This brings us to the interesting question: How did the existence of a Soviet ally in the very heart of the US empire affect the Cold War? Surprisingly, the impact was minor in the 1960s, with one major exception: in 1962, Kennedy’s reckless policy of aggression against Cuba precipitated the decision to install missiles in the island and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. But the tentative detente between Moscow and Washington that followed the missile crisis was not influenced by Cuban actions. Cuba’s support for armed struggle in Latin America was only an irritant in relations between the two superpowers. It did, however, change US policy in the hemisphere. The fear of a second Cuba haunted US policymakers, particularly in the early 1960s; it was midwife to the Alliance for Progress and triggered Kennedy’s decision to strengthen Latin America’s two most repressive institutions - the military and the police.
It was in the 1970s that Cuban foreign policy did significantly influence - twice - relations between the superpowers. The Ford administration responded to the Cuban victory in Angola by placing the SALT II negotiations and detente in the deep freeze. Cuba, it claimed, was a Soviet proxy, and the Cuban intervention a gross violation of the rules of detente. Two years later, the Carter administration responded in a similar way to Cuba’s intervention in Ethiopia. In Brzezinski’s famous expression, "SALT lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden."484
Clearly, Cuba’s actions in Angola and Ethiopia damaged detente. But what lay behind America’s anger? If indeed the "rules" of detente were violated in Angola, the principal culprit was the United States, which had encouraged South Africa to invade. It was this invasion that persuaded Castro to send troops. In the Horn, US ambivalence encouraged the Somalis to invade Ethiopia, threatening the principle of the inviolability of the territorial integrity of African states. The Cuban troops upheld that principle. What died in the sands of the Ogaden was the delusion of a one-sided detente, in which the enemies of the United States did not have the right to send troops anywhere, whatever the provocation, whatever the violation of international law, whereas the friends of the United States did, as, for example, when the French and Belgians sent troops to Zaire in 1978 (aboard US planes) and the South Africans invaded Angola in 1975.
What did the Soviets gain from their alliance with Cuba? Not much. Khrushchev’s attempt to use Cuba to close the missile gap ended in abject failure. Soviet hopes that Cuba would be a springboard for further advances in Latin America backfired - Havana’s support for armed struggle hindered Moscow’s diplomatic efforts in Latin America in the 1960s. Angola and Ethiopia became a drain on scarce Soviet resources; true, they bought billions of dollars of Soviet weapons, but mostly on credit, and the debts were never paid. The major benefit that the Soviet Union derived from its alliance with Cuba - an obstreperous, proud, and difficult ally that did not shy from confrontation - was enhanced prestige in the Third World.
If we view the Cold War as a global struggle rather than merely a bipolar one, Cuban foreign policy had a profound impact. In this struggle, Castro’s battalions included tens of thousands of Cuban doctors and other aid workers who labored in some of the poorest regions of the world, at no cost or at very little cost to the host country. And they included the tens of thousands of underprivileged youths from Latin America, Africa, and Asia who studied in Cuba, all expenses paid. This aid began in the 1960s, became massive in the late 1970s, and continues despite the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cuba’s support for armed struggle failed in Latin America, but not in Africa: Cuban troops helped restrain Morocco in 1963; they provided valuable aid to the MPLA in Congo Brazzaville in 1965-66; and they lent decisive assistance to the rebels of Guinea-Bissau in their quest for independence. Havana’s most impressive success was to change the course of southern African history in defiance of Washington’s best efforts to stop it. In 1975, Cuba prevented the establishment of a government in Luanda beholden to the apartheid regime. Cuba’s victory unleashed a tidal wave that washed over southern Africa. "Black Africa is riding the crest of a wave generated by the Cuban success in Angola," noted the World, South Africa’s major black newspaper. "Black Africa is tasting the heady wine of the possibility of realizing the dream of total liberation. "485
The impact was more than psychological. Cuba’s victory forced Kissinger to turn against the white minority regime in Rhodesia and spurred Carter to tirelessly work for majority rule there. It also marked the real beginning of Namibia’s war of independence. For the next twelve years, Cuba assisted the Namibian rebels, and Cuban troops helped the Angolan army hold the line against bruising South African incursions into Angola. Finally, in 1988, Cuban diplomatic skill combined with its prowess on the battlefield were instrumental in forcing Pretoria to withdraw from Angola and to agree to the independence of Namibia.
This was Cuba’s contribution to what Castro has called "the most beautiful cause,"56 the struggle against