic relations were severed in 1961, along with an expanded trade embargo: eventually, even shipments of food and medicine to Cuba were stopped. On January 31, 1961, under U.S. pressure, the Organization of American States (OAS) expelled Cuba from its ranks, while legislation was passed banning U.S. aid to any country that offered assistance to the Castro regime.

Economic sanctions were not the only form of pressure. The Bay of Pigs invasion involved 1,300 Cuban mercenaries, trained, equipped, and transported to Cuba by the Central Intelligence Agency with the task of toppling the regime. After three days of clashes with Cuban forces, the invaders were soundly defeated,5 embarrassing President Kennedy and driving Cuba yet deeper into the Soviet embrace. Operation Mongoose was launched in November 1961 to coordinate a plethora of covert U.S. activities against the Cuban regime, including several attempts to assassinate Castro (Bohning 2005, chap. 6).

The Kennedy-era measures had a clear purpose: to overthrow the Castro regime. “The primary and long-term goal of the embargo has been the ouster of Cuban President Fidel Castro,” observed Donna Rich Kaplowitz (1998, 3). Many within the administration considered this well within the U.S. grasp (Brenner 1988, 13–14). Given Cuba’s economic dependence on the United States prior to the revolution, considerable political damage to Castro was expected to follow the economic difficulties suffered by the Cuban people, especially when coupled with covert pressure. A second important goal was to reduce Cuban ability to make trouble abroad through the deterrent effect of the punitive measures and by making it materially harder for Castro to export his revolution.

The former objective depended on creating conditions within Cuba that would turn the Cuban people against Castro. This goal was not achieved. As a subsequently declassified CIA report of 1966 admitted: “The chances for a radical change in leadership in Cuba are remote. . . . Barring Castro’s death or disability, the present regime will maintain an unassailable hold on Cuba indefinitely” (CIA 1966, 16). Nor did the Kennedy-era measures stop Castro from attempting to export revolution. Socialist internationalism was deemed integral to the regime’s revolutionary legacy, with foreign interventionism, in the spirit of activities spearheaded by Che Guevara, the core of its self-designated international mission. The 1960s were a period of active Cuban internationalism, and U.

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