Security is behind modification

Joaquín Roy, professor of Int’l Studies at the University of Miami, posits in an op-ed for El Pais that the Obama Administration’s primary goal of modifying the Bush Administration’s past policies toward Cuba is to create a more solid base guaranteeing U.S. security, thus avoiding the destabilization (internal social explosion and mass exodus) of Cuba.

He describes the Cuban armed forces as:

Exceeding the half-century survival of the Castro regime, the Cuban Army is reduced to functioning as as a local territorial guard force and for internal repression. Its government (in transition or succession by the official transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul) lies fully in Havana.”

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Instead of presenting itself as a strategic threat, the Cuban Armed Forces are considered to be the only guarantee in avoiding the disintegration of the social fabric of a country just 100 miles from Key West.

And on Cuban internationalism:

Instead of well-equipped [Cuban] regiments fighting post-colonial wars in Africa as Soviet Union allies, today Cuba uses soft power with the exportation of thousands of doctors and teachers to Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries.

Roy sums up the reality of U.S. policy towards Cuba with “in Washington, stability translates into security.”

Read the rest, here.

Tagged as: bush administration, Cuba, destabilization, internal social explosion, Joaqúin Roy, mass exodus, Obama administration, U.S. security