7
Cuban Foreign Policy and the International System
Jorge I. Dominguez
In October 1997, Fidel Castro and the Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party confidently celebrated their capacity to survive the collapse of the Soviet Union and of all communist governments in Europe and renewed U.S. efforts in the 1990s to bring to an end this long-enduring, embattled Cuban government.1 They ledthe only remaining communist regime outside East Asia. And, although many problems afflicted them and the Cuban people, Castro and the party believed that the economy had touched bottom and had begun to recover, that they retained at least the tolerance and perhaps the support of many Cubans, and that they had fashioned a successful international strategy under severe constraints. In this chapter I will focus on the last of these accomplishments.
I will argue that the Cuban government keenly and accurately understood its predicament in the international system: how to survive given that its major allies had collapsed and that prevailing international norms and alignments had turned strongly against it. Behaving as convinced neo-realists, Cuban leaders sharply retrenched the scope of their previous foreign policy, adjusted their economy to the new circumstances, and fashioned an institutionalist strategy to counter U.S. power and, collaterally, to obtain information and reduce uncertainty about this new world order. Cuba remains stunningly isolated compared to its international situation before 1989, but its government has crawled back into the international system thanks to its diplomacy and to the adverse reactions of other states to U.S. policies toward Cuba.
Given the constraints that it faced in the 1990s, Cuba's level of international activity is certainly intense. Cuba is vigorously engaged in the UN system. It pursues a complex diplomacy with the European Union. It has developed good relations with Mexico and Canada, the partners of the
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United Stales in NAFTA. It employs its relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries as a means to elude, and preferably to break, U.S. encirclement. Cuba looks for a role among the Caribbean economies in cooperation with other Caribbean governments; Cuba's success in its Caribbean endeavors was probably greater in the 1990s than at any time since the 1959 revolution.
There are three principal differences between Cuba and other Latin American countries in their respective insertion into international affairs. First, Cuba has a highly centralized political system that has been able to block or to contain the impact of globalization on the country. Paradoxically, it has been assisted in this endeavor by U.S. policies to isolate Cuba. Cuba participates little in international trade and investment flows. Cuba is a living museum for obsolete technology. More noteworthy is its equally limited participation, by Latin American standards, in international information flows; Cuba has limited access to the Internet, its telecommunications infrastructure is dilapidated (though being repaired), and its television programming is of poor quality. Second, the same highly centralized political system permits its government to behave as a unified rational actor in the design and execution of foreign policy. The normal influences on foreign policymaking in other countries that stem from the clashes of domestic social, economic, and political interests play a much smaller role in shaping Cuba's international insertion. And, third, since about 1980 the Cuban diaspora in the United States has controlled at times, and influenced at all times, the design and content of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Cuba holds a unique role in the annals of U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America: no other Latin American government must cope with a hostile and influential diaspora within the United States.
Born-Again Neorealists
In the scholarship of international relations neorealism insists that states are the most important actors in world politics, that their behavior is rational, and that states seek power and calculate their interests in terms of power in the face of an international system that lacks effective centralized authority (i.e., interstate anarchy).2 The configuration of capabilities helps to shape behavior in the international system. Neorealists, however, accord little explanatory importance to domestic politics.3
From its beginning in 1959, the foreign policy of Fidel Castro's government demonstrated a clear understanding of neorealist premises.
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Neorealism provides a better general framework to understand the Castro government's foreign policy than other alternatives, even though there are some noteworthy differences, as noted below. Cuba's alliance with the Soviet Union, forged in late 1959 and especially in 1960, was intended to counter the United States. Cuban leaders understood that the survival of their government and, more generally, the bold and broad scope of Cuban foreign policy rested on the bedrock of their alliance with the Soviet Union. The Soviet alliance enabled Cuba to survive the onslaught from the United States during the 1960s, and to launch a program of economic recovery in the early 1970s. From 1975 to 1990, Cuba (median population in those years about 10 million people) sent over 300,000 troops to overseas military missions. Typically, Cuba had 30,000 to 50,000 troops deployed overseas during any given year in that 15-year span. And, unlike U.S. troops in Vietnam and Soviet troops in Afghanistan, Cuban troops won the three wars they went to fight on African soil (twice in Angola and once in Ethiopia). Indeed, Cuba's was the only communist government capable of deploying significant military forces across the oceans and achieving its objectives on the battlefield. The Soviet Union had no more reliable military ally during the Cold War.
Cuban leaders also disagreed with neorealist expectations concerning the practical and analytical role of domestic politics. In practice, the Cuban government understood that the U.S. government cared not just to tame Cuban foreign policy but also to bring down the Cuban government. Analytically, the Cuban government was convinced that it could not counter the United States if it limited the scope of its actions to interstate relations; it was necessary to confront U.S. attempts to crush the Castro government by seeking to undermine or overthrow governments allied with the United States. For over 30 years the Cuban government actively supported revolutionary movements in other countries. It did so not just for the sake of interstate competition but also as part of its overarching ideology—the set of core beliefs that guided the leadership in its ambitious attempts to transform fellow citizens and make the world safe for revolution.4 As Castro once put it eloquently.
The imperialists are everywhere in the world. And for Cuban revolutionaries the battleground against imperialism encompasses the whole world. . . . And so our people understand . . . that the enemy is one and the same, the same one who attacks our shores and our territory, the same one who attacks everyone else. And so we say and proclaim that the revolutionary movement in every comer of the world can count on Cuban combat fighters.3
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Cuba supported both revolutionary movements and revolutionary states against the U.S. government and its allies, in effect, Cuba did not accept the "hard-shell" notion of sovereignty implicit in neorealist analyses.
The Cuban government responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union and other European governments exactly as neorealist scholars would expect. Cuban leaders understood instantly that the structure of the international system had changed—for them the international system had become threateningly unipolar because their archenemy, the U.S. government, still loomed over them but was now unchallenged by a Soviet superpower. Given the changed configuration of power in the international system and the loss of its indispensable ally, the Cuban government therefore simultaneously retrenched across various dimensions of its foreign policy. In September 1989 Cuba completed the repatriation of its troops from Ethiopia (they had been first posted there in 1977).6 In March 1990, all Cuban military personnel in Nicaragua were brought back to Cuba (they had first arrived in 1979).7 In May 1991, Cuba's last troops were repatriated from Angola (they had first been deployed in 1975).8 Also, in 1990 and 1991, Cuba brought home its troops and military advisers from various other countries.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the European communist world devastated the Cuban economy. Cuban exports of goods and services dropped from about 6 billion pesos in 1989 to 2 billion pesos in 1993. The principal reason for this drop was the elimination of all Soviet subsidies for Cuban sugar exports. Consequently, imports of goods and services plunged from 8.6 billion pesos in 1989 to 2.4 billion pesos in 1993. Cuba had also lost Soviet subsidies for importing petroleum and Soviet financing for Cuba's trade deficit.9
Cuba responded to this economic cataclysm by adjusting to the prevailing distribution of world economic power. Cuba reopened its economy to foreign direct investment (FD1). In May 1990, President Castro inaugurated the first hotel built as a joint venture with a foreign partner in 30 years. He announced that Cuba would seek foreign investment to develop its economy.10 As Vice President Carlos Lage, the chief of the economic cabinet, put it before the twelfth Havana International Fair on 30 October 1994: "We are offering you an orderly country, a coherent and irreversible policy of openness to capital investment.""
