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Confidence Building and the CubaConfidence Building and the Cuba– United States Confrontation– United States Confrontation

Hal Klepak

International Security Research and Outreach ProgrammeInternational Security Bureau

March 2000

Confidence Building and the CubaConfidence Building and the Cuba– United States Confrontation– United States Confrontation

Hal Klepak

International Security Research and Outreach ProgrammeInternational Security Bureau

March 2000

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface................................................................................................................................Acknowledgements..............................................................................................................Executive Summary...............................................................................................................Résumé................................................................................................................................INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................THE CUBA–UNITED STATES RELATIONSHIP.............................................................The Evolution of the Cuba–United States Relationship to 1959...........................................The Cuba–United States Relationship: 1959 to Today.........................................................Cuba–Unietd States Relations and the ‘Special Period’........................................................CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURES...........................................................................Cuba and Confidence Building.............................................................................................The United States and Confidence Building.........................................................................The Two Positions Where Confidence Building is Concerned.............................................A Word on Sectors................................................................................................................Is There Any Conflict Building Occurring in Cuba–United States Relations?......................US and Cuban Cooperation on Immigration.........................................................................The International Trade in Illegal Narcotics.........................................................................Defence...............................................................................................................................Other Areas of Confidence Building.....................................................................................The Results............................................................................................................................Defence Ministries................................................................................................................LESSONS LEARNED..........................................................................................................The Cuba–United States Relationship...................................................................................The Inter-American Community...........................................................................................The International Community...............................................................................................CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................

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PREFACE

The International Security Research and Outreach Programme commissioned a study toidentify and explore issues pertaining to confidence building and confidence building measures in thecontext of the over forty year-old dispute between the United States and Cuba. This report stemmedfrom that study.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect theviews or positions of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade or of theGovernment of Canada.

Department of Foreign Affairs and International TradeOttawa, Ontario, CanadaMarch 2000

(For other ISROP publications, please visit our website at http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/arms/, andproceed to the page entitled “Publications List”)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper is the result of work undertaken under the auspices of the Verification ResearchProgramme of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) of Canada (nowthe International Security Research and Outreach Programme). This programme has shown asustained interest in issues of arms control verification and confidence building in the Americas andin the world at large and gave this author consistent and valuable support during the research for, andpreparation of, this report.

With this in mind, I should like to thank Mr. Gordon Vachon, then head of the programmefor looking with favour on the idea of such a project; and Mr. Alan Crawford for looking after me,and the project, with such patience as he guided it along to fruition. Also supportive from the DFAITside of the house were Canadian Embassy staff in Havana, especially Ambassador Keith Christie,Messrs. Russell Stubbert, Stuart Savage and José (Pepe) Hernández, and the defence attaché forCuba resident in Mexico Colonel Ian Nicholls; and in Washington at the OAS, Harold Hickman andRenata Wielgosz.

In the United States as well, I have to thank cooperative and open-minded military officers,diplomats and academics alike, especially Peter Kozumplik, Richard Millett and Wayne Smith.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) was particularly helpful in the persons of CarlosFernandez de Cossío, Camilo García López-Trigo and Josefina Vidal Ferreiro. And as always theexcellent strategic think-tank of the Cuban Armed Forces, CEDSI (Centro de Estudios de Desarmey Seguridad Internacional) was good enough to let me speak on several occasions to their excellent

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staff including General Rodríguez del Pozo, Colonel Luís García Cuñaro and Lieutenant-Colonel JoséMenéndez. In the Central Committee of the Party I was able to receive the valuable views of RenéMesa García and María Antonia Ramos, and from the ISRI, the Foreign Ministry Academy, those ofa real expert in the person of Carlos Alzugaray. Always more than helpful were Rafael Hernándezof the prestigious review “Temas” and Isabel Jaramillo from the Centro de Estudios de América, twoimpressive strategic analysts of whom Cuba can be proud.

Valuable insights were also given by Laurence Whitehead and Andrew Hurrell at the LatinAmerican Centre at Oxford where much of the background research for this project was done duringmy sabbatical year there and by that indefatigable student of things Cuban John Kirk at DalhousieUniversity in Halifax. The Canadian Foundation for the Americas, where I head the programmes inGovernance and Security, was generous in allowing this project to be undertaken while working onothers for them.

At my own institution, the Royal Military College of Canada, I would like to thank Dr. RonaldHaycock, Dean of Arts and specialist in support of wayward researchers and my always patient headof department Dr. Jane Errington who is inevitably loaded with more administrative burdens as I headout on ever more baffling “assignments”.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper deals with confidence building and confidence building measures in the context of the overforty year-old dispute between the United States and Cuba over a wide range of historic, political andeconomic matters. It argues that despite the lack of formal CBMs as they are generally known andunderstood, there is nonetheless a kind of confidence building already in place, and one which couldunder certain circumstances, grow further.

The Cuba-United States relationship is a highly complex one, and its evolution has been fraught withdifficulties. A target for US expansionism during the period of Manifest Destiny of the mid-19th

century, the actual seizure of the island from Spain in the 1898 war was not followed by itsincorporation into the Union or into a formal imperial structure. Instead, informal arrangementsensured that US desires dominated national politics when US occupation forces left the new republicfour years later.

The Cuban Revolution of 1953-8, led by Fidel Castro, triumphed despite massive support by theUnited States for the Batista regime against which that rebellion took place. Indeed, perhaps themajor goal of the revolution can be seen as a second independence for the island, this time vis-à-visthe United States. Little wonder then that the United States reacted negatively to the new Castrogovernment that arrived in power in January 1959.

Relations quickly soured and Washington went to considerable lengths to unseat the new government.An economic embargo, with some elements of a real blockade, has been put in place by stages andstrengthened greatly in the 1990s. At the same time, Cuba’s only allies, the Warsaw Pact countries,turned their backs on Havana in the years after the fall of communism. Diplomatic relations betweenthe two countries were severed in 1961 and, despite the opening of respective interests sections inthe two capitals in the 1970s, relations could hardly be worse.

Cuba maintains that the United States is determined to overthrow its government and intervene toestablish one of its own choosing rather than accept the status quo. The United States argues thatthe communist government in Havana is an unacceptable partner because of its dictatorial nature, itsmeddling in the internal affairs of neighbours, and much else in its domestic and internationalbehaviour. How, then, can one speak of confidence building?

This paper argues for greater nuance in the accepted thinking on confidence building. It is theconclusion of this study that at least in this case there is room for consideration of what might becalled sectoral confidence building even where there is clearly no transformation of the thinking aboutone's opponent among the whole of one’s elite decision-making groups, a generally accepted viewof what is implied in confidence building in general.

This study shows that key elements of the United States bureaucracy and parts of the decision-makingelites have been positively affected by sectoral cooperation between them and what might loosely becalled their opposite numbers in Cuba. In the defence, counter-narcotics and immigration fields in

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particular, informal but effective cooperation has meant the creation of bodies of important membersof the policy making structures of both countries who favour such collaboration, see its advantages,press for its continuation as well as acting as breaks upon attempts to further depress the bilateralrelationship.

In the defence field, we see United States armed forces which have contact with their Cubancounterparts on a number of levels ranging from cooperation in the handling of issues related to theUS military base at Guantánamo, through overflight matters for US aircraft on their way to pointsfarther south in Latin America and the Caribbean, to drug and immigration issues with which USforces have been increasingly concerned in recent years. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) hasbeen increasingly forthright of late in its calls for increased and more formal cooperation between theUnited States and the strategically placed island of Cuba. The DEA feels Cuba is doing a good jobin its own national efforts to control the scourge and that it should be helped in bringing those effortsinto a more coordinated approach more widely in the hemisphere and especially in the CaribbeanBasin.

Even more dramatically, cooperation between the two countries in stemming the illegal migration ofCubans to the United States has functioned remarkably well, given its political, economic and socialcontext, since the key accords were signed between the two countries in 1994 and 1995. This hasmeant a truly exceptional degree of collaboration between the maritime forces of both states, an effortthat has shown both sides the value of cooperation rather than confrontation at least in some sectorsof their national policy concerns.

While less easily documented, something of the same process has occurred in Cuba. Here, however,asymmetries between the power levels of the two countries, the political system, as well as the siegementality which, not surprisingly, exists on the island; ensure that the effects are someone less visibleto the public eye. Nonetheless, it is clear that such collaboration is seen in many ways by Cuba as realif unpublicized confidence building. And it has meant that there are voices of moderation created inthe Cuban political system which can make themselves heard when bilateral relations, and policy tothem, are being discussed.

It is easy to exaggerate the impact of such cooperation, and to raise questions as to whether itamounts to what can legitimately be called confidence building. It is the finding of this paper thatdespite these real reservations, there is sectoral confidence building of a kind occurring in the bilateralCuban-US confrontation and that it can act in positive terms in reducing the levels of tension betweenthe two countries. It is unlikely that the dispute will be settled in the near future. But such highlylimited confidence building as has taken place, especially given the centrality of the security and otherinstitutions in which it has occurred, is surely much better than nothing in the highly chargedatmosphere of the current bilateral relationship. In the last resort, it acts as a break againstdestabilizing actions on both sides and as proof that cooperation is not only possible but can bemutually beneficial. In addition, it points out that an eventual and mutually acceptable peacefulsolution to the dispute should hardly be discounted altogether.

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RÉSUMÉ

Le présent document porte sur l’établissement d’un climat de confiance et sur les mesuresd’instauration de la confiance dans le contexte du conflit qui dure depuis plus de quarante ans entreles États-Unis et Cuba et qui porte sur toute une série de questions historiques, politiques etéconomiques. On soutient dans ce rapport que malgré l’absence de mesures d’instauration de laconfiance formelles telles qu’elles sont généralement connues et comprises, il y a toutefois unecertaine confiance qui est en train de s’instaurer et qui pourrait, dans certaines conditions, prendrede l’ampleur.

Les relations entre Cuba et les États-Unis sont très complexes et elles ont connu de nombreuxobstacles. L’île, qui a été une cible de l’expansionnisme américain pendant la période de la « destinéemanifeste » du milieu du XIXe siècle, n’a pas été incorporée à l’Union ni à une structure impérialeformelle après avoir été arrachée à l’Espagne lors de la guerre de 1898 . Les deux pays ont plutôtpris des ententes informelles qui faisaient en sorte que les volontés des États-Unis dominaient lapolitique nationale au moment où les forces d’occupation américaine quittaient la nouvelle républiquequatre années plus tard.

La révolution cubaine de 1953-1958, dirigée par Fidel Castro, a triomphé malgré l’appui massif desÉtats-Unis au régime de Batista, contre lequel la rébellion avait lieu. En fait, on peut considérer quele principal objectif de la révolution était d’obtenir une deuxième fois l’indépendance de l’île, cettefois-ci vis-à- vis des États-Unis. Il est donc peu étonnant que ceux-ci aient réagi de façon négativeà l’arrivée en force du nouveau gouvernement castriste en janvier 1959.

Les relations se sont rapidement détériorées et Washington a cherché par toutes sortes de moyensà renverser le nouveau gouvernement. Le gouvernement américain a progressivement mis en placeun embargo économique comportant certains éléments relevant d’un véritable blocus, puis resserréconsidérablement cet embargo dans les années 1990. En même temps, les seuls alliés de Cuba, lespays du Pacte de Varsovie, ont tourné le dos à La Havane dans les années qui ont suivi la chute ducommunisme. Les relations diplomatiques entre les deux pays ont été rompues en 1961 et, malgrél’ouverture de sections chargées des intérêts de chacun des pays dans les deux capitales dans lesannées 1970, les relations étaient au pire.

