A Südpolitik from Washington: How Much of Europe’s Ostpolitik Is There in the Current US-Cuban Détente?

Abstract

Among the few German words that have made it into the English vocabulary, after kindergarten and zeitgeist, there is Ostpolitik: the policy of outreach to Eastern Europe spearheaded by German chancellor Willy Brandt that began in the 1960s in an effort to overcome the Cold War confrontation.¹ However, Ostpolitik did not just seek peace and stability, it sought—as its leitmotif postulated—political “change through rapprochement” (Bahr 1963). As the December 17 announcement to restore US-Cuban diplomatic relations heralds “the beginning of the end” of the Cold War in the Caribbean, Obama’s policy shift looks like a “Südpolitik” made in Washington: a “southern policy” of détente and engagement with a communist regime long decried as the perennial foe. How far can this comparison be taken? What lessons, if any, are held by the European experience that could apply to the current course of US-Cuban relations?