By the end of 1996 this economic policy reversal had begun to bear fruit. In that year, Cuba exported 3.4 billion pesos and imported 4.5 billion pesos (both in goods and services). Also by the end of 1996, the accumulated stock of FDI in Cuba was about $1 billion, with signed pledges for another $1.1 billion. These investments came from 260 partnerships
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from 50 countries.12 These are tiny amounts by the standards of international capital markets, but they are large sums for the small Cuban economy to garner since 1990 despite U.S. efforts to prevent it.
The Cuban government also stopped supporting revolutionary movements. In April 1991 it curtailed all assistance to its longtime ally, El Salvador's revolutionary movement (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacionál—FMLN), other than political support.13 Once a peace agreement was signed in El Salvador, President Castro chose a symbolic event to announce that Cuba would no longer support revolutionary movements militarily. He did so in January 1992, while hosting several former high officials of the Kennedy administration (along with Cuban and former Soviet officials) to reflect on the 1962 missile crisis.14 Henceforth, the Cuban government would continue to resist U.S. efforts to bring it down, but for the first time Cuba would be able to rally international support because its governITlCľjí was no longer seeking to bring down other governments.
Cuban leaders were reborn as neorealists because they adjusted quickly to the changed distribution of international power and because, at long last, they were prepared to recognize, as well as claim respect for, hardshell sovereignty, forgoing intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries in order to demand the same from the United States.
An Institutionalist Strategy
Neorealists "maintain that institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution of power in the world. They are based on the self-interested calculations of the great powers, and they have no independent effect on state behavior."15 If so, communist Cuba should have stayed away from international institutions in the 1990s. On the-contrary, in the 1990s Cuba followed a strategy of joining new international organizations and adapting its behavior to "fit" into international organizations that are not dominated by the United States.
Absent a superpower partner or, unlike Iran and Iraq, petroleum or other economic resources to maintain a powerful military, international organizations provided Cuba with an option to counter the United States and break out of isolation. Of course Cuba also sought support directly from individual states, but it understood that states might find it easier to stand up to the United States if they were to act in concert. Cuba thought of international organizations as alliances to stiffen the backbone of governments that the United States might otherwise seek to bully. Cuba,
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therefore, followed an institutionalist strategy principally for neorealist reasons, that is, to counter the United States.
The Cuban government had no doubt that the United States would press its advantage after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Cuba made a second bet—that Kenneth Waltz, the modern architect of neorealism, would prove right when he described responses to the United States after the end of the Cold War in Europe:
Unbalanced power, whoever wields it, is a potential danger to others. The powerful state may, and the United States does, think of itself as acting for the sake of peace, justice, and well-being in the world. These terms, however, will be defined to the liking of the powerful, which may conflict with the preferences and interests of others. The powerful state will at times act in ways that appear arbitrary and high handed to others, who will smart under the unfair treatment they believe they are receiving. Some of the weaker states in the system will therefore act to restore a balance.16
Cuba did not have to prove Waltz right in his general analysis of the international system; the hunch of its leaders was that the United States, while speaking in the name of liberty and democracy, in conducting its policy toward Cuba would indeed "act in ways that appear arbitrary and high handed to others."
Cuba also followed an institutionalist strategy, to a limited degree, for reasons where neorealism and institutionalism converge. International institutions facilitate the transfer of information, a valuable asset for an isolated country such as Cuba. Moreover, given Cuba's perception that the U.S. government posed a major threat, institutions also reduce uncertainty to some degree because Cuba finds it easier to gauge just how far other countries will support the U.S. government in its conflict with the Cuban government. In some cases, international institutions lower the relative costs of international transactions. And, of course, international institutions also set normative rules for international behavior that are available for use against any misbehaving state, including a superpower.17
Responding to International Isolation
As Cuba entered the 1990s, it suddenly found itself bereft not just of its major allies but also of its principal network of international institutions. The most important international institution for Cuba's economic development had been the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) with its associated panoply of organizations, which had grouped
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the communist governments of Europe. In 1972 Cuba had become a member and derived important economic and other benefits.18 This council dissolved as European communist governments tumbled in 1989 and 1990. On the other hand, communist Cuba had not participated in, nor has it turned to, membership in the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, or the OAS, despite occasional exploratory conversations in each case. (Cuba belongs to certain inter-American organizations, such as the Pan American Health Organization, that precede and are not mere creatures of the OAS.) Nonetheless, with its troops repatriated from all comers of the world and with its newly found commitment to respect the sovereignty of all other states, Cuban foreign policy found it easier than in the past to claim membership in various other international organizations to counter the United States and break out of international isolation.
The Annual Ibero-American Summits
Faced with isolation, Cuba searched for opportunities to participate in international institutions. Spain and Mexico had taken the leadership to call the first Ibero-American Summit, gathering the heads of state and government from the relevant countries of Latin America, including Cuba, and the Iberian Peninsula. The founding meeting was held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1991; as host, Mexican President Carlos Salinas welcomed Fidel Castro's presence. These summits have been held every year since then, and President Castro has attended them all.
At the Guadalajara summit Cuba agreed to sign the Treaty of Tlatelolco. This treaty created a Latin American zone of peace free from nuclear weapons. It was endorsed by most Latin American governments, as well as by the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union, and was formally signed in February 1967.19 Cuba had refused to sign the treaty, claiming that it would not until the United States changed its policies toward Cuba and, specifically, until the United States pledged that it would not place nuclear weapons at its naval base at Guantanamo and, preferably, until the base was returned to Cuba.20 By changing its merely symbolic security policies—there had been no nuclear weapons on Cuban soil since the 1962 missile crisis settlement—Cuba signaled its willingness to accommodate some of the policy preferences of the Ibero-American countries. The issues at the Ibero-American summits would hinge on a bargained exchange. How much would the Ibero-American countries press Cuba to democratize? And how much support would Cuba elicit from these countries in its confrontation with the United States?
