This week, when Russian President Vladimir Putin went to Havana to get closer to Cuba’s top leaders, it made us wonder, “Haven’t we seen this movie before?”
At the height of the Cold War, we begin our story. On May 8, 1960, Cuba’s revolutionary government set up official diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union. On January 3, 1961, Washington cut all ties with Havana. By the time Vladimir Putin was 10 and Barack Obama was a baby, we had already lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the opening of the Lourdes signals intelligence centre near Havana, and other events that brought the heat of the Cold War within 100 miles of our shores.
Back then, the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations decided that having a “Soviet puppet” in what some people still call our “backyard” was not acceptable. Daniel Erikson, an expert on Cuba, wrote that President Kennedy changed the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine “to support American efforts to stop the spread of Soviet influence into the hemisphere.”
From the Bay of Pigs invasion to diplomatic isolation to the toughest economic sanctions we could come up with, U.S. policy was all about getting the Soviets out of Cuba and punishing the Cubans for letting them in. This was matched year after year by Cuba’s firm refusal to give in, no matter how hard Washington hit. This was made possible by Soviet aid for a decade.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, on the other hand, caused Cuba’s economy to crash. When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, Cuba lost about $4.5 billion in aid each year. Its economy went down by about 35% almost overnight. Almost all public transportation came to a stop. The average Cuban ate 30% less calories than they did before. 80 percent less money came in from exports. When the Soviet Union stopped giving Cuba any military or economic help, the allies broke up in a very bad way.
This was Washington’s chance to say that he had won. Now that Russia is out of Cuba and our policy goals have been met, the U.S. should have stepped up diplomacy and found a way to get along with Cuba.
Instead, the leaders of the United States decided to try to finish the job. They passed the Cuba Democracy Act, which tightened the embargo even more, with the hope that Cuba’s government would fall because of the country’s economic problems. It could have been called the “Never Miss a Chance to Miss a Chance Act of 1992.”
What went wrong? Well, the U.S. embargo didn’t bring down Cuba’s government. We keep getting into trouble because we keep trying to keep Cuba out of regional groups like the OAS. Ral and Fidel Castro set up a peaceful way for power to change hands. Russia is back now, a little more than 20 years later.
A presidential aide named Yuri Ushakov told a reporter that the Kremlin thinks of Cuba as “one of Russia’s old partners in Latin America.” He said this without seeming to be ironic. Even before President Putin arrived in Cuba, Russia agreed to forgive about $32 billion in debt that Cuba owed to the Soviet Union. This was done to help the partnership grow.
Cuba’s plan to get oil from its huge offshore oil reserves, which it has been trying to get since the 1990s, now includes Russia. This is in addition to the debt being written off. As Russian oil companies made deals with Cuban oil companies to explore deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico together, Putin said, “We will help our Cuban friends end the illegal blockade of Cuba.”
On Putin’s last trip to Cuba, which was 14 years ago, he turned off the Lourdes signal intelligence centre as a sign to himself that the Cold War was over. According to Progreso Weekly, he also checked on Cuba’s past-due debt payments for loans it had gotten from the Soviet Union.
We’ve already seen this movie. “Groundhog Day” is the name for it. In that movie, the events of February 2 keep happening over and over again. Our love-struck TV weatherman learns to stop doing things that hurt himself and end the tragic time loop by doing good things for other people. Winter is cold, but spring finally comes.
“Remember that I had just been born when Castro took power,” President Obama said last year in Miami. So it doesn’t make sense to think that the same policies we had in 1961 would still be as effective as they are today, when we have the Internet, Google, and travel around the world.”
Whether it’s inviting Cuba to join the Summit of the Americas, working directly with Cuba to protect the Florida coast from the risk of a Russo-Cuban drilling accident, or using his many executive powers to increase legal travel and trade, President Obama can surely find the imagination and courage to get our country back in the game, not to push Russia out.