Cuba’s Evolving CARICOM Connection

Abstract

Cuba, like most other smaller countries, has always been vulnerable to external domination. In Havana’s case, this general trait has been exacerbated by two geopolitical factors — the island’s strategic location and its proximity to a great power (the United States) that has traditionally defined its international role in highly messianic terms. The Caribbean has long been recognized as one of the world’s premier crossroads; through it and into it have flowed goods, people and cultural influences from Europe, Africa, North America, Latin America and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Near and Far East. Unfortunately, all this attention has likewise functioned to make the Caribbean a cockpit of great power competition. This centuries-old struggle, which has raged from almost the very moment that Columbus first set foot in the New World, initially involved a wild scramble for colonies among such major powers as France, Britain and Spain. This European pre-eminence was, however, gradually displaced by the growing power and influence of the United States. Standing at the epicentre of this maelstrom has been Cuba, the Pearl of the Antilles, which has passed through cycles of depending upon Spain, the United States and the former Soviet Union to its present situation, where it struggles to survive.