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At the second summit, held in Madrid, in July 1992, the members adopted a strong declaration in support of democracy. Shortly thereafter, í the Latin American governments in the so-called Rio Group called on Cuba to liberalize and democratize its domestic institutions.21 The Castro | government's gamble on participating in these summits seemed to back-i fire, but then the U.S. Congress came to the Cuban government's rescue. t          In October 1992 the U.S. Congress enacted the Cuban Democracy
I Act, whose principal sponsor was Representative Robert Torricelli. The new law prohibited U.S. subsidiaries in third countries from trading with Cuba. The law directly affected many countries that deemed it extraterritorial and in violation of the rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Speaking the language of democracy, the United States seemed to be acting arbitrarily, injuring the interests of its trading partners. At the Third Ibero-American Summit held in Bahia, Brazil, in July 1993, the Ibero-American leaders alluded critically to U.S. policies toward Cuba while they reiterated their general support for democracy and human rights. This summit set the pattern for subsequent years. Cuba • accepted the endorsement of democratic principles at these summits, while, in tum, the member governments criticized U.S. policies toward Cuba.
In March 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Dan Burton. President Clinton, as authorized by the law itself, suspended enforcement of its key feature, Title III. Title III would authorize U.S. citizens and firms to sue in U.S. courts those firms from other countries that "traffic" with Cuba; the law is broadly written to affect most FDI in Cuba as well as trade. This law threatens the interests of other countries much more directly than the Cuban Democracy Act.22 Once again, speaking the language of liberty and democracy, the United States acted in ways that seemed arbitrary and that injured the interests of its trading partners. The Cuban government capitalized on the potential for international balancing.
At the November 1996 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile, the countries termed the Helms-Burton Act "a violation of international |     law" and urged its reconsideration. Argentina had sought to limit the sum-f;    mit to "pluralistic democracies" in order to exclude Cuba but found insufficient support. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo was the strongest pro-[    ponent of Cuba's rights at the summit, thereby reinforcing Mexico's historic position with regard to Cuba.23 The summit did reaffirm its broad ľ    support for  democracy everywhere. At the  November  1997 Ibero-[     American Summit in Margarita, Venezuela, the governments condemned
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the Helms-Burton Act and all other "unilateral measures that violate the sovereignty of states," including new bills under consideration in the U.S. Congress. The summit also failed to support a resolution sponsored by Argentina and Nicaragua specifically calling for greater freedom of expression and respect for human rights in Cuba. The summit did endorse yet again its strong general commitment to democracy.24
Cuba was greatly assisted by U.S. policy in securing a niche among the Ibero-American governments. Cuba still has no allies among these countries. But it has been able to ignore their democratic declarations *{ no risk of sanctions because the Ibero-American countries have been alarmed and offended by increasingly aggressive U.S.. policies toward its own allies and trading partners in seeking to achieve U.S. objectives in Cuba. These summits have helped Cuba to break out of its political isolation in the aftermath of the collapse 0f the communist world in Europe and have helped Cuba to resist 'J.S. pressure.
The United Nations
In November 1992, Cuba for the first time gained overwhelming support in the UN General Assembly for a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo. This motion passed just days after the U.S. Congress had enacted the Cuban Democracy Act. The following month the General Assembly approved another resolution, also overwhelmingly, calling on the Cuban government to respect the human rights of its citizens. Cuba has ignored UN resolutions on human rights and refused to accept a visit by jj-j- ^pe_ cial rapporteur appointed by the United Nations to monitor the human rights Situation in Cuba.
The enactment of the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 reduced the number of countries that abstained in the voting in the UN General Assembly and increased the number of countries that voted against U.S. policy toward Cuba. In November 1992, 59 countries voted to condemn U.S. policy; 3, including the United States, voted against the motion, while 71 abstained. In November 1997, 143 countries voted to condemn U.S. policy, 3 voted against the motion, and only 17 abstained. U.S. policy served Cuba's balancing purposes admirably within the United Nations as it had at the Ibero-American summits.
Cuba's strategy in the United Nations has emphasized the common cause of many countries in opposing the extraterritorial dimensions of the Torricelli and Helms-Burton acts. Because governments voted to condemn the sanctions inherent in such legislation, they were consequently not inclined to impose additional sanctions on Cuba for not adhering to the
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human rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Once again, Cuba used an international organization to counter the United States and break out of isolation.
Caribbean Regional Organizations
In the late 1980s, the Cuban government rediscovered that Cuba was an island archipelago washed by the Caribbean Sea, warmed by the sun, and blessed with beautiful beaches. Tourism became a major strategy for international development. Cuba sought to join the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) to share information, learn about common standards, and coordinate policies. Grenada vetoed Cuba's application in 1989. Cuba had not recognized Grenada's governments after the 1983 invasion of that island country by the United States and various anglophone Caribbean forces. In May 1992, Cuba ended its own Cold War in the Caribbean and reestablished normal diplomatic relations with Grenada. (It established diplomatic relations with St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1993 and with Antigua-Barbuda in 1994, two countries that had joined the United States in the 1983 invasion of Grenada.) A month later Cuba was admitted to the CTO, accelerating Cuba's insertion into Caribbean international relations.25
Trade picked up. Nonpetroleum trade between Cuba and the anglophone Caribbean doubled from 1990 to 1992; including petroleum, this trade reached $100 million in 1992, making up about 3 percent of Cuba's total trade in 1992.26 In December 1993, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which groups the anglophone Caribbean states, signed an agreement with Cuba establishing a commission to increase trade. CARICOM created this joint commission despite explicit, public criticism and warnings from members of the U.S. Congress and State Department officials that the United States might retaliate against CARICOM. The agreement would also promote joint efforts in the sugar industry, livestock, and fisheries. The agreement's signing had been delayed because Cuba objected to references to human rights and democracy; in the end, CARICOM yielded on the grounds that such references did not exist in similar agreements reached with other Latin American countries.27
Led by the CARICOM countries, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) was founded in July 1994. The ACS joins CARICOM countries to Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and the Central American nations. Cuba joined as a founding member, the first regional economic integration arrangement Cuba had joined anywhere outside the CMEA.28
Cuba has rallied CARICOM members to oppose U.S. policies toward Cuba.29 CARICOM members have come to vote unanimously against
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U.S. policy toward Cuba in the UN General Assembly, resist bilateral U.S. pressures on their policies toward Cuba, and on their own raised the Cuba question in their collective summit meeting with President Clinton in 1997. Cuba used Caribbean regional organizations principally to counter the United States, but it also gained from opportunities for broader international economic cooperation consistent with institutionalist expectations. One limitation to this cooperation is that Cuba has become a major competitor in the Caribbean tourism market; by 1996, Cuba hosted 1 million tourists (three times more than it received in the 1950s), more tourists than   any   CARICOM   member   but   the   Bahamas   and   Jamaica.30 Nonetheless, Cuban diplomacy has been more successful in the anglophone Caribbean than in any other setting: Cuba has enlisted the political support of Caribbean countries against U.S. policies toward Cuba, it has mitigated the political fallout from increased competition in tourism, and it has expanded trade with the region.