Cuba affirme que les États-Unis sont déterminés à renverser son gouvernement et à intervenir pourétablir un gouvernement de leur choix, plutôt que d’accepter le statu quo. Le gouvernementaméricain soutient que le gouvernement communiste de La Havane est un partenaire inacceptable enraison de sa nature dictatoriale, de son ingérence dans les affaires internes des voisins, sans parler deson comportement aux niveaux national et international. Comment peut-on alors parler d’instaurationde la confiance?

On nous invite dans le présent rapport à nuancer davantage notre conception courante du processusde l’instauration de la confiance. La présente étude conclut en effet qu’il y a, à tout le moins dansle cas qui nous intéresse, place pour envisager l’instauration d’un climat de confiance sectoriel, même

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s’il est clair qu’il n’y a aucune transformation quant à la façon de voir la partie adverse chezl’ensemble des décideurs de l’élite, ce que l’on considère généralement comme un facteur nécessaireà l’instauration d’un climat de confiance général.

La présente étude montre que les principaux éléments de la bureaucratie américaine ainsi que desmembres de l’élite décisionnelle ont été favorablement touchés par la coopération sectorielle avecceux que l’on pourrait désigner au sens large comme leurs homologues à Cuba. Particulièrement dansles domaines de la défense, de la lutte antidrogue et de l’immigration, pour mettre en place unecoopération informelle, mais efficace, on a créé des organismes formés de hauts responsables desorientations politiques des deux pays favorisant une telle collaboration, reconnaissant ses avantages,exigeant sa continuation et agissant comme des gardes contre les tentatives de détériorer davantagela relation bilatérale.

Dans le domaine de la défense, les membres des forces armées américaines ont des contacts avec leurshomologues cubains sur divers sujets, comme la coopération pour le traitement de questions liées àla base militaire américaine à Guantánamo, les questions du survol des aéronefs des États-Unis enroute vers des destinations plus au sud en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes et les questions de lalutte antidrogue et de l’immigration, des sources de préoccupation qui ont pris de l’importance cesdernières années pour les forces armées américaines. La Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) s’estmontrée de plus en plus pressante dans ses appels pour une augmentation de la coopération officielleentre les États-Unis et Cuba, dont la situation est si stratégique. La DEA estime que Cuba estefficace dans ses propres efforts nationaux en vue d’enrayer le fléau et que le pays devrait recevoirde l’aide pour organiser ces efforts en une approche concertée et étendue à une région plus vaste del’hémisphère, particulièrement au bassin des Caraïbes.

La coopération entre les deux pays pour enrayer l’immigration illégale des Cubains aux États-Unisa donné quant à elle des résultats remarquables, compte tenu des contextes politique, économiqueet social, depuis la signature des principaux accords en 1994 et 1995. Ces ententes ont nécessité unniveau exceptionnel de collaboration entre les forces maritimes des deux pays, un effort qui a faitprendre conscience aux deux parties des avantages de la coopération par rapport à la confrontation,du moins dans certains secteurs visés par les politiques nationales.

Bien qu’il soit moins facile de documenter les résultats, le même genre de processus s’est déroulé àCuba. Cependant, les inégalités au niveau de la puissance des deux pays, le système politique en place,ainsi que le climat de siège qui existe dans l’île (il ne faudrait pas s’en étonner) font en sorte que leseffets sont moins visibles pour le public. Il est toutefois clair qu’une telle collaboration est considéréede multiples façons par Cuba comme l’instauration d’un climat de confiance, même si l’initiative n’estpas annoncée publiquement. On a de plus vu à la mise en place dans le système politique cubain devoix de la modération qui peuvent se faire entendre lorsqu’il est question de relations bilatérales etde politiques en la matière.

Il est facile d’exagérer les répercussions d’une telle coopération et de remettre en question ce qu’onpeut légitimement appeler l’instauration de la confiance. Selon les conclusions du présent rapport,

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malgré ces réserves fondées, il y a effectivement établissement d’un certain climat de confiancesectoriel dans le contexte de confrontation entre Cuba et les États-Unis qui peut s’avérer bénéfiqueen entraînant une baisse de la tension entre les deux pays. Il est peu probable que le conflit se règledans un avenir rapproché. Mais le climat de confiance limité qui a été établi est certainement de loinpréférable à aucun progrès dans l’atmosphère fortement chargé des relations bilatérales actuelles,surtout si l’on tient compte de l’importance centrale de la sécurité et des autres organismes au seindesquels le changement a eu lieu. En dernier recours, ce changement agit comme un garde contreles mesures de déstabilisation des deux parties et constitue une preuve que la coopération est nonseulement possible, mais qu’elle peut s’avérer bénéfique pour les deux pays. De plus, il nous faitconstater que la possibilité d’une solution de paix mutuellement acceptable ne devrait pas être écartéed’emblée.

CONFIDENCE BUILDING AND THE CUBA – UNITED STATESCONFRONTATION

INTRODUCTION

This paper deals with confidence building and confidence building measures (CBMs) in thecontext of the ongoing dispute between the United States and Cuba over a wide range of historic,political and economic matters. The very idea of a study of such an activity as confidence buildingin such an intractable and long lasting conflict may strike the reader as, to say the least, odd andperhaps even foolhardy. After all, one side sees the other as determined to destroy it at whatever costand however long it takes, while the second party sees its opponent as an incorrigibly evil regime inwhich one can never have any real faith. This is not the stuff of which normal confidence buildingefforts are generally constructed.

Despite the above, this paper will argue that there is a kind of confidence building processalready in place, and showing signs of further useful roles, between the United States and Cuba. Itwill point to a series of measures, unilateral or bilateral, and even some in multilateral contexts, whichcan be seen as confidence building.

In doing so, this paper seeks to answer the following questions:

• In what sense can one speak of confidence building, and CBMs in the Cuba-United States context?

• What is the background to any confidence building now being done in the Cuba-United Statesrelationship?

• What is the current state of such confidence building?

• What has such confidence building actually achieved in terms of the generally recognized objectivesof CBMs?

• What lessons can be learned from the Cuba-United States experience with CBMs for

- the parties involved?- the inter-American community and its discussion of CBMs?- the wider international sphere and the utility of CBMs elsewhere?

The Cuba–United States dispute is original in such a wide variety of ways that it could beargued that any lessons learned there would be inapplicable elsewhere. Again, this paper will suggestthat this is not the case, and that there are reasons to study this context for CBMs because of trulyinteresting lessons for the both the theoretical and practical debates on the nature and utility ofconfidence building and CBMs. This study does not enter into those debates, but will instead attemptto add some new factors to them. Confidence building, for the purposes of this paper, will be taken

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1 For his earlier thinking on this, see James Macintosh, Confidence and Security Measures: A CanadianPerspective (Ottawa: Department of External Affairs, Arms Control and Disarmament Division, Study No. 1, 1985),pp. 64-5.

to be those actions referred to in the definition developed by Canadian expert and theoretician onconfidence building James Macintosh in his early five-part description of them:

“CBMs involve a variety of arms control measures entailing state actions that can beunilateral, bilateral of multilateral;CBMs attempt to reduce or eliminate misperceptions about specific military threats orconcerns by communicating verifiable evidence that those concerns are groundless;CBMs demonstrate that military and political intentions are not aggressive;CBMs provide early-warning indicators to create confidence that surprise will be difficult toachieve;CBMs restrict the opportunities for the use of military force by adopting restrictions on theactivities and deployments of those forces within sensitive areas.”1

Macintosh insists later on that the objective of confidence building is to move towards atransformation of the overall view of the opponent in the minds of key decision markers on the otherside of the conflict. Thus purely military CBMs can be only part of the story and political, economicand wider cultural measures can also be set in place to reach the goal.

This paper will suggest that in the Cuba–United States context key sectors of the elite anddecision making community have been affected by what can quite easily be seen as CBMs. And itwill be further asserted that this has indeed had an effect on the evolution of the relationship between(and the wider political and security decisions taken) by the two sides. In the view of this author, thesectoral issue has been insufficiently addressed so far in the literature on CBMs. That is, even wherethere has been no overall elite or decision-maker transformation of views where the opponent isconcerned, there may be sectors of that elite or of those decision-makers who have had their viewsaffected. Furthermore, those sectors may make their views heard and respected. In the case studiedhere it has been found that both of these hypotheses apply.

THE CUBA–UNITED STATES RELATIONSHIP

The Evolution of the Cuba–United States Relationship to 1959

It often comes as something of a surprise to discover that Cuba and the United States havehad a mutual interest in one another since well before either of their independence movements. Tradebetween the Spanish colony and the Thirteen Colonies which would make up the United States hadbeen important at various times in the 17 decades of shared colonial status. Florida, bordering onGeorgia, was still Spanish and was in a close relationship itself with Cuba, the centre of Madrid’sCaribbean empire. And English colonists from the north had served in the capture of Havana in 1762.

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The relationship was, however, very limited. It was only with US independence that theredeveloped a relatively sustained interest on the part of that new country in the Pearl of the Antilles.From early in the 19th century Thomas Jefferson and other US statesmen made clear the interestWashington would have in acquiring the island from Spain, or in times of distress, ensuring that thecolony did not fall into other, especially British, hands. Schemes for purchase of the nearby islandwere put forward at various times, especially when Spain was hard pressed, economically orpolitically (or both), over the 19th century. And while always rejected, the issue of acquisition ofCuba never entirely disappeared from United States foreign policy.

As the popularity of the nationalistic and expansionist concept of “Manifest Destiny” gainedground with the American public in the mid-19th century, this interest grew. This state of affairs wascomplicated by the utility Cuba represented for the slave states of the American Union as a potentialfuture partner in keeping the balance between slave states and “free” ones within the US politicalsystem of the time. Cuba was a vastly important sugar producer over this period, and its economywas based solidly on slave labour.

When US expansionists failed to annex Canada in the War of 1812, American eyes turnedincreasingly to the south. Spain’s desperate situation during the Napoleonic Wars provided theopportunity to acquire Florida (which then included the southern portions of Mississippi and Alabamaas well) by military coup de main. This was followed by growing pressure on Mexico, ending withthe conquest or forced purchase of roughly half of that country in the first half of the century. Spainwas therefore to say the least wary of US pretensions concerning Cuba, especially when the mothercountry was shorn of all its other American territories barring Puerto Rico in the independence warsof 1808-1826.

At the same time, the Cuban political and economic scene gave rise to complications as well.As Spanish power waned, and with it a good deal of loyalist sentiment in key sectors of thepopulation, an answer to the question as to “whither Cuba” became increasingly important. Whilesome of the educated classes remained fiercely loyal to Spain, others preferred the option ofindependence, while still others became annexationists – that is, proponents of incorporation into thevibrant young republic to the north.

The Ten Year’s War, a first major struggle for Cuban independence, took place between 1868and 1878, and ended with a compromise solution in the Pact of Zanjón. This compromise had littlechance of success, however, and in a context of continuing Spanish decline and misgovernmentrebellion broke out again in 1895, this time under the political leadership of José Martí, one of LatinAmerica’s most famous intellectuals, and the military command of General Máximo Gómez. Thiscombination proved much more successful in shaking Spanish rule, despite the early death of Martíin battle.

