In his book called “Talons of the Eagle” written in 1996, Smiths analyzes the history of Latin America starting from the beginning of 19th century and ending with the modern times. He brainstorms a lot about the influence of the United States foreign policy on the development of Latin American countries. There are a lot of historical events described in the book, and Smith spends a lot of time discussing the Cold War, liberal nationalism and the propaganda of national superiority of the United States over the “undeveloped” Latin world. In this research paper, I am going to prove that the policy of the United States deeply damaged the relationship between herself and Cuba in the 20th century, which I will concentrate on.
It is interesting to realize, but there was one time when Cuba and the United States were allies. There was even the time, when the United States’ government supported the government of Castro. But after the Caribbean crisis, the Cold War and a rapid growth of Communism, the United States and Cuba found themselves to be on the opposite sides of the bipolar world. Being situated so close to each other, they were able to spy on each other all the time. There were many issues that the countries couldn’t resolve. The citizens of Cuba illegally immigrated to the United States, after which the United States was forced to deport them and separate them from their families. The other hand, the United States spied on the government of Cuba and even the civilians in order to secure itself from an unexpected nuclear attack.
The Cold War left a huge impact on the whole world, although only two countries took part in it. The world split in half. During the Cold War, every country in the world was expected to pick a side; otherwise the United States would exclude it from the list of her allies. Clearly enough, Cuba picked a side, which the United States was not happy about. Smith claimed that the Cold War became a turning point in the relationship between Cuba and the States. After the Cold War, the foreign policy of the United States was blurred and couldn’t be reasonably explained. People didn’t understand what was going on and which way they needed to go. In the American government, the time was the toughest time in the 20th century. That is why, if we look into the United States policy of that time, we will find many contradictions.
First of all, the United States who always promoted itself is a democratic country with liberal ethics, suddenly decided that a tough regime was needed to control Communism. Thus, the American government encouraged dictatorship. With all that, the United States kept opposing dictatorship in Cuba. A lot of times, the United States policy contradicted itself. However, one thing was clear – the relationship with Cuba was spoiled once and forever, and it was never going to be the same again.
In Smith’s opinion, the goal of the United States’ foreign policy was to establish control over the Latin America without being controlled by Europe, Asia, or Russia. Smith claims the United States’ desire for control and power often ignored the interests of other countries. Cuba was one of the countries that were not listened to when I came to making decisions. As I said, Cuba was politically isolated for many years due to its Communist government that stayed in power for decades.
Cuba was politically isolated because the United States didn’t feel the need to be allies with her. Of course, the United States wanted to be allies with someone who was already developed. Cuba caused a lot of trouble like illegal immigrants and illegal drug trade. Due to its position, which was very close to the United States, the Cuban citizens would often cross the border and settle down in the States, earning money by nothing but illegal drug trade. There is a contradiction here as well – if the United States didn’t need Cuba, why would they buy illegal drugs and create market for those people? So, the government of the United States actually supported all the actions of Cuba, and there was no chance that illegal trade would eventually stop.
On the other hand, Smiths claims that since the days of her beginning, Latin America was a culture of resistance, and during the U.S. interventions, it had several ways of treating it – to tolerate it, accept it or oppose it. And Latin America chose the last. During the Cold War, when the world was bipolar, Cuba decided to follow the Socialists and challenged the United States by launching a number of armed revolts. Propaganda was pretty strong in that part of the world, and the dictators promoted hatred toward imperialism and capitalism. The civilians were brainwashed through the media (newspapers, news and magazines). Moreover, in the state of economic decay, people’s minds were on how to provide for their families and how to find proper jobs. The Latin American government used the crisis to cover the real issues.
This was also done because the Latin American government understood the people’s wish to live in a democratic society. But particularly in Cuba, the rules and ethics were so deeply rooted that it was almost impossible to change them. For many years, dictatorship was considered normal in Cuba. Everybody remembers how long Castro stayed in power, and that is how many Latin American countries functioned. Sons replaced fathers and stayed presidents for decades (just like in the Middle East nowadays.)
The Caribbean crisis and the Cold War were two toughest periods for the relations between Cuba and the United States. The countries were on the brink of triggering off nuclear war. During the Caribbean crisis, Cuba almost pushed the button to start dropping atomic bombs on the U.S. After the Cold War, however, the struggle between the United States and Cuba pacified. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba lost her main ally, and without such a huge country to support her, she didn’t want to deal with the United States anymore. Nowadays, both countries consider themselves allies, but of course, the silent disdain toward each other remained. The United States holds the citizens of Cuba in airports for a ridiculously long time every time they intend to cross the border. When they travel, Americans experience negative attitude from Cubans. In this paper, I have proved that the U.S.’s intervention in the 20th century spoiled her relations with Cuba, and the aftermaths are still obvious today. However, there were contradictions as well; the government of Cuba refused to promote democracy and let the dictators stay in power for decades, which affected both social and economic lives of Cubans not less than the policy of the States.
Bibliography
Smith, Peter H. Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