Constructing Confidence-Building Measures31
To prevent an accidental military confrontation, the U.S. and Cuban governments engaged in a number of low-key confidence-building measures in the 1990s.32 Although many of the specific measures had been contemplated during the Bush administration, their implementation for the most part began in 1993.33 The two coast guards share some information on search-and-rescue missions in the Straits of Florida. This collaboration has also led to various instances of joint action against drug traffickers; at times the U.S. Coast Guard has provided the information while its Cuban counterpart (Guardafronteras) has arrested the criminals (and, in some cases, has returned them to the United States). On 8 October 1996, for instance, the U.S. and Cuban coast guards collaborated on the seizure of 1.7 tons of cocaine.34 In general, Cuba has had tough policies against drug trafficking and consumption: in the 1990s, these policies served Cuba well in depriving its U.S. adversaries of a reason to attack Cuba. On the U.S. side, the Justice Department and the FBI have reciprocated, warning against terrorist actions departing from Florida, and have brought would-be terrorists to court.35 Some confidence-building measures also began in 1993 in and around the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, including advance notice from one side to the other on military training and small-scale war games.
The most important reason for U.S.-Cuban contact and collaboration has been to cope with the migration flow. In December 1984 the two governments signed a migration agreement. Cuba agreed to take back a spec-
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ified number of Cubans whom the United States found excludable under its own laws (most had come through Mariel harbor by sea in 1980), and the United States agreed to accept lawful Cuban immigrants routinely. However, the United States typically accepted fewer than five thousand Cubans per year. In August 1994, in response to severe pressures for emigration (including a large-scale riot in Havana), the Cuban government stopped preventing emigration by boat or raft until a new agreement was reached the following month. The United States agreed to take no fewer than twenty thousand Cubans per year; it also reversed decades of U.S. policy by stopping the presumption that Cubans intercepted on the high seas would be automatically considered refugees. The United States would henceforth repatriate nearly all Cubans intercepted on the high seas. This, too, required almost daily collaboration between the two coast guards.36
During the 1994 migration crisis, nearly thirty thousand Cubans were held temporarily in camps at the Guantanamo naval base. U.S. and Cuban military authorities developed a constructive relationship in 1994-1995 to deal with this situation. High-ranking Cuban and U.S. military authorities held meetings at the base every 4 to 6 weeks to deal with practical matters. These meetings continued even after the migration crisis subsided; at least one of them was attended by General John Sheahan, chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command.-17
Both governments continued to collaborate even after the Cuban Air Force shot down two unarmed civilian aircraft, which belonged to the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue,38 over international waters on 24 February 1996 and after the U.S. government enacted the Helms-Burton Act. Indeed, bilateral cooperation deepened. Brothers to the Rescue and other Cuban-American organizations staged events on the high seas to confront the Cuban government. For each of these events, both governments set down clear markers for the Cuban-American flotillas headed toward the U.S.-Cuban maritime border.39 The respective coast guards, supported by the air forces, established close communications. (U.S. Coast Guard officers travel to Havana in advance of each flotilla episode to discuss what each side will do to prevent an incident.)40
Both governments have built procedures that have begun to acquire a life of their own.41 The relationship between the coast guards is professional and regular, and the two governments keep these arrangements free from the contamination of the politicized hostility that otherwise plagues their relations. These procedures are the highest level of U.S.-Cuban official collaboration, but they certainly reduce uncertainty on both sides and communicate information effectively. They reduce the otherwise high
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transaction costs in U.S.-Cuban interaction, and these procedures feature and exemplify institutionalist reasons for Cuba's institutionalist strategy.
The Response of the International System
A government's foreign policy is only one element in a state's location in the international system. The actions of other states matter greatly: Cuba's place in the international system cannot be set all by itself. Because Cuba in the 1990s is a particularly weak state, it is a "price taker." The response of other states in the international system to Cuban entreaties, and to those of its U.S. adversary, shaped Cuba's circumstances. Other states resisted U.S. policy toward Cuba, consistent »with neorealist expectations, because they believed that U.S. policies injure the states' interests in the international trade and investment system. This is consistent, in tum, with institutionalist explanations because the critics of the United States claimed to defend the very international institutions that the United States has done much to construct and strengthen over time: GATT and the WTO. None of the states that have most confronted the United States over these matters has an ideological affinity with Cuba's government; they have helped Cuba break out of international isolation mainly as a consequence of their objection to U.S. policies.
The Response of the United States
By early 1992, the United States could have declared victory in its longstanding conflict with Cuba. All of the Cuban international behavior to which the United States had long objected had stopped. Gone were the Soviet-Cuban alliance and Soviet support for the Cuban military; gone were Cuban troops and military advisers from countries near and far; and gone was Cuba's support for revolutionary movements. Not gone, however, was Fidel Castro's government. Contrary to neorealist expectations, in the 1990s the United States came to care deeply about the domestic politics of other countries. And, in the case of Cuba, the U.S. government was seemingly prepared to make the Cuba question more important for U.S. foreign policy than anything else; the two congressional acts of 1992 and 1996 were ready to punish U.S. allies and trading partners over their relations with Cuba.
Three broad factors account for this notably expansive U.S. policy. First, the Soviet Union, hitherto the balancer of U.S. actions, had disappeared. It became easier for the United States to invade Panama (1989)
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and Haiti (1994) as well as to deploy its forces worldwide to prevent aggression or enforce a peace to its liking. The structure of the international system had changed; the United States found less resistance to its wise actions—and to its foolish actions.
Second, an ideological shift gripped U.S. politics.42 Begun in contentious partisanship in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, by the second half of the 1980s there was political agreement that U.S. policy should defend and foster human rights and democracy. The evolution of U.S. policies in the Americas in the 1980s is a telling case. The Reagan administration began deliberately trashing the Carter administration's human rights policies. The Reagan administration ended pressing longtime dictators in Chile and Paraguay to step down.43 In 1991, led by the United States and newly democratic Chile, the OAS rededicated itself to actions to defend democratic institutions; the OAS, various Latin American governments, and the United States acted in concert to prevent coups in Guatemala (1993) and Paraguay (1996).44 The Clinton administration made the enlargement of democracy one of its fundamental tenets. In this political climate, communist Cuba was a pariah state.