This second major war for independence attracted much more interest in the United Statesthan had the first since in the late 1860s and 1870s that country was still in the throes of recuperation

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from its devastating civil war. By this time, the era of imperialism was in full swing in the Westernworld, and many in the United States shared European views that the only way to gain or retain greatpower status was to expand into areas of the world where local conditions permitted a takeover.Many US citizens belonged to this imperialist school of thought and put considerable pressure onPresident McKinley to intervene in the war and acquire Cuba for Washington.

After a series of incidents, the United States and Spain went to war three years into theCuban-Spanish struggle. Its intervention was decisive and in a few short months what was left of theSpanish Empire in the Americas, and indeed in Asia as well, was gone. The United States nowoccupied the island for four years, but the imperialist wing of public opinion was unable to getacceptance for an actual permanent incorporation of Cuba into the Union or some formal imperialstructure. Nonetheless, through the Platt Amendment the US retained the right to intervene in Cubaat any time it felt its interests were threatened and with this restriction, Cuba achieved a ‘secondindependence’ in 1902.

It must be said that in reality Cuba was rather more a client state than an independent one,especially up to 1934 when, as part of President Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbour Policy’, the Americanright to intervene in Cuba was dropped by Washington. By then, the United States was in a positionof total economic and political dominance over the island, with the vast majority of foreign investmentholdings, the bulk of imports and exports, and a large number of local politicians, in its hands as well.Democracy remained a sham and gangsterism became rampant.

The Cuba–United States Relationship: 1959 to Today

It was in this context that the opposition 26th of July Movement, headed by the young lawyerFidel Castro Ruz, began to operate in 1953. While quickly gaining considerable sympathy in someAmerican circles, Castro suffered a series of reverses until in 1957 and 1958, fortune began to shineon his rebels in the mountains and his urban guerrillas in most of the main cities of the island. OnNew Year’s Eve 1959, the then dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country and the next week sawFidel take power. It quickly became clear that what he had said in his main political statement LaHistoria me absolverá (History Will Absolve Me) were indeed his real intentions. Dramatic reformwas to be the order of the day. Furthermore, any such reform would necessarily affect adversely USinterests.

The unfortunate story of the rapid decline of United States – Cuba relations over 1959 and1960 is too complex to detail here. However, in essence, in a series of moves and countermovesdemonstrating increasing frustration and impatience on both sides, economic relations between thetwo countries were brought to a virtual standstill, political links envenomed, and a vast migration ofCubans began most especially to the United States but also to selected Latin American countries andSpain.

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The Cuban government drifted steadily to the left. It remains unclear whether this wasCastro’s original intention or whether US policies forced him in that direction. Be that as it may,major US investments in the country were nationalized and the arrangements for compensation wereconsidered totally inadequate in Washington. Agrarian reform, as implemented by the newgovernment, was considered especially unacceptable. The upper and middle classes of the islandbegan to vote with their feet, and they were encouraged to do so by the United States. In January1961, with mutual acrimony abounding, diplomatic relations were finally broken.

Over the months before that date, the United States had used the economic weapon with greatvigour, first by cutting Cuban sugar quotas for exports to their essential northern market, and thenby implementing a steadily harsher embargo on Cuban exports as a whole. Given the dependence ofCuba on the US economy, reinforced steadily since formal independence from Spain, the result wasdevastating. After attempting to find alternative arrangements in some areas with Western Europe,Havana finally turned to a policy of closer relations with the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pactnations.

For the next decade and a half the relationship was truly in the deep freeze. Cuba openlysupported the Soviet Union in international affairs, the revolution was formally declared to be‘socialist’, the Communist Party (pro-Batista for many years) became the official embodiment of thestate, and the economy made thoroughly statist. From 1962 to 1968, Havana openly engaged in an‘export of revolution’ phase in Latin America and even more widely in the world. Cuban volunteerstook part in other leftist revolutions, some under the leadership of the legendary Ernesto ‘Che’Guevara. Cuba trained, armed and supported leftist insurgencies in Central America, the Caribbean,and throughout much of South America – not to mention in Africa, where the Cuban role exceededanything one might have imagined for a country of its size and resources.

Soviet and other Comecon arrangements gave Cuba a favoured place in the socialist divisionof labour. Cuba continued, despite Fidel’s initial intentions, to specialize in the export of sugar, a factwhich was to have enormous consequences for the country later on. The upper and middles classdisappeared altogether in Cuba as deep reforms worked miracles in Cuban education, health andhousing, albeit at a heavy price in some political, social and economic terms.

Cuba entered the headlines repeatedly and almost always in a situation of direct confrontationwith the United States. And it did so in exceptional circumstances during the Cuban Missile Crisisof 1962, when the Soviet Union’s despatch of offensive missiles to the island brought NATO and theWarsaw Pact to what was arguably the brink of nuclear war.

During these years the United States tried repeatedly to unseat the Cuban government.Organizing, arming, training and otherwise supporting Cuban exile movements on and off USterritory, Washington sent the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion force to its destruction in April 1961.The CIA became involved in repeated plots to eliminate Castro and his government (physically, onsome occasions). And the boycott of Cuban goods was extended in such dramatic fashion that the

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2 See the Cuban argument in Carlos Batista Odio, et al, “Bloque, no embargo”, in Carlos Batista Odio, et al, ElConflicto Cuba-Estados Unidos (Havana: Editorial Felix Varela, 1998), pp. 38-48.

3 United States Department of State, Department of State Bulletin LXXVII(5) (December 1977), p. 2006.

Cubans could soon speak of a blockade rather than a simple embargo.2

In essence, the relationship could not have been worse. Even when the export of revolutionphase of the foreign policy of the new government ended in the late 1960s, relations did not reallyimprove. When elements of the US government were tempted to normalize relations, such as whenair piracy became a serious problem for the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, the electoralstrength of the exile community in Florida and elsewhere ensured that to this temptation there wouldbe no yielding.

This situation seemed to be close to changing with the new government of Jimmy Carter. Realdiscussions were begun between Washington and Havana on the resumption of relations, or at leastsome improvement in them. Interestingly enough, the official reason given for attempting to reopena dialogue could have been taken from a handbook on CBMs. “We have been moving to restorecommunications with Cuba for a very simple reason: None of the many serious problems that concernus in our relations with Cuba have been solved – or can be solved – by isolation. We stand a betterchance of achieving these objectives through quiet negotiation and reciprocal moves towardcooperation than through inflexible hostility and a continuing refusal even to talk”.3

With this approach there were certainly some positive changes in the relationship, with somehumanitarian gestures made and the opening of special interests sections of the two countries in oneanother's capitals. But the changes proved temporary and no real breakthrough occurred. What theUnited States saw as continued and indeed increasing Cuban trouble-making on the internationalscene and especially in Africa put paid to this hopeful initiative, as well as a number of others theCarter government had undertaken in the optimistic mood which characterized it’s attitude towardsCuba earlier in its mandate.

The 1980s were marked by a return to the even poorer relations of the past. Despite itsmoderating role in a series of Central American conflicts, the Castro government continued to be seenas a pariah in the Americas by Washington. Indeed, a new low was reached when Cuban and USpersonnel actually fought one another during the US invasion of Grenada in 1983.

The strength of Cuba’s relative position was by the middle of the decade shrinking rapidly.The visible decline of the Soviet Union, its desire for better relations with the United States as a firstpriority, its new policies of glasnost and perestroika which were at times incomprehensible and thenanathema to the Cuban government, all pointed to trouble for Havana. In general, the communistmovement worldwide was in difficulty, with Eurocommunism undermining the Soviet Union’sleadership of the communist system, many Third World countries abandoning not only Moscow buttheir own socialist experiments, China falling well out of the Soviet orbit, and the Reagan “roll back”

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offensive against communism in full swing. As if all this were not enough bad news for Havana,Cuban economic performance continued to be less than impressive.

Cuba–United States Relations and the ‘Special Period’

These early blows were as nothing, however, when compared with the impact of the eventsof 1989-91. The demise of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, and then of the Soviet Union as asuperpower tout court, augured for massive change in the Cuba-United States relationship as well.From Havana’s perspective all the news was bad, and this could only make intransigent elements inthe United States keen to put paid to the Revolution once and for all.

The end of the valuable cooperative arrangements between Cuba and Eastern Europe was thefirst major blow and came quickly with the fall of communist regimes all over that region in theautumn of 1989. Almost as important, however, were the results of bilateral agreements betweenMoscow and Washington which served to pull the rug out from under Cuban efforts to support leftistmovements in Central and South America as well as in the Caribbean. The Sandinista governmentin Nicaragua, Cuba’s only real friend in the Americas by the end of the 1980s, fell in the elections ofFebruary 1990. The leftist coalition of forces fighting the government in El Salvador and Guatemalaengaged in serious negotiations for an end to those conflicts. Elsewhere, the left was increasinglydiscredited as at worst evil and at best irrelevant to the future.

The end of the socialist division of labour was an absolute disaster for Cuba. The countrywould now have to deal with the Soviet Union on a cash basis, something which in effect meant theend of almost all the bilateral dealings in place for well over a quarter of a century. And the end ofthe Soviet Union meant the disappearance of the major ideological and economic support for theCuban state. Locked into a state-run economy whose international role was in the main the supplyof sugar, Cuba now had lost its main markets and even its main sources of imports, since thosecountries which were partners for so long now would take only hard currency, of which Cuba hadlittle (and would soon have much less).

The Cuban economy reeled. The Soviets had taken in the last period of special arrangements63% of Cuba’s exports of sugar, 73% of nickel, 95% of citrus and 100% of electrical components.For the same period it sent Cuba 63% of its food imports, 98% of its fuel, 80% of its machinery, and74% of its imports of other manufactured goods. This exceptional situation disappeared almostovernight, with Cuba losing about 80% of its total international purchasing power. Imports fell bya shattering 70% in only two years. In the period 1959-1988, some 87% of Cuban trade had beenwith the socialist bloc. By 1994, the figure stood at 12%, and this was a percentage of a by nowvastly reduced total. In addition, in an even more sustained way, the prices of almost all majorexports- citrus, tobacco, sugar, tobacco) fell with only nickel temporarily holding its own. The socialcosts were staggering. Over the years 1989-1993, the Cuban per capita diet lost 40% of its protein,

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4 These figures come from Luis Suarez Salazar, Cuba: ¿aislamiento o reinsercion en un mundo en cambio?(Havana: Editorial de las Ciencias Sociales, 1997).

64% of its fat, 62% of its vitamin A, 62% of its vitamin C.4

The consequences for United States-Cuba bilateral relations was quick to present themselves.Two schools of thought appeared. One suggested that the supposedly rotten fruit was about to fallanyway, so that there was no reason to pursue an active policy in order to achieve that collapse. Theother said that the moment had come to put the coup de grace to Fidel and that as a result theembargo should be strengthened and all other possible initiatives should be undertaken to topple thegovernment in Havana.

Both had their day or days. The US government did not move quickly to take advantage ofthe situation. However, extremist members of the legislature did over time move their own agendaforward. The Cuban Democracy Act of 1991, generally termed the Torricelli Act, dramaticallytightened the embargo. Ships of third countries dealing with Cuba could not put into a United Statesport for six months after their Cuban call, a heavy price for shippers who had to consider a US markethundreds of times for important than the Cuban one. All manner of humanitarian and culturalactivities still permitted by US law to take place between the two countries were abolished. TheTrading with the Enemy Act, already in force where Cuba was concerned, was reinforced.