Third, right-wing Cuban-American lobbies became better organized. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), established in 1981 by Jorge Mas Canosa and others with the Reagan administration's encouragement, made three important contributions to Cuban-American exile politics: it provided a nonviolent instrument for anti-Castro militancy; it channeled financial and human resources into highly focused one-issue political action committees; and it learned to work with U.S. politicians of both major parties.
Cuban Americans had had little impact on U.S. policy toward Cuba before the early 1980s: during the 1980s, CANF's only significant effect ;   on U.S. policy was the creation of Radio and TV Marti. In the 1990s, however, CANF played U.S. politics exquisitely. During the 1992 presidential í   election, CANF defeated the Bush administration's opposition to a change ;   in Cuba policy by enlisting, first, U.S. Representative Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) and then presidential candidate Bill Clinton to endorse what would í  become the Cuban Democracy Act. Unwilling to be outflanked on the f  right, the Bush administration reversed itself and endorsed Torricelli's bill, I   which passed Congress 2 weeks before the presidential election.45 CANF proceeded similarly toward the enactment of what would become the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996. It worked with ; both Democrats and Republicans. It fought the executive branch. It played the electoral calendar; President Clinton signed the act into law on the day of the 1996 Florida presidential primary. The only difference from 1992 is
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that Cuba's shooting down of two unarmed airplanes created a political stampede in Congress to support punitive measures against the Castro government.
Yet, as noted previously, the Cuban government, too, played domestic U.S. politics effectively on one key issue: migration. The Castro government understood that a significant portion of U.S. public opinion preferred collaboration with the Cuban government to prevent waves of illegal migrants washing up on U.S. shores. The Castro government obtained noteworthy collaboration from the Clinton administration to block the kind of disorder in Cuba that might generate emigration.
The result of these various factors was a rigid U.S. policy that magnifies Cuba's importance for U.S. policy. The president of the United States was deprived of significant discretion in fashioning policy toward Cuba; punitive policies could be dropped only by an act of Congress. U.S. law mandated harsh penalties Ofi citizens or firms or other countries—mainly U.S. allies and trading partners—if they deviated from the narrow range of conduct that the United States tolerated with regard to international economic relations with Cuba. In practice, however, the content of U.S. policies changed little: U.S. subsidiaries in third countries could not trade with Cuba and some executives of third-country firms with significant investments in Cuba were denied visas to enter the United States. Other punitive policies on third countries were suspended through presidential waiver. Nonetheless, some future U.S. president could let these sanctions be implemented, and this became a source of concern to many governments. Some governments also opposed the injury that U.S. policies caused to a liberal international trade regime. The Latin American and Caribbean countries responded, as we have seen, in opposition to U.S. policy, as did the United Nations. We turn to examine other responses.
The Response of the European Union and Canada
The European Community had never been a priority on Cuba's foreign policy agenda, although diplomatic and economic relations with its member states had been normal. The relations between them had long been shaped by their respective Cold War alliances.46 In the 1990s, however, Cuba turned to European countries as a source of trade, direct investment, credit, and tourism, and the newly named European Union began to concern itself with Cuba. The trigger for that concern was not Cuba's severe economic hardship of the early 1990s, and certainly not the prospects for an economic bonanza. It was an attempt to resist the extraterritorial dimensions of U.S. policy toward Cuba.
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ín September 1993, the European Parliament condemned the 1992 Torriceili law (Cuban Democracy Act), and in September 1994 it called on the Cuban government to enact democratic reforms. Also in 1993, the European Commission created for the first time a humanitarian aid program for Cuba, supplemented by ad hoc measures tailored to Cuban needs and aimed at supporting domestic reform in Cuba. Cuba remained, however, the only Latin American country with which the European Union had not concluded a formal cooperation agreement—even though there were no barriers to trade between Cuba and European countries and Cuba benefited from Europe's generalized system of trade preferences. All EU member states had diplomatic relations with Cuba.47 In 1995, led by Spain, France, and Italy, the European Commission explored a deepening of its relations with Cuba, in particular the prospects for a formal cooperation agreement. The commission discovered that the Cuban government would agree to no fundamental concessions regarding democratization and human rights. When the Cuban Air Force shot down the two unarmed airplanes in international waters in February 1996, the commission suspended its conversations with the Cuban government over a formal agreement.
The enactment of the Helms-Burton Act in the days that followed, however, mobilized the European Union to confront U.S. policy toward Cuba. The European Union's institutions and individual European governments condemned this U.S. legislation and began proceedings against the United States in the WTO for an alleged violation of international trade law. Faced with a two-part international problem—the confrontation with the United States over Helms-Burton and the failure of its democratizing initiatives toward Cuba—on 2 December 1996 the European Union adopted a "common position" toward Cuba, the first time this high-level procedure was invoked with regard to relations with any Latin American country. The common position codified previous EU policies, although it adopted a stronger commitment to democratization and respect for human rights. The European Union favors a peaceful democratic transition in Cuba; conditions economic assistance and the eventual signing of a formal cooperation agreement to demonstrable democratization in Cuba; commits itself to ongoing dialogue with the Cuban government and with Cuban civil society; insists on strict adherence to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights; urges individual member states to cooperate with Cuba along the lines of economic reform authorized by the Cuban government; and pledges to continue humanitarian assistance with greater emphasis on NGOs. Separately, the European Union has pledged to oppose and contest the Helms-Burton Act.
Cuban Foreign Policy        199
The Cuban government, having feared worse, was relatively pleased with this outcome for four reasons. First, the European Union continued to contest vigorously U.S. policy toward Cuba. Second, although there was some reduction of humanitarian aid, basic EU policies toward Cuba did not change. Third, the European Union did not constrain the modest aid and credit programs of its member states toward Cuba.48 And fourth, the European Union rejected some of the proposals of the new center-right Spanish government. Spain had hoped that the European Union would mandate the appointment of a diplomat to each European embassy in Havana to maintain relations with dissidents, require cooperation with the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Cuba, and ask Cuba to grant freedom of travel to its citizens.49
Two factors explain the relatively modest changes in EU policies toward Cuba. The confrontation with the United States over the tatter's extraterritorial policies constrained European governments that might otherwise press the Cuban government harder over democracy and human rights. And Europeans, in general, believed that confrontation and punishment alone were unlikely to bring about a peaceful democratic transition in Cuba.
Similar factors explain Canadian policy toward Cuba. Before 1990 Canadian-Cuban relations had been typically low-key, emphasizing bilateral trade relations, and most Canadian firms operated in a depoliticized environment. In the wake of the enactment of the Torriceili law, Canada's Conservative Party government strengthened the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act to block the effect of the new U.S. law. Most Canadian firms opted to comply with U.S. law, however. In 1994, the new Liberal Party government changed Cuban policy further. Cuba became eligible for official development assistance; Canadian firms would receive trade and investment assistance for their business in Cuba; and the government would support the relations of Canadian nongovernmental, religious, cultural, and academic organizations with their Cuban counterparts. Canada also supported a peaceful transition in Cuba toward more pluralist politics and would channel resources to facilitate it. Appropriately encouraged, Canadian business firms increased their stake in Cuba.50
Thus the Canadian government reacted with fury to the Helms-Burton Act, reinforcing the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. Judgments under Helms-Burton could not be enforced against Canadian firms in Canada, and Canadians would be allowed to sue in Canadian courts to recover amounts lost through those foreign rulings. Canada began proceedings against the United States under NAFTA rules and began to coordinate its actions with the European Union and other governments in the
.,--„- - Lsviuittguez
WTO. in January 1997, Cuba and Canada signed a panoply of agreements to foster political, social, and economic collaboration.51
Canada sought to engage Cuba to foster changes—the opposite of the U.S. confrontational approach. Compared with the European Union or the Íbero-American governments, Canada took the boldest approach to cooperating with Cuba and countering U.S. policy. In (his way, CARICOM and Canada opposed the United States the most, with the Latin Americans and the European Union doing so less markedly. All agreed that the United States had to be contained, and in that outcome the Cuban government found its most important ally in its never-ending battle with the United States.
Trade Partners
Internationa] politics had implications for Cuban trade performance. The collapse of the Soviet Union had resulted in a collapse of the Cuban economy and of the Russian share of Cuban foreign trade. Cuban export Capacity in the 1990s was extraordinarily weak, however. Even the value of Cuban exports to market economy countries fell, not just of those to the former communist countries.
In 1996 Cuba exported at jeast $20 million worth of goods to eleven countries. Of those countries, from 1989 to 1996 Cuban exports to Canada, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain had increased, but the value of Cuban exports to China, France, Germany, lapan, the United Kingdom, and, of course, Russia had fallen. Only the increases to Canada and Spain were significant: from $55 million to $294 million to Canada and from $86 million to $131 million to Spain; most of the exports to the Netherlands were nickel products slated for reexport.52 In general, Cuba's productive weakness, not U.S. policy, was the principal obstacle to Cuba's trade. In international services, tourism was Cuba's principal export. Its international partner profile was much the same in services as in goods. In 1996 Italy, Canada, and Spain were the principal sources of Cuban tourism, followed by Germany and Mexico; only Italy had gained market share from 1989 to 1996.53
Cuba's partner diversification in goods exports was much safer politically in 1996 than in 1989, however. In 1989, the Soviet Union had accounted for 60 percent of Cuba's exports; China, Cuba's second most important export market, accounted for just 4 percent. The respective numbers for 1996 were 26 percent and 7 percent. In 1996, however, Cuba's second most important goods export market had become Canada, accounting for 15 percent of Cuban exports, while the Netherlands (a reexport base) took 11 per-
Cuban Foreign Policy        201
cent of Cuban exports. Because Cuban international trade is far more politicized than is typical for most countries, this export partner diversification probably reflects a political conception of risk dispersal.
The collapse of Cuban exports made it much more difficult to import. In 1996, Cuba imported at least $20 million worth of goods from thirteen countries. Of those countries, from 1989 to 1996 Cuban imports had increased from Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, and Spain, in each case substantially. Imports from Argentina, China, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom had fai^n/4 On the goods import side, Cuba's partner diversification, vVas also much safer politically, spreading risk even more effectively than on the export side. In 1989 the Soviet Union had accounted, for 68 percent of Cuba's imports; the second most important import partner was the German Democratic Republic, with 4 perceVil or the total. Neither country existed 3 years later. In 1996, Spam and Russia tied as Cuba's most important import partners at 15 percent each; the third was Mexico, accounting for 10 percent; and then tied as well were Canada and France at 6 percent each.
In short, the evolution of Cuba's international trade shows the impact of the economic collapse and the loss of Soviet subsidies. Cuba diversified its trade partners considerably, especially for goods imports. Overall, Cuban trade relations with various countries in the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and China appeared both strong and sound. Russia remained the major export market, and thus a potential source of instability. In particular, trade relations with Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico countered the United States.
Conclusions
In the 1990s, Cuba was more internationally isolated than at any time since the revolutionary victory in 1959. Nonetheless, with consummate political skill, the Cuban government broke out of its isolation in some respects, greatly aided by the collateral fallout from U.S. policies toward Cuba. Some governments weighed the costs and benefits of greater international insertion, and at the end of the 1990s Cuba's international insertion was exceedingly limited, so its government desperately sought to increase it. Cuba required much more international investment and trade; its government had no choice but to fashion an international strategy to contain the power of U.S. policies.
The Cuban government responded to the collapse of the Soviet Union and of other European communist governments by retrenching its far-
jv,5v,   .. ~»......s-w
ang foreign policy, adjusting its economy, and designing an institutionist strategy for international reinsertion. This strategy focused on coun-es close to the United States, for they were more influential in U.S. pol-y than the People's Republic of China or post-communist Russia. This ■ategy sought to reduce Cuba's isolation and find partners to counter the nited States, even if these partners had no political or ideological affec->n for the Cuban government. Although Cuba dealt as well with indi-dual governments, it believed that international organizations could nction as alliances in the face of U.S. bullying. Governments were more :ely to resist pressures on them to conform to U.S. policies toward Cuba they could invoke the principles of international organizations and each her's political solidarity. The rules of international institutions became a urce of leverage: if these governments could hang together, they would ,ng tough.
Cuba's strategy rested on an analytic hunch, namely, that Kenneth altz's neorealist analysis of the international system would prove right least as far as Cuba was concerned. The United States did not disap-lint. Speaking in the name of liberty and democracy, the United States opted policies toward Cuba that seemed arbitrary, perhaps counterpro-ictive, certainly extraterritorial, and clearly adverse to the interests of its lies and trading partners. The latter countered U.S. policy toward Cuba. t first, in response to the Torricelli law, they did so cautiously. Later on, outrage over the Helms-Burton law, they did so more vigorously.