Over the years from 1992 to early 1996, however, the ability of the Cuban government toweather the storm impressed many and there was an evolution of public thinking in the United Stateson the subject of Cuba. Polls showed most US citizens favoured a normalization of relations withCuba. Trade and investment circles included many anxious to get into the Cuban market. NGOs andhumanitarian, sports, and cultural groups pressed for revisions in the applied policy.

Then came February 1996. The ‘Brothers to the Rescue’ incident, where two exile planesillegally flying to Cuba were shot down by the Cuban air force, brought an opportunity for the hardliners not only to hold their own but to counterattack successfully. For months there had been beforeCongress a ferocious piece of legislation with the express intention of toppling the Havanagovernment. The Helms-Burton Bill, which intended to get tough on all those “trafficking” withCuba in investment or trade terms and thus markedly accelerate the expected fall of the Castrogovernment, passed Congress. The embargo was tightened still further, and foreign investment wasdiscouraged since US nationals who had seen their holdings nationalized in the early years of therevolution could now undertake court actions against foreigners who purchased those assets. Evenmore extraordinary was the provision that these arrangements would apply to Cubans who had notbeen US citizens at the time of nationalization.

At first such an exaggerated piece of legislation seemed certain to be rejected by theinternational community and by some of the United States’ closest allies. Even if it did pass, firmrumours in Washington suggested that it would be vetoed by President Clinton. But the shootingdown of two civilian aircraft pushed Congress to adopt the legislation, irrespective of its failings.

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As expected, the bill, which struck the international community as both absurd and adangerous precedent, was criticized almost everywhere in the strongest language possible as anaffront to international law and custom as well as completely contrary to the principles of free tradeand economic integration. Investment continued to flow into Cuba and a number of internationalinitiatives were taken to reduce the impact of the bill’s provisions.

Be that as it may, there is little doubt that the bill has done Cuba great damage. Whiledenounced by almost the whole international community, it has doubtless had a major discouragingeffect on capital movement to Cuba. Many investors simply prefer not to look for problems with theUnited States in a situation where US policy can appear to many to be extreme but clear – that theCuban government must go. So while investment continues, and reaches out into new areas, thereis less of it, and particularly less growth in it, than there would otherwise have been. And while it istrue that fits and starts and uncertainties in the Cuban government about what to do about foreigninvestment have slowed the process as well, few observers doubt the efficacy of the Helms-BurtonBill.

Thus the embargo was to be stronger than ever, aimed directly at ousting Fidel and appliedregardless of the cost to US prestige and foreign policy. Relations were now as bad as tehy had everbeen. The death shortly thereafter of the main extremist in the exile community did allow for morediscussion of other options among Cuban-Americans, but the reality now was that the hard linerscontinued to dominate the discussion within that community. Furthermore, given US electoralrealities, no more liberalizing trends were likely to have a major impact in the short term.

CONFIDENCE-BUILDING MEASURES

Cuba and Confidence Building

While Cuba reached independence over three quarters of a century after the rest of LatinAmerica, as mentioned, that independence was more formal than real for a very long time after 1902.Thus, the Cuban experience in international relations is really rather short. Its foreign service has onlybeen a professional one in anything but name since the 1959 Revolution and the isolation imposedon the island by US policies since 1959 has meant that it is fair to say that Cuba’s foreign policyexperience is not only short but also rather limited in many senses. It is also true that Cuba’s maincollaborators in the past have either disappeared or are themselves under great strain.

While China is in many senses doing very well, the government there feels neither secure norparticularly strong. Vietnam’s credentials as being a communist state in any real sense are fading fast.Communist states have disappeared from Europe. And there is nothing approaching a socialistcountry or government in the Americas. Thus much of the considerable experience Cuba had builtup in the diplomatic sphere in the forty years of socialism is rather limited in its applicability today.

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This having been said, it is important to note that Cuba has now had a fully professionalforeign service for over four decades, and its diplomats are generally regarded as very good indeed.In addition, while suspended from the Organization of American States and excluded from most otherinter-American activities since the early 1960s, Cuba has been active in the Non-Aligned Movement,as well as more socialist international organizations/movements. The weaknesses of all these linkagesare of course recognized by Cubans, even as they try rather desperately to prove that they are not asisolated as some argue.

Havana is not entirely wrong in this of course. Cuba is an active member of the UnitedNations and it has been welcomed, although not without nuance, by the Ibero-American movementas well. This more recent grouping, bringing together Spain and Portugal as well as the nations ofLatin America, is a very important one indeed for Cuba, giving it the opportunity to meet in a friendlysetting with so many countries with which it has few such occasions for dialogue.

Apart from these contexts, the main successes for Cuban diplomacy of late have been in theCaribbean region. There, governments have shown considerable courage in welcoming Cuba intothe increasing number of organizations working on Caribbean issues, this despite the risk of theirfacing US ire for doing so. Cuba was invited in 1995 to become a full member of the ratherpromising Association of Caribbean States. After being invited in 1991 to the 12th CaricomConference, it has been asked to become a member. Cuba is also active in the Caribbean EconomicConference and the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

On the other hand, there have been reverses of importance of late as well. The decline of theGroup of 77 has been a very bitter pill to swallow. The Ibero-American Summit has proven quitewilling to criticize firmly the Cuban record on democracy and human rights. The Latin Americanrejection of Helms-Burton, while forthcoming, was with very few exceptions anything but forceful.And while Spain under Aznar seems to be softening its posture on some elements of the European-Cuban relationship, there are signs that other European states are to some degree losing patience withHavana.

Against this background, it is important to remember that in the specific area of confidencebuilding, Cuba has had little part to play. While a partner of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pactin many fields, its geography and special circumstances ensured that it had no role in either the Mutualand Balanced Force Reduction Talks of the early 1970s or the Conference on Security andCooperation in Europe (CSCE, later OSCE) talks in Europe. Cuba did not take part in any of thepost-Helsinki process, nor has it had any role whatsoever in other serious discussions on securitymatters between East and West.

It has on the other hand been part of the continuing discussions on the Tlatelolco Treaty of1967, the treaty banning nuclear weapons in Latin America. Even then, its conversion to the idea oflimiting its own nuclear options has been recent. Before, it argued that it could not limit its freedomof action in such a way until such time as relations with the United States improved.

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Having said this, it is important to remember that while confidence building may have beenfashionable of late in the context of the European experience, the idea is of course an ancient one, notdependent for its acceptance on particular series of definitions found in the present internationalcontext. Cuban diplomats feel they were part of a major confidence building arrangement in southernAfrica in the context of the Angola and related negotiations. As professionals, they have no troubleat all understanding both the concept of CBMs and their utility. Indeed, the many whom this authorencountered were as familiar as anyone in the north with the phenomenon, its possibilities, and itslimitations. As will be seen, they also see their approach to their neighbours and to the United Statesin particular often as possibly set in confidence building terms.

The United States and Confidence Building

The United States has of course been an active member of the international community forwell over two centuries even though it had a preference for a kind of isolationism for much of theearly period of its history. A world power for over a century now, the United States was a majoractor in the international relations of North America and the northern Caribbean very early on in itsindependent life and soon thereafter became one on a wider scale. For Mexico, Central America andthe Caribbean, Washington has been a crucial factor for well over 150 years, and for Latin Americaas a whole for more than a century.

Long feared in the whole region as an expansionist and voracious neighbour, the United Statesunder President Franklin Roosevelt embarked on a policy of gaining the confidence of its partners inthe Americas. By the end of World War II, the regional perception of the United States was largelyfavourable, although there were some who were never convinced by the US policy of the time. TheUnited States had during that time become the proponent of moderate reform in the region and a firmadvocate of democracy for all the countries of the area.

The Cold War changed all that as a new wave of military interventions accompanieddetermined efforts to bring Latin American behaviour into line with US strategic priorities. Reformof any substance was discouraged and all manner of dictatorship supported as long as their anti-communist credentials were in good order. Thus the regional perception on the left but also in muchof the political centre concerning the United States became again one of an interventionist andconservative power, willing to brook no opposition or threat to its influence and economic interestsin the region. In this regard, early US confidence building in the southern part of the hemisphereproved short-lived.

On the wider world stage, the United States has had great experience with confidencebuilding, either in earlier forms or in its current accepted form coming out of recent decades. TheUnited States was a major mover in the early MBFR talks and extremely active in the CSCE talks thatfollowed them in Europe. Much of the theoretical and practical thinking and writing on CBMs hasbeen done in US universities and think tanks, as well as in that country’s State and DefenseDepartments. As a result, the United States boasts a large number of experts and thinkers on the

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subject.

Washington conducted what was doubtless a very important and well thought out series ofbilateral confidence building measures with the Soviet Union as well. A variety of strategic armstalks, together with cooperative ventures at a number of levels in space, science, culture, and anumber of other fields underscored the desire on both sides to build confidence as the end of the ColdWar drew closer.

Confidence measures have thus enjoyed a favourable press in the United States as a whole andits advantages are often discussed with regard to conflicts around the world. It is perhaps notsurprising that this is not always the case for those contexts where US interests are directly concernedand where Washington is accustomed to having little real opposition to its wishes.

The Two Positions Where Confidence Building is Concerned

In the introduction it was mentioned that neither Cuba nor the United States are veryconvinced of the value of confidence building with regard to the resolution of their outstanding andmultifaceted dispute. Indeed, research on this subject is only for the hardy.

This is especially the case in Washington. The United States is a complex picture for theanalyst where Cuba is concerned and nowhere is this more the case that where issues of mutual trustare concerned. The base point for analysis is that here as in so much else domestic politics tend todrive the foreign policy agenda. And on the Cuba issue there exists the most complex of domesticpolitical contexts.

Most US citizens show little interest in the subject of Cuba. It is an old issue, confusing tomost, and one that is far from central to their lives or even their country’s overall prospects in theworld. Repeated polls have demonstrated the degree to which this is the case. However, on theCuban issue, one faces a phenomenon often termed the ‘single-issue voter’. This is where a portionof the population, even a very small section of the total, votes along lines dominated by a single issueof overwhelming importance for them. At various times the Israeli issue has produced such behaviouron the part of the pro-Israel constituency within a number of countries, while the immigration issuehas on occasion had similar effects among Mexican-Americans.

In the Cuban case, one sees well over a million Americans of Cuban birth or descent votingor threatening to vote along lines reflecting only their views on what US policy should be on Cuba.Whether this is an accurate impression is in many ways neither here nor there. The impression in keypolitical circles is that it is indeed accurate. And it must be said that until very recently the communityin question has been dominated by an extreme view of the proper policy to be applied where theCuban government was concerned. And while there has been some nuance added to the debaterecently, with some members of the community willing to dare to speak against such extremism; theoverall impression is still one of a large group of voters who will only support politicians willing to

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take a hard line on what to do about Cuba. This situation has prevailed for so long in the UnitedStates, and especially in the electorally important region of South Florida, that it has taken on someof the attributes of a permanent element in the US political landscape.

This state of affairs has shown itself perfectly capable of hamstringing any President orlegislator disposed to dialogue with Cuba or a fresh look at the question of Cuba policy. In a countryand political system as complicated as that in the United States, there are few leaders willing to tacklean issue as thorny as this without great cause. Pressure for this kind of a “sea change” in thinkingsimply has not existed in a society where neither business nor political groupings of clout haveconsidered a change in policy towards Cuba to be in any real way a priority for them.