Cuba pursued an institutionalist strategy principally for neorealist bal-cing reasons. In so doing, it understood that a key institutionalist insight rved its neorealist purposes: the members of international institutions red about the norms and rules of those institutions. Such beliefs became ever for Cuba to use to gain those members' support in confronting the lited States. Moreover, Cuba's strategy was consistent at times with the pectations of institutionalist analyses. In nearly all cases, this strategy nerated valuable information not otherwise available to an intemation-.y isolated state and it helped to reduce uncertainty. And in constructing lateral confidence-building measures with the United States, the trans-tion costs of managing this complex interaction were reduced as well.
Other factors played a role. In the 1990s, elections proved important changing policies toward Cuba in the United States, Canada, and Spain, the United States, the combination of more effective right-wing Cuban-merican lobbies with the expansive ideological shifts and the loss of temational constraints on U.S. actions proved powerful at election time. tese changes within the United States pulled the Cuban question into the aelstrom of U.S. domestic politics, endowing it with both visibility and iidity. The United States raised the stakes of its Cuba policy to confront
its own allies and best trading partners precisely at the moment when Cuba mattered less for the United States than it had in decades.
Together, the effects of international system balancing and the Cuban David's sling strategy brought about the impossible: on the subject of U.S.-Cuban relations, the United States became at least as isolated as Cuba. Both governments became the target of international pressure to change their respective policies. Although Cuba was rather accustomed to this condition, the United States was not. Cuba eagerly welcomed allies in its decades-old effort to contain the United States. Fidel Castro had not defeated the United States, but he seemed confident that he would outlast the ninth U.S. president who attempted Jo bring him down.
Fidel Castro cannot outlast every future U.S. president, however. His eventual passing is likely to bring about major changes in Cuba's domestic politics and foreign policy. If Castro's successors manage at first to retain a political system with only modest changes from the one they will inherit, relations with the United States are not likely to improve much. And, absent Fidel Castro's talent and residual domestic and international appeal, this successor government may well be much less effective. This seems, therefore, a transitional outcome pending a subsequent larger change. Such an eventual more significant change is likely to realign Cuba's foreign policy to bring it much closer to the U.S. government. It may turn the Cuban diaspora in the United States into an asset, not a liability, for such a future Cuban government. Under those circumstances, Cuba's insertion into the wider international system may be thinner than in the 1990s (and certainly less so than in previous decades) but the intensity of its engagement with the United States may be much deeper and tighter. The unanswerable question for the time being is whether Cubans wish to embrace the United States or just to give it a friendly but formal handshake. The legacies of Cuba's nationalist past cannot yet be assessed independently of Fidel Castro, but that past is surely likely to weigh heavily upon the future.
Notes
1.  For a summary of Fidel Castro's marathon speech to the party congress, celebrating this accomplishment, see Granmá, 9 October 1997.
2. For recent summaries of neorealist views, John J. Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19, 3 (Winter 1994-1995): 5-49; Stephen G. Brooks, "Dueling Realisms," International Organization 51,3 (Summer 1997): 446.
3.  Kenneth Waltz, "A Response to My Critics," in Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 329. See also Brooks, "Dueling Realisms," 446.
iut         Jorge /. Dominguez
4.  See especially Jorge I. Dominguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba's Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), chap. 5.
5. Documeniospoliticos. Politico internacionál cle la revolúciou cubana, vol. I (Havana: Editora Política, 1966), 83.
6. A. Pérez-Ruiz, "Saludos en la hora cero," Verde olivo 9 (1990): 8-11.
7.  Granmá Weekly Review, 9 June 1991, 13.
8.  Bohemia 83, 15 (12 April 1991): 33.
9.   United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (hereafter ECLAC), The Cuban Economy in the Nineties: Structural Xeform and Economic Performance (Statistical Appendix), LC/MEX.R.621 (26 \ugust 1997), Table A.15.
10.  Granmá Weekly Review, 27 May 1990, 3; 1 July 1990, 1.
11.   Carlos Lage, "Discurso pronunciado por el Dr. Carlos Lage Dávila, icepresidente del Consejo de Estado y secretario del Comité Ejecutivo del 'onsejo de Ministros, en la inauguración de la XII Feria International de La labana," Dossier (Havana: Ceníro de Estudios sohre America, 1995), 89.
12.  ECLAC, The Cuban Economy in (he Nineties, 131 and Table A. 15.
13.  Granmá, 18 June 1991,8.
14. James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: 'astro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 33. I was present at this meeting and heard the statement.
15.  Mearsheirner, "The False Promise of International Institutions," 7.
16.  Kenneth N. Waltz, "Evaluating Theories," American Political Science eview 91,4 (December 1997): 915-916.
17.  See Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in e World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), i-95. Other elements in institutionalist explanations do not fit the Cuban expe-:nce in the 1990s. These would include the expectation that institutions would militate cooperation, not just ward off trouble or serve as a balancing alliance, or at they would assist in adjusting domestic institutions and procedures to facili-e international cooperation.
18.  Dominguez, To Make the World Safe for Revolution, 92-104.
19.   Michael A. Morris and Martin Slann, "Controlling the Sources of maments in Latin America," in Michael A. Morris and Victor Millán, eds., •ntrolling Latin American Conflicts: Ten Approaches (Boulder, Colo.: Westview :ss, 1983), 124-126, 138-142.
20.   Isabel Jaramillo, "Seguridad y cooperación hemisférica," in Rafael rnández, ed., Cuba en las Americas (Havana: Centro de Estudios sobre lérica, 1995), 36.
21. Juan Valdés Paz, "La política exterior de Cuba hacia America Latina y el ribe en Ios anos 90: los temas," Cuadernos de Nuestra America 9, 19 (July-cember 1992): 27, 130.
22. For the text and the conference report, see U.S. House of Representatives, jban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996," Report M68(l March 1996).
23.  For historical illustration, see Ana Covarrubias, "Cuba and Mexico: A :e for Mutual Nonintervention," Cuban Studies 26 (1996): 121-141.
24.  Cubalnfo 8, 15 (21 November 1996): 7-8; 9, 15 (13 November 1997): 5.
Cuban Fort'tgn Policy        205
25. John Walton Cotman, "Cuba and the CARICOM States: The Last Decade," in Donna Rich Kaplowitz, ed., Cuba's Ties to-a Changing World (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993).
26.  Manuel Rua and Pedro Monreal, "El Oriente cubano y el Caribe: desafios y oportunidades para el comercio y la inversion," Cuban Foreign Trade (Havana) (October-December 1993).
27.  Canute James, "Caribbean Community, Cuba Sign Controversial Trade Pact," Journal of'Commerce, 15 December 1993.
28.  Andres Serbin, "Globalization and Regionalization in the Caribbean Basin: The Challenges of a Sociopolitical Agenda for Integration," in Michael C. Desch, Jorge I. Dominguez, and Andres Serbin, eds., From Pirates to Drug Lords: The Post-Cold War Caribbean Security Environment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).
29.  See also a thoughtful article by H. Michael Erisman, "Evolving Cuban-CARICOM Relations: A Comparative Cost-Benefit Analysis," Cuban Studies IS (1995): 207-227.
30.  ECLAC, 126.
31.   This section draws heavily from Jorge I. Dominguez, "U.S.-Cuban Relations: From the Cold War to the Colder War," Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, 3 (Fall 1997): 49-75.
32.   For a general discussion of confidence-building measures in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s, see Joseph S. Tulchin with Ralph H. Espach, "Addressing the Challenges of Cooperative Security in the Caribbean," Peace and Security in the Americas (September 1997): 1-8; Francisco Rojas Aravena, "America Latina: alternativas y mecanismos de prevención en situa-ciones vinculadas a la soberania territorial," Paz y seguridad en las Americas (October 1997): 1-15.
33.  These paragraphs draw heavily from several confidential author interviews in Washington, D.C., 1993, 1996, and 1997, and Havana, 1996.
34. CubalnfoZ, 13 (10 October 1996): I.
35. Cubalnfo 7, 16 (20 December 1995): 1.
36.  Jorge I. Dominguez, "Cooperating with the Enemy? U.S. Immigration Policies Toward Cuba," in Christopher Mitchell, ed., Western Hemisphere Immigration and United States Foreign Policy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); and author interviews in Washington, D.C., 1997.
37. Confidential author interviews, Washington, D.C., 1993, 1996, and 1997. For criticism of these meetings by some Cuban-American members of Congress, see Cubalnfo 8, 9 (11 July 1996): 2-3.
38.  On 9 and 13 January 1996, Brothers to the Rescue pilots had dropped flyers over Havana, alarming the Cuban government because of a breach of security. On 24 February, at least one of three airplanes piloted by the Brothers penetrated Cuban air space, though none were over Cuban waters at the time of the shoot-down.
39. Larry Rohter, "Ceremonies Honor Fliers Shot Down by Cuban Jets," New York Times, 25 February 1997, A12.
40.  Confidential author interviews, Havana, 1996; Washington, D.C., 1997; Miami, 1998. On 13 July 1996, on Cuban television 1 watched the Cuban-American flotilla just outside Cuban territorial waters surrounded by collaborating U.S. and Cuban coast guard vessels.
206          Jorge I. Dominguez
41.  For an argument by a Cuban scholar that the Cuban government seeks cooperation over security issues, see Rafael Hernandez, "Cuba and Security in the Caribbean," in Joseph S. Tulchin, Andres Serbin, and Rafael Hernandez, eds., Cuba and the Caribbean (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1997).
42.  For a more general discussion of this point, see Andrew Moravcsik, "Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics," International Organization 51,4 (Autumn 1997): 526-527.
43. Thomas Carothers, In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in the Reagan Years (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
44.  Viron P. Vaky and Heraldo Muňoz, The Future of the Organization of American States (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1993); Arturo Valenzuela, "Paraguay: The Coup That Didn 't Happen," Journal of Democracy 8, 1 (January 1997): 43-55.
45. Gillian Gunn, "In Search of a Modem Cuba Policy," in Donald E. Schulz, ed., Cuba and the Future (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 129-133.
46. Wolf Grabendorff, "The Relationship Between the European Community and Cuba," in Donna Rich Kaplowitz, ed., Cuba's Ties to a Changing World.
47.  Commission Communication to Parliament and the Council, "Relations Between the European Union and Cuba" (Brussels, 28 June 1995), 5-7. See also a free-ranging discussion between Cuban and EU officials and scholars in Instituto de Relaciones Europeo-Latinoamericanas, Cuba: apertura económica y
-relaciones con Europa (Madrid: IRELA, 1994).
48.  Instituto de Relaciones Europeo-Latinoamericanas, "La posición común de la UE sobre Cuba: debate intemo, reacciones y repercusiones," Un informe de IRELA, INF-96/6-CUBA; Instituto de Relaciones Europeo-Latinoamericanas, "Cuba y la Union Europea: las dificultades del diálogo," Un informe de IRELA, INF-96/3-CUBA.
49. On domestic Spanish politics and Cuba, Felipe Sahagún, "Cuba: un asun-to interno espanol," Meridiano CERl 10 (August 1996): 4-9.
50.  Julia Sagebien, "The Canadian Presence in Cuba in the Mid-1990s," Cuban Studies 26 (1996): 143-168.
51.  Government of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, News Release (17 June 1996); Government of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, "Joint Declaration of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Canada and Cuba" (22 January 1997).
52.  República de Cuba, Comité Estatal de Estadísticas, Anuario estadístíco de Cuba, 1989 (Havana: 1991), 253, 255, hereafter cited by its title only; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Cuba: Handbook of Trade Statistics, 1997, APLA 97-10006 (Washington, D.C.: 1997), 1-3, hereafter cited as CIA.
53.  ECLAC, 127.
54. Anuario estadistico de Cuba, 1989, 257, 259; CIA, Cuba: Handbook of Trade Statistics, 1997, 3-4.
8
Between Vision and Reality: Variables in Latin American Foreign Policy
Robert O. Keohane
The chapters in this book are rich in anecdotal evidence of the impacts of globalization and international integration on the nations of Latin America. There is an aphorism that states that the plural of "anecdote" is "data." In that sense these chapters present data that strongly indicate that a transition—or many transitions—is under way. The natures of those transitions, however, and of the regional and national structures that are both shaping and being shaped by them, are the subject of our critical attention.
In response to these chapters 1 propose ten theses, five about Latin America—a region with which I am relatively unfamiliar—and five about global issues. My first proposition on Latin America is about economics and politics, and it is that economic integration will only occur if there are strong political reasons to promote it. It is not going to come by itself. As a result, economic integration will be shallow at the Laiin American regional level, meaning the region as a whole. It may be greater at the sub-regional level, but we are not in our lifetime going to see a strong Latin American common market on the order of the European Union. The chapters in general seem to agree with this proposition,
I do not agree with the statement that Latin America forms a regional subsystem within the global system. Empirical evidence does not support this hypothesis. Certainly, there are historical and perhaps sociocultural characteristics shared by most of the region, but it has been pointed out before that if you were to map communication routes, airline routes, and trade relationships across the globe, without sticking on national or regional labels, you would not be able to pick out a coherent geographic entity to be called Latin America. Mexico would appear to be entirely North American. In fact, judging by airline connections alone, the entire