This is complicated by a resentment concerning Cuba’s opposition to US policy in theAmericas and worldwide, its past links with the USSR, its frequently repressive policies at home, andits ability to successfully resist seemingly overwhelming US pressure for such a long time. Manyquite sincere Americans feel the Cuban government can simply not be trusted to fulfil its obligationsunder any CBM arrangements. Senior diplomats and even some military officers will insist that theirexperience with the Cubans is overwhelmingly negative and that CBMs simply have no place in apolitical environment which suggests that little confidence can be placed in the regime of Fidel Castro.

Others say that it is unnecessary to build such confidence in any case because the Castrogovernment is on its last legs. While these people are perhaps less numerous ten years after the fallof the Berlin Wall with Castro still in power, they do still exist and they make their views heard. Thusthe pressures for moving towards building confidence with Cuba are few and far between, while thosepushing in the opposite direction are only too obvious to politicians and many others in the UnitedStates. The existence of such little movement on the subject of United States-Cuba relations shouldthus not overly surprise us.

For the Cuban government, the question of building confidence is even more straightforward.The United States is not interested in building confidence with Cuba and thus it is impossible, despiteall past efforts on Havana’s part, to build it with the United States. In the eyes of the Cubangovernment, Washington will settle only for the destruction of the present government, thehumiliation of Cuba, and the reinstatement of a Cuban puppet regime. Furthermore, it will use all theconsiderable means at its disposal to achieve this objective. Under these circumstances, Cuba mustact to deter invasion, defend itself should it come to that, and in the meantime try to survive. Thisapproach suggests that while confidence building have been tried many times by Cuba, they haveserved little purpose to date. Finally, they will remain an instrument of limited utility for as long asthere is no political will in Washington to actually improve relations and establish genuine trust.

Cubans point to any number of past efforts to collaborate with Washington, all of them eitherrejected or only accepted because the United States could not afford to avoid them but did so onlyà contrecoeur. The agreements on air piracy, arrived at in the late 1960s and early 1970s, wouldhave functioned if the United States had not tolerated known aerial terrorists on its territory. Havana

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has bent over backward on the issue of drug interdiction even though its own drug problem is not inany way as serious as that in the United States. They maintain that the Cuban government hasworked hard on a number of issues that should impress Washington; they include immigration,regional search and rescue, terrorism, inter-American peace, the narcotics trade, peacekeeping andpeacebuilding, overflights related to humanitarian missions in Latin America, and on all manner ofissues dealing with the smooth functioning of the US base in Guantanamo. And with thesearguments, Cuban officials insist that while they have done their part, they have in turn found littleevidence of a similar desire to coexist in peace in Washington.

Instead, they argue that only a Cuban surrender is acceptable to the United States and thatof course Cuba would never consider that as an acceptable price for peace and good relations. Giventhe asymmetries of Caribbean life and the lack of a will to build trust in the United States, Cuba willcontinue to take its responsibilities seriously where its international engagements are concerned butit will not pretend that massive US opposition to its very existence is not the key element in itsstrategic situation. Such is the view from Havana.

A Word on Sectors

Neither side then sees an easy road for confidence building nor an obvious place for suchmeasures in the resolution of the conflict between them. Diplomats and officials on both sides aresomewhat averse even to discussing them, especially with third parties. Furthermore, as mentioned,there is an underlying feeling that there is no point to such discussions. No doubt this pessimism sitswell with the now conventional wisdom that CBMs work best when set in a context of a mutualdesire for better relations and the existence of the political will necessary to push efforts to resolveor at least defuse a given dispute.

If one accepts a transformational view of CBMs, as put forward by James Macintosh, thereis much to be said for this assertion. After all, the Latin American region is full of recent cases toreinforce the validity of such a view: witness relations between Peru and Ecuador, Argentina andChile, Colombia and Venezuela, and even intra-Mercosur relations themselves. It is simply logicalthat CBMs would work best under circumstances of political support, as they indeed did in Europewhen the CSCE process was propelled forward by the changes in the overall political context of thelate 1980s.

It is obviously ideal if the views of a rival or opponent in the whole of a country’s elite canbe changed or indeed transformed through the convergence of political wills, interests, and hopes forthe future. CBMs can reinforce those contexts with all manner of specific measures designed showhow trust can be had in the other side, how one honours agreements, and how mutual advantage canbe obtained in areas where mutual distrust previously halted progress.

Governments, however, are complex institutions, even in the smallest of states. Institutionalinterests among elements of governments can be quite different and the various organs of the state

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may give priority to different issues. Neither the Cuban government nor that of the United Statesalways speak with one voice, although obviously this is more the case in a liberal democracy such asthe United States than it is in a state such as Cuba, governed as it is by an authoritarian politicalsystem.

The research done for this study would suggest a little nuance be added to this view ofconfidence building which, on the whole, is nonetheless accepted by the author. The hypothesis ofthis paper is as follows: that it may still be the case, despite the correctness of this view overall, thatspecific organs of the state may have their views of a rival or opponent changed if not completelytransformed, by the actions of another state or some of its organs. It is possible to imagine that thoseactions may cause some organs of a given state to see the opponent as more reliable and trustworthythan is the case with some other elements of the same country’s government. The existence of sucha sector of a state, with such a changed view of the opponent, may then have a significant role inmodifying the behaviour of its own larger government with regard to attitudes concerning theopponent and so thereby help to reduce tensions and otherwise improve perceptions.

The argument here is that such subtle transformational experiences are possible – even moreso in the complicated state structures and politics of modern polities. The suggestion is not that thisis automatic or even likely, or that it represents anything like a transformation of the views of thebody of key decision-makers in a country. It does however suggest the potential for changes in theviews of a sector of decision-makers, and that this modification may have a degree of politicalimportance which could, under some circumstances, be exploited in order to move the conflictresolution agenda forward somewhat.

Is There Any Confidence Building Occurring in Cuba-United State Relations?

There are many observers who will argue, using the rationale described above, that there isin fact no confidence building being carried out in the Cuba-United States relationship. They willassert with some conviction that this is obvious since in so many senses relations between these twostates are worse than they have ever been. They thus argue that there can hardly have been anyconfidence building since there is less confidence than before.

It is of course difficult to argue with this assessment at the present time if one takes thetransformation of elite perceptions between Cuba and the United States as the only thing confidencebuilding is actually about. Despite clear indications from growing sectors of the business, NGO andeven sports communities in the United States, it cannot be said that elite perceptions in the countryare undergoing anything like a real transformation at this time.

If, however, one asks whether there are actions being undertaken by specific agencies of thetwo governments in question which may heighten the willingness of select institutional sectors in theone country to change their views concerning the other, then there is something of this sort very

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definitely going on in the Cuba-United States relationship. And if one asks if this modifies thebehaviour of one or both of these actors in their dealings with the other, then the answer is alsoaffirmative. Some examples of this will be required to demonstrate how this works in the presentextremely negative context.

US and Cuban Cooperation on Immigration

As is usual where matters of mass immigration are concerned, there is something of the tragicin the whole story of immigration from Cuba to the United States. A process which started early onin the revolutionary government’s rule, massive emigration from the island has occurred in fits andstarts since the early 1960s and the subsequent break in bilateral relations. This is not as a result ofa lack of potential migrants at any time in the last four decades but rather is largely caused by themigration policies of the two countries. And whereas the two capitals agree on little else, they havemade common cause on more than one occasion on the issue of illegal immigration into the UnitedStates – something which they do to this day.

It is obviously extremely embarrassing for the Cuban government to have the problem of asignificant portion of its population wishing to undertake the hazardous and painful process ofabandoning their homeland and moving to another country. At the same time, however, immigrationfrom this part of the world to the United States is neither new nor odd. The differences in standardsof living between the countries of the Caribbean Basin and the United States have for long caused aflood of immigrants northward in search of a better life. Furthermore, this is hardly true for onlyCuba, as recent events in Haiti, Central America, and to a great extent the whole of the Basin attest.

It is also true that the emigration of Cubans has had positive effects for the government inHavana, in that the opposition to the revolutionary experiment has generally had the option of simplymoving away. Indeed, such opponents – together with all other Cubans – have had since 1966 theright to settle in the United States simply as a result of arriving on its shores. This new interpretationof the US Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 gave the status of refugee to any Cubanwho manages to get to US territory and was doubtless meant to embarrass Castro then and into thefuture. While it doubtless did and still does, it is also true that many authoritarian states would bemore than pleased with such an easy and constantly accessible means by which to dispose of itspotential opposition. Thus both governments have been willing to ‘play politics’ with immigrants.

In the intervening years, there have been periods of great movement counterposed by periodsof absolute quiet where the phenomenon of Cuban emigration to the United States is concerned.There have been great migrations, such as the authorized sea borne movement known as ‘Mariel’,after the port from which it sailed in 1981. More recently, and even more dramatically, there was the‘balsero’ (raft man) phenomenon of the mid-1990s, the vast individual or small group exodus by boat,tiny raft or even inner tube of tires which captured the headlines of the world for many days.

While in the early 1960s immigration was hardly a political issue in the United States, by the

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1990s it most certainly had become one. Cold War issues had left Americans more predisposed towelcome Cuban immigrants heartily during the period from the 1960s to the late 1980s: by the early1990s the decline of the Cold War as a strategic issue had the consequence of reducing the interestof American citizens in welcoming further Cuban immigration. The migrants who came during theMariel exodus had precipitated some severe domestic criticism of the US government in 1981.Similar events in the 1990s brought an even greater barrage of complaints. The former policy ofwelcoming Cuban migrants with open arms was abandoned quickly in the face of the sheer size of thebalsero migration.

The United States government was forced to enter into formal negotiations with the Cubangovernment in order to find a way out of the burgeoning domestic crisis brought about by the issue.When the two sides sat down to discuss the matter, Havana scored a major diplomatic victory bygetting US de facto recognition of itself as the effective government in Cuba, something it had beenhoping to achieve for some time. The resulting document, while not formally termed a treaty becauseof the obvious message that would send, was included in the 1994 volume of Consolidated Treatiesand Agreements of the United States. Signed on 9 September 1994, it stated that “The United Statesand the Republic of Cuba are committed to directing Cuban migration into sage, legal and orderlychannels”, something which established a precedent of mutually beneficial collaboration on a sharedproblem.

Under the terms of the document, the U.S. would ease its restrictions on the numbers ofimmigrant visas for Cuban nationals, and would “authorize and facilitate additional lawful migrationto the United States from Cuba”. The figure set for legal immigration was to be at 20,000 per year,not including those who would come as immediate relatives of US citizens. Visa increases meant thatit was also agreed that “both parties would work together to facilitate the procedures necessary toimplement this measure”, something which would in turn imply a growth in the size of the twocountries' respective interests sections.

The two countries agreed to a procedure for the voluntary return of Cuban nationals to occurthrough future cooperation between their two diplomatic staffs, and “pledged their cooperation toprevent the transport of persons to the United States illegally”. They also stated their “commoninterest in preventing unsafe departures from Cuba”, with the United States pledging to “discontinueits practice of granting parole to all Cuban migrants who reach U.S. territory in irregular ways”.Lastly, they agreed to meet later on to review the implementation of the communiqué.

Cuba of course trumpeted its diplomatic victory, but for our purposes that is beside the point.The important matter here is that both countries did agree to deal with a crisis situation jointly andboth acknowledged the need for the other’s cooperation in order to bring the crisis under control.This was achieved in the short run. Furthermore, it is clear from discussions with both Cuban andUS officials that the implementation of this accord has proceeded smoothly since and that both sidesfeel they have the full cooperation of the other in this sad business.

There are still high level bilateral meetings on the subject of immigration and the

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implementation of the Joint Communiqué twice a year. In addition, there are more frequent meetingsat lower levels. Furthermore, either side can call for a meeting if it deems it worthwhile givenevolving events, something equally important for the purpose of building confidence. The armedforces and coast guards work together on a virtually daily basis with no friction and good results.Hand-overs of affected persons occur without incident and there is considerable transfer of usefulinformation between the two partners as well.

It is especially important to note that much of the responsibility for Cuban, and some other,illegal immigration has become in recent years the responsibility of the Department of Defense(DOD). That US government agency helps in patrolling borders and sea approaches through whichillegal immigrants move. The nature of the US-Cuban relationship ensures that this is especially truein the case of immigration from Cuba. Thus Cuban and US ships and aircraft often work together.In general, the mutual respect among these military forces is significant and has developed over time.

The search and rescue activities of both armed forces is also an area conducive to the growthof mutual confidence. This issue loomed large in negotiations and is of course a major one in thecircumstances of illegal migrants moving across the dangerous Florida Straits. In this role, and indeedin others related to illegal immigration, Cuban and US ships cross into one another’s waters in a quiteroutine fashion, surely an obvious CBM.

This is one of the few areas where Cubans are prepared to say that the cooperation in place,and that mutual activities in the immigration field can in fact be viewed as a confidence buildingmeasure. Given the bilateral nature of these activities, the Cubans also have some assurance that theimmigration issue will not be used as a stick with which the United States will continue to beat them,and the United States is in turn assured that the immigration problem will be dealt with both at itssource and in a bilateral way en route to its probable destination. While American officials are notat all inclined to use the language of CBMs in discussing this issue, it is clear that they often realisethat the cooperation arranged at a bilateral level does raise confidence in the Cuban government’sgood intentions and its willingness to live up to its agreements in this area.

The International Trade in Illegal Narcotics

For some time, at least from the mid-1980s, the United States has considered the internationalillegal drug menace to be its number one security threat. The bulk of this ‘threat’ to the U.S.originates in Latin America (mostly in Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru) in the form of heroin,cocaine and marijuana production in the region. Most of this production travels north to the UnitedStates, while lesser amounts move to Canada, Europe and increasingly to other parts of the world.For purposes of rough analysis only, countries have then been categorized into producers, consumersand countries of transit, although of course the exactness of these descriptions is open to the morethan just quibbling.

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It has proven difficult to attack the problem at source because of the distances involved andthe lack of full cooperation from, and capacity of local governments, together with the overallvastness of the task. To attack the problem in any serious way at the stage of consumption wouldimply disturbing middle class US citizens, and this would doubtless be paid for at election time bypoliticians in favour of such stern measures at home. Thus considerable emphasis has been placedon the transit phases, including the final arrival in sea and airports, and at the land borders of theUnited States itself. This is still extremely difficult to do successfully but it is more possible than theother two options and has the great advantage of not disturbing the public at home or major actorsabroad.

Given its geography, Cuba finds itself drawn into this issue. Its seven hundred miles of east-to-west coastline stretch almost the whole way across the maritime spaces between Mexico and Haitiand thus can either block or alternatively facilitate the work of narcotics traffickers attempting toreach the US market. The interest of the narcos in Cuba is thus immense and this has been the casefor some time. The concomitant interest on the part of US drug fighting organizations, and especiallythe Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), in Cuba is for this reason an obvious one.

Cuba is well aware of the strategic minefield which the drug trade, together with the island’suse by drug traffickers, represents. While Cuba does not state that it considers drugs to be a securityissue, it is obvious to all that given its dispute with the United States and the power of that lattercountry both in the region and in the world at large, only a very daring or foolish government wouldrisk running afoul of Washington on this issue at this time. It is for this reason that Cuba has beenactive on the issue of combating the drug trade for well over a decade.

In 1989, Cuba executed several high-ranking Interior Ministry and Armed Forces officers, oneof them a hero of the Revolution, after they had been found guilty of cooperating with drugtrafficking operations. Their activities were, in the government’s view, not only illegal and damagingto Cuba’s prestige, but also extremely troubling for the state’s national security, given the state ofrelations with the United States. It should be noted that this was merely one of a number of effortsby the government to prove it was serious about preventing the transit of drugs through the islandand that it understood American preoccupation with this subject. Cuba’s record is generally a goodone in this area, and has been for some time.

While Havana is obviously trying very hard to please Washington on this issue, its policy goalis to deny the U.S. any shred of an excuse for an aggressive anti-Cuba policy as justified by aperception of alleged Cuban softness on the subject of drugs. Cubans often reflect on the demise ofthe Noriega regime in Panama in 1989 as something brought about, at least in some considerable part,by his international narcotics links. They point out that between 1994 and the beginning of 1998,more than 31 tons of drugs, virtually all bound for the United States, have been seized by Cubanauthorities. They stress than some 188 foreigners and many more Cubans were arrested over thissame period while attempting to use Cuba as a point of transit. And while it is almost certainly anexaggeration when Cubans claim that over 90% of drugs landing on their coasts are seized, the Cubanrecord is by international standards probably very good indeed.

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There is little doubt that this effort is much appreciated in key circles in Washington andespecially in the DEA itself. Discussions with DEA officials have suggested this to the author thaytmany DEA staff feel that Cuba is making a much greater effort than are many countries which enjoyUS favour. Respect for the professionalism and relative honesty of Cuban security forces dealingwith the drug traffic is often immensely higher in these circles than that given to the same forces inMexico, Central America, and some other Caribbean or Andean states.

Can this be considered a CBM? It is an open secret that Cuba passes information on throughthird parties to interested agencies in the United States when it has intelligence of value to themconcerning the anti-drug struggle. The United States reciprocates, officially only on a ‘case by case’basis, but in fact much more often than that basis would allow for. There have been some huge‘hauls’ which have resulted from such cooperation, some so large than reluctant US governmentofficials have had to admit that Cuba deserved thanks for its cooperation. The DEA’s perception ofCuba is doubtless coloured by this experience, and that agency is a major player in much of thedecision making in Washington, especially on Caribbean and wider Latin American issues. It shouldperhaps not surprise us then that the DEA has rather a reputation for not taking a very ideologicalstand on Cuba and other governments as long as they play the game and cooperate in the fight againstdrugs. And at least from Havana’s perspective, such cooperation should properly be seen as a CBM,even if it is not publicly considered as such in Washington.

Defence

It is even less known that in fact the two nations’ defence forces are engaged in some other,if still very limited, cooperative efforts as well. As has been shown, this is true in the illegalimmigration field, as well as the area of drugs trafficing. Given growing US concerns in these areas,as well as steadily rising military involvement in dealing with them, the defence element of the Cuba-US relationship is an obvious one.

The sort of defence collaboration discussed in this section is however of a more traditionalkind. It involves general defence issues and arrangements for the effective use of the US base atGuantanamo, as well as matters related to support for humanitarian missions.

The Guantanamo base is, for Cuba, one of the most humiliating and even dangerous elementsof the residue of the incomplete sovereignty the country knew before the 1959 Revolution. The basearrangement was imposed on Cuba as part of the deal whereby US occupation forces finally left thebulk of the island and independence was formally achieved in 1902. The agreement establishing itspresence can, of course, only be ended with the agreement of both parties and, despite repeatedCuban attempts to convince the United States to abandon the base, Washington has been unwillingto do so. It is generally agreed that this stance is related much more to overall political questions thanto any present particular strategic need for the installation.

The United States pays a miniscule rent each year for the base to the Cuban government but

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as a matter of pride, all these cheques have been retained and not cashed since the Revolution.Despite the impact of the base on other traffic in Guantanamo Bay, the United States is not obligedin the 1903 accord to provide details of ship movements into or out of their territory. Until recently,it has also been US practice not to provide such information. Indeed, it is Cuban shipping which isobliged to move through special channels in order to enter and exit the bay and to advise USauthorities of their intentions. And it is only through Cuban military intelligence that nationalauthorities have in the past had some idea of likely movements. There are some reports that this haschanged somewhat over recent months and that the United States is now more cooperative, but it hasbeen impossible to confirm this. If this were proven to be true it would be important for the argumentof bilateral confidence building being made here.

Despite the potential for rancour, relations between the military forces of the two countriesare really quite good. The Revolutionary Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, orFAR) face directly those of the United States in only one part of the world – along the borderdemarcating the base from the rest of the island. At some places the two sides are separated byslightly less than 100 metres of terrain. Given the very poor relations between the two nations, andthe unpleasant and still quite recent experience of direct confrontation in Grenada, it might beexpected that some incidents would occasionally occur. There is little doubt that such incidents couldprove dangerous given that the state of overall relations between these two countries is quite poorand that there exists extremist opinions vis-à-vis the another state on both sides.

In this sense there has been a clear interest in both sides to avoid incidents and resolveproblems before they become serious. Interviews with officers of both sides clearly demonstrate thateach understands the need for such avoidance measures and that each appreciates the efforts of theother to ensure that no incidents occur – or if they do, that they remain firmly in hand. There is directcommunication by computer between the staffs of the two commanders on the ground and this systemis used on a continuing basis. Furthermore, meetings can be arranged between staffs on an ‘asneeded’ basis. These arrangements are reported by both sides to be functioning without difficulty.

On the more negative side, search and rescue arrangements between the two sides, effectivein the rest of the waters and air space around the island, specifically exclude Guantanamo. This isunfortunate as there is room for such cooperation in this zone, as was shown in dramatic fashionduring the Haitian boat people crisis earlier in the decade, and in the Cuban dimension of that crisisarising from the US decision to hold many of these migrants at the base.

Another positive side of the bilateral military relationship in the Guantanamo area has beenin the area of flight safety – even if collaboration on search and rescue is excluded from the twocountries’ arrangements there. The runway approaches for the base have become increasinglydifficult for pilots as more modern and demanding aircraft have begun using the facility. In 1994, theUnited States asked Cuba for a changed route into the airfield. The changes were granted only ashort time afterwards, even though they implied an increase in the Cuban airspace required by USaircraft to approach the base. Later, the United States asked for even further changes and these alsowere granted without fuss. Here again, the two armed forces appeared to be able to cooperate

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relatively easily on practical military matters, despite the poor overall state of relations between theircountries.

Finally, on the defence side, there is the question of overflights of Cuba by US aircraft. TheUnited States has for many years been involved in intelligence gathering near and over Cuba. Theseoverflights increased in the early 1990s within the political context described above. Havana has ofcourse protested these flights as violations of its sovereignty and security. In more recent years, thegrowth of an American interest in natural disaster relief (this activity has increasingly come under therubric of security, and hence a DOD responsibility) has meant that the United States has becomedesirous of flying more politically acceptable missions over Cuba. These flights would seek to reachmore quickly and efficaciously stricken destinations in the rest of the Caribbean, Central and SouthAmerica. Here again, the value of Cuba’s strategic position athwart lines of communication andtransportation to and from the United States is obvious.

Washington has repeatedly requested Cuban permission for overflights moving in the directionof areas hit by natural disasters, and Havana has consistently granted this permission. Equallyimportant, Cuba has given this permission in an extremely timely fashion. Here again, the bilateralcooperation between defence forces on practical matters of joint concern has been worthy of note.Here as well there is little reflection of the general difficulties in the bilateral relationship betweenthese two countries.

What does all this defence cooperation mean in practical terms? In the context of confidencebuilding it means that the DOD has had a much less strident position on questions affecting Cuba andits relations with the United States than have some other agencies of government. The paper willreturn to this point, as it is central to the argument being made here. It also means that the DefenceMinistry (MINFAR) in Cuba is often less willing to believe extremist versions of events, which arejust as likely to surface in Havana as they are in Miami. The Cuban military is generally content withits bilateral relationship with the Pentagon where it touches upon practical matters of joint interest– despite their obvious mandate of deterring a US invasion of the island.

Other Areas of Confidence Building

There are of course a much wider range of cooperative efforts which could also be consideredconfidence building. There are a whole series of what might be called ‘Track II’ efforts, some ofwhich have become possible because of the recent changes in US policy announced in January 1999.Unfortunately, when asked for the reasons for these changes, officials in Washington suggested thatthey were merely designed as more efficient means by which to bring about the overthrow of theCastro government. Needless to say, this has meant that Track II efforts have had, to say the least,a very bad odour in Havana as of the time of writing.

Efforts already undertaken have, however, had some effect, and many of these continue.Academic exchanges continue, although the new National Security Law in Cuba may further limit

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research within the country over the next while. At the moment, no one seems to know what itmeans. Cultural and sporting events are being organized a bit more than in the past, although thesuccess they have had in confidence building terms is limited – especially now that Track II is a dirtyword.

More effective appear to have been visits by United States Congressmen and retired militaryofficers to Cuba. Visits by business circles have of course been somewhat helpful as well. Indeed,even the visits by heads of state and government of countries close to the United States seem to havesome impact on the likelihood of progress with the relationship and in building confidence within it.The week-long visit of the Pope in January 1998 was a breakthrough in this sense and while its publicimage impact was lessened by the presidential crisis in the United States at that time, it became moredifficult in its aftermath for extremists on both sides to always emphasize the worst sides of theother’s government. Visits by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada later in 1998 and that of KingJuan Carlos of Spain in 1999 have shown that some of the closest allies of the United States havefound room for a more positive relationship with the island republic and have thought it possible tohave confidence in the word of its government, even if they both have reservations about its recordon a series of matters of concern to them.

Of all the visits to Cuba those of retired military officers have probably been the mostcommented upon (other than heads of state and government). The US military enjoys great prestigeamong the public in that country. Retired officers of general rank are accorded an elevated status,especially among their still serving comrades, something not usually enjoyed by their counterparts inCommonwealth countries. Senior retired officer visits to Cuba were conducted with dignity andaplomb, and the impression they created was much more favourable than might have been expected(at least by extremist opinion in the United States). In Cuba as well, the impression left by their visitswas a positive one little linked with the supposed malevolent influences dominating the other side ofthe Florida Strait.

The Results

The results of the confidence building activities achieved in the Cuba-United Statesrelationship may be modest, but they are also real and reflect important changes in the perceptionsof key decision-makers in the two capitals. Indeed, while one can not speak of a breakthroughsituation such as the which Europe has undergone in recent decades, or in Chile-Argentina, Brazil-Argentina, and perhaps Peru-Ecuador relations, nonetheless significant progress made in sectors ofthe elite of the two countries.

As has been mentioned, some of this is fairly removed from confidence building in its normalsense, although much of what has been done can be considered distinctly ‘Track II’. Religious groupsare active in both countries with all manner of contacts between them. The churches of Cuba,Protestant as well as Catholic, have never been entirely cut off from the outside world. And in recentyears there has been an explosion in the level and variety of such connections. The churches of the

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United States have led in this, although they are hardly out of line with activities from Canadian,European and other Latin American ecclesiastical bodies. Needless to say, the visit of the Pope in1998 gave a further boost to these linkages, even though they are still not without their bureaucraticand other official obstacles.

Sports organizations have also been active although this sphere: they too have known manyups and downs, even in recent months. Extremists on both sides have been wary of any overly deepcooperation in this important and socially influential area. Baseball in particular offers prospects forbuilding societal linkages, here but its very popularity in Cuba and the United States, together withthe long-standing links between the sporting communities in both countries, keep the lobbies againsttoo much activity both alive and active. Nonetheless, there have been connections made at a numberof levels in baseball, basketball and a number of other sports.

Cultural events have been even more problematical. Since any dealings with Cuba whichinvolve giving funds to an organization of the Cuban state are illegal for United States citizens, andgiven that cultural events usually have some pecuniary element, if only to cover costs, there has beenless activity here than might at first be expected. Cuban-Americans often follow the very vibrantculture on the island with interest, and of course many Cuban artists and groups do tours abroad. Butthe degree to which this has had a positive effect on mutual perceptions is debatable.

The nature of the dispute between the two countries explains a great many of the dfficultieswith all these traditional Track II possibilities. The United States knows that the Cuban people donot constitute a threat to the superpower next door, except as a source of migration. But thegovernment officially believes that the regime is itself subversive and untrustworthy. Hence, thereare obvious obstacles to cooperation in all these fields from Washington. The Cuban governmentdoes not believe that the people of the United States are inherently aggressive, but it does feel thatall cooperation of a Track II kind will in one form or another be used to subvert the Revolution. Thisis not ideally the stuff of which Track II efforts are made. It is rather in the area of state institutionsthat progress has, in the view of this study, been achieved.

Defence Ministries

It is now abundantly clear that the two defence ministries of the countries in question haveviews concerning the nature of of their opponent which differ markedly from the official line providedby their governments. And it is in this extremely important area that the main success story inconfidence building between the two states is to be found. It is here that we can discover usefullessons pointing to the need for a closer look at the sectoral phenomenon in the confidence buildingdebate.

Despite official positions which suggest there is no point in dealing with the other side giventhe other’s alleged recklessness, perfidy, and general inability to behave properly, the two defenceministries in question have developed a limited but satisfactory relationship which points in just the

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opposite direction. While official Cuban policy forcefully states that the United States is pushing forthe destruction of the Revolution just as soon as can be achieved and by whatever means needed,including military pressure, it is obvious that MINFAR believes that in practical and day-to-day termsthese views must be somewhat tempered in light of the progress achieved to date.

While the official United States government position is that Cuba is only waiting to embarkon a project of subversion and that Havana still seeks the overthrow of legitimate governments almosteverywhere (even through the use of armed force), the Pentagon does not share this view. Instead,it considers the Castro government an unfortunate hangover from the Cold War but not in any waya serious threat to the United States or its allies.

The DOD response to the Graham Amendment is the most forceful and impressiveconfirmation of this important change in the Pentagon’s perceptions. It is important to keep in mindwhen discussing this initiative and the report which it generated that during most of the Cold War theDOD did feel that a Cuba allied to and armed by the Soviet Union, and with offensive tasks near theUnited States, could be a problem. Even then, however, it often felt that the idea of a serious Cubanthreat to the United States was often easily exaggerated. In the years which witnessed the windingdown of the Cold War, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union itself, andsubsequently the Soviet-Cuban relationship, the Pentagon has moved steadily to reduce its perceptionof Cuba as posing not much of a threat at all.

At the same time, the evolution of the concept of security itself was to play a role here. Withthe end of the Cold War and the reassertion of other priorities in US foreign and defence policy, theconcept was steadily broadened to include more and more threats to, as it were, the values of theUnited States and not just its interests concerning the issue of immediate military defence. Thedefence of democracy, the ‘war’ on drugs, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, humanitarian assistance,natural disaster relief, illegal immigration and a host of other issues came to impinge on the moretraditional subjects delimited within the rubric of defence. And while there was, as could be expected,considerable reluctance to broadening the concept of security in this way, the public’s determinationso to do ensured that the DOD, like other defence ministries in many other parts of the world,followed suit.

In this context, two major issues took on greater importance for the Pentagon (both referredto above) – the struggle against the illegal international narcotics trade and the growing phenomenonof illegal immigration. Neither of these would have much to do with defence, at least as this conceptis understood in traditional terms. Before the 1970s the armed forces of the United States had neverconsidered a role for themselves of any substance in either of these fields. Even with PresidentNixon’s beefing up of the national effort against narcotics at this time, military forces were generallyheld at more than arm’s length from this endeavour.

The mid- to late-1980s, however, changed all that. Presidents Reagan and then Bush steadilyincreased the role of the US military in the fight against drugs and by 1987, the Pentagon was activein many areas of the effort and a lead agency in at least one (that of intelligence gathering). Their role

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expanded quite steadily, together with the requisite budget allocations, with the result that the initialmilitary reluctance to take too active a part in this field was reduced in the context of its becominga role of public importance just as the Soviet threat receded and then disappeared altogether.

The situation for illegal immigration was similar if not quite so dramatic. Here the growth ofthe military’s role has not caught the US public’s attention in the same way military assistance in thedrug war has done. Yet as was seen in both the Haitian and Cuban boat people phenomena, not tomention the evolution of the Mexico-United States border problem, the DOD has either enjoyed ageneral lead on this issue, or has taken the lead during periods of considerable difficulty and publicinterest.

Thus the Pentagon has become involved increasingly in two areas where the Cubanconnection is an important one and where the Cuban government, for its own reasons, wishes bothto be cooperative with Washington and to be seen to be so. And has been shown above, thecooperation to date has been reasonably good and effective from the Pentagon's perspective in bothareas of its responsibility. Cuba has dealt firmly with the migration issue in ways designed jointly withthe United States. While the drugs issue is still a bit grayer here, it can be nonetheless characterizedas an area of obvious joint work and cooperation. As seen at least from the Cuban side, thisexperience can be viewed as something of a confidence building exercise, even if Washington cannotformally say any such thing is taking place and if Cuba is at times reluctant to see it in these termseither. Where political will in both capitals is forthcoming, it has become obvious how much progresscould be made in these two fields. And while some Pentagon officials have gone so far as to suggestmilitary-to-military connections between the two countries to overcome residual mistrust and furthermutual interests, much less daring official documents have long declared that Cuba was no longer athreat in any real sense to the United States or its vital interests.

The Graham Amendment must be seen in this context. In light of the impending papal visitto Cuba, repeated trips there by senior ministers and officials of close allies, and a general relaxingof the public mood on Cuba-related issues in the United States, a number of Congressmen tagged onan amendment to an appropriations bill in late 1997 requiring the Pentagon to report formally onwhether Cuba was a threat to the United States. The phrasing of the amendment was a clearindication that the authors felt it still was, and they asked for specific responses on Cuba’s nuclear,biological and chemical activities, the capabilities, especially offensive, of its military forces, thestate’s current and potential subversive activities, and the like. In addition, the DOD was asked if theregime itself was not a cause for concern for US interests as a whole.

In April 1998, the review was completed by the Defense Intelligence Agency of the DOD andsent to Secretary of Defence William Cohen before release. It concluded quite firmly that Cuba was“no longer a threat” to the United States. Cuba’s nuclear programme was not considered to pose anychallenges to the United States in the foreseeable future. And while Cuba no doubt had capabilitiesin the areas of biological and chemical warfare, there was absolutely no evidence to suggest there wasany activity, or even any interest, in the development of chemical or biological infrastructures formilitary uses.

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The Cuban armed forces, while impressive in many ways in terms of their deterrence anddefence capabilities, were considered to no longer be in a position to conduct serious offensiveoperations beyond the shores of the island. Indeed, in general, the effects of the ending of the Soviet-Cuban politico-economic relationship were felt to have dealt a major blow to the FAR, in that theirgeneral capabilities were consequently no longer what they once had been. Grave deficiencies inadvanced and specialist training, a lack of spare parts, ageing and poorly maintained equipment,limited ammunition for training and operations, dwindling fuel supplies and many other problems havetogether reduced considerably both the defensive and offensive capabilities of the Cuban armedforces, with particular emphasis upon their offensive potential. Emphasis was being given on theisland to retaining to the maximum degree possible the defensive corps of combat troops whorepresent the bedrock of the deterrence and defence posture of the country. But a decline in the largergeneral forces was obvious, particularly given the need to deploy military manpower to the tourismand agricultural as well as other vital economic endeavours.

The report suggested that the potential for subversive activities had also changed dramatically.The Latin America and international community of today in which Havana had to act was verydifferent world from that of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, Cuba would find very few allies ifit still chose to engage in such activities. While the regime had not changed its view of the world,practical matters left it little choice but to limit its subversive activities, which in any case no longerposed any serious danger to the United States or its interests.

Many observers had been expecting a reversal of the evolution of DOD thinking with regardto Cuba, now that key Congressional figures were hoping to see Castro kept as a threat to the UnitedStates and its allies. With the crisis in the Presidency of that time, some felt that the Pentagon wouldbe unlikely to be as courageous in its assessment of Cuba as it had been in the years immediatelypreceding the issuance of the DOD report. And extremists were hoping to use the ‘Cuba-as-threat’argument in order to ensure that moderate opinion did not carry the day in Washington where Cubapolicy was concerned, given the changes on the island, among allies, in Latin America, in theinternational community, and in US business, NGO and other circles as well. The Pentagon reportdashed such hopes.

Perhaps most importantly, the report accepted at least part of the argument put up bymoderate opinion in many circles in the United States that the most important threat that Cuba posesto the United States would arise if there were too quick and uncontrolled a change of governmentin the country. Many observers have suggested that the political, economic and social context ofCuba and its diaspora is such that a too rapid series of changes, especially without a strong hand atthe helm of government, could turn to violence and result in crisis or even a bloodbath. While thereis much opposition in Cuba to the Castro government, it is disorganized and weak. And there isdoubtless much support for him as well. The ‘Miami’ Cubans are in particular distrusted or at leastdisliked by a huge proportion of the population. Under these circumstances it is difficult to see howan alternative government to the one in power could take over under stable and peaceful conditions.

If this is the case, then a policy seeking to overthrow Castro is ill-founded and counter-

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productive to US national interests. While the DOD reply to Graham did not go this far, it didapparently agree with much of the thrust of this argument. And as the agency with the largest rolein any such crisis, not only with illegal immigration by sea but with the capacity for invading the islandif local events became desperate enough, DOD is obviously concerned that the correct policy optionbe taken. It completely accepts the view that it is the immigration issue that is the most seriouspotential problem for the United States, given the present Cuban situation.

The DOD has been the only official department of the US federal government willing to goso far on the issue of Cuba and US relations with it. Given its position on Cuba in the hey-day of theCold War, there have obviously been some major changes in the perception of the US military on theCuban situation as a whole. This change had been gradual to be sure, but a major change there hasbeen. As is shown in the context of the debate surrounding the Graham Amendment and the DODresponse to it, this could have a very significant impact indeed on the overall situation in one of thetwo players in this dispute.

On the drugs front, the DOD, the DEA and a myriad of other agencies from the US federal,state and municipal governments dealing with combating narcotics have been willing to go some wayin acknowledging Cuba’s helpful role. And while there has been no such dramatic moment of truthas with the Graham Amendment, the DEA and other agencies quietly go about working indirectlywith the Cubans, and on specific occasions, do so openly. Behind the scenes, officials from theseagencies act as a break in decision making on Cuba since they do not accept the suggestion that theisland is either unhelpful or implacably hostile to the United States.

This is important. It means that the DOD is not alone in suggesting a moderate approach toCuba. While that department clearly plays the most important role in this area, it has other agenciesor at least people in other agencies who share its view of Havana. This means that extremist positionsare not taken at face value in discussions on Cuba policy and that there is as a result room formoderate views to be heard and perhaps acted upon.

This situation is reflected in Cuba. In an authoritarian state, there is little room for the kindof public or intra-government debate on foreign policy issues that one finds in a liberal democracysuch as the United States. This situation is exacerbated by the ‘siege mentality’ in which Cuba notsurprisingly exists. Nonetheless, as is to be expected, there are moderates and extremists in Cuba aswell and nowhere more so than on the vexing issue of relations with the United States.

The current members of the Cuban armed forces have been raised on the spectre of a USinvasion and Washington’s attempts at subversion of the government, together with a history ofconfrontations with the United States and what are often viewed as its lackeys in the form of variousLatin American regimes. The FAR is overwhelmingly loyal to the current government and to theideals of the Revolution, even though it members are hardly unaware of the privations faced by theCuban people and of the failure of Soviet-style socialism on the international scene. The officer corpsis influential, somewhat protected from the worst elements of the current disastrous economicsituation, closely tied to the state and the Party, and considered a privileged part of society as a

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whole. Nor does it see any likely resolution of the present situation, which would be better than thatprovided by the current government.

All of this means that one hears little criticism of government policy from military officers andtheir position is one of absolute loyalty to the official line. On the issue of confidence building withthe United States then, one hears from senior officers what one would expect to hear – the officialposition of Cuba on the matter. And as mentioned, the official position is that political will is the key,that the United States does not share that political will, that Cuba is small with regard to the UnitedStates and thus that the asymmetries in the Cuba-United States relationship are overwhelming, thatfurther gestures cannot be attempted since everything which could be done has been done, and thelike. However, even here, however, one notices a distinction and a considerable use of nuance whenCBMs with the United States are discussed.

In the FAR, there is considerable respect for the armed forces of the United States. This isreciprocated in many cases by US officers who have seen the FAR. In the Cuban case, one hears thisin terms of US military professionalism, of its general seriousness, of its organization, power, andefficiency; just as with US officers one hears praise of Cuban effectiveness, the generally positiveAfrican experience, the ability to make do, deterrence capabilities and again general seriousness. Inaddition, one hears from both sides statements as to the other’s reliability – in drugs operations, anti-illegal migration activities, relations at Guantanamo, etc.

Cuban officers do not therefore constitute a bulwark of anti-American sentiment, particularlyat the personal level. They are serious about their job of national defence and state that the mostlikely source of attack is still clearly the United States. But beyond that one hears much that ispositive, especially on professional issues. Indeed, they are known to take on more dogmaticmembers of the Party and its subordinate organizations when anti-US polemics become mere diatribe.And there is little doubt that within the government there are many influential officers who bringforward the collaborative efforts in which the two countries take part and argue the benefits for Cubaof such endeavours when discussions of relations with the United States are conducted. This was notalways the case, and it is the belief of this author that the changes are closely connected withconfidence building in the forms mentioned above.

In the Cuban case, of course, there is one further factor here. Havana does believe thatconfidence building with the United States would be a good idea, if only it could be achieved. Andwhile it does not trumpet the fact, there is little doubt that in many diplomatic and military circlesthere is an understanding that confidence building is taking place concerning such issues as emigrationcontrol, anti-drugs operations, and work in Guantanamo, as well as much else in foreign and defencepolicy. Furthermore, there is a perception that this process of confidence building, is closely relatedto bringing about a change of perception among key decision-makers in the United States.

LESSONS LEARNED

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There appear to be a number of lessons concerning CBMs in the context of the Cuba-UnitedStates relationship, as well as within the inter-American context and the wider international sphere,which can be drawn from this study. Each will be dealt with in turn.

The Cuba-United States Relationship

Confidence building is a so far little-used means by which to bring the two sides together hereas in many other parts of the world, even though its limitations are particularly evident in this case.

CBMs do exist and are functioning, even if they are officially denied by one party and notgiven great emphasis by the other.

Sectoral approaches can prove helpful in the context of the bilateral relationship by creatingpockets of decision-makers more willing to move forward with conflict resolution measues, even ifthe effect can only be long term and may not be ‘transformational’.

Defence and drugs cooperation have proven especially conducive to such confidence buildingexercises.

The Inter-American Community

The Cuba-United States dispute is a thorn in the side of wider inter-American desires topromote economic integration, political collaboration and conflict resolution. CBMs may help in alimited way to narrow the gap between the two sides and help them to work towards removing thisobstacle to wider future progress.

It may be helpful in the OAS Security Committee, the Defence Ministerial of the Americas,and other forums to quietly raise the issue of Cuba so as to include this dispute among those analysedas potentially assisted by the variety of approaches collectively known as confidence buildingmeasures.

The sectoral elements of the CBM discussion here point to the value of examining suchpossibilities in the context of other conflicts and disputes in the Americas. Some potential examplesmight be that of the press in the Peru-Ecuador dispute, or the defence community in Colombia-Venezuelan and some Central American difficulties.

The International Community

The existence of CBMs between Cuba and the United States are often spoken of slightingly,ignored, dismissed or denied altogether. They do, however, exist by any definition given for

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confidence building measures within the specialized literature, even if they do not completely fill everycriterion within every definition. There may be other disputes in which such situations exist andwhere insufficient thought has been given as to how to profit from CBMs in those contexts.

The Cuba-United States dispute is a particularly awkward in that it seems to suggest that thereis only one pattern of state behaviour which the remaining superpower will accept. Efforts to resolvethis dispute is therefore more important than may at first appear. CBMs may help here.

The sectoral dimension of confidence building is worthy of more consideration, both at thetheoretical level and in particular situations of conflict resolution currently before the internationalcommunity. The Cuba-United States case can be helpful in demonstrating to what extent there ismore variety out there than is always obvious to observers.

Defence forces may be especially helpful sources for more thought on CBMs in difficultsituations. Military professionalism is a powerful force and mutual respect may on occasion offersome help in otherwise problematical contexts.

The drugs issue, which so complicates international relations in so many ways, may onoccasion assist and become a force for conflict resolution rather than for discord. This area is worthyof further study both theoretically and empirically.

CONCLUSION

There is some limited confidence building occurring in the Cuba-United States relationship.It is easy to exaggerate this process or its implications, and in some quarters it is discountedaltogether. After all, there is no transformation of elite views currently taking place that mightreplace past distrust with confidence in the near future. But there are positive changes occurringamong key sectors of the elites of these two states. The asymmetries of Cuba-United States relationsare significant and will not go away. They must be taken into account. And there is obviously nogreat political will to move forward rapidly at this moment with the intention of resolving the disputeamicably. There is, however, a perception in important circles that the dispute should be resolvedpeacefully and that the other side may be more trustworthy than certain societal and political groupswould have one believe.

The resolution of the Cuba-United States dispute will not be easy and probably will not occursoon. Nonetheless, the building of confidence which has occurred in key circles of the elites of bothcountries, and which could be built upon more widely, is a step of some potential importance. Thecollaborative efforts undertaken, and the positive if limited results which they have achieved, shouldbe given more press. Mutual confidence could well follow the discovery and appreciation of othermutual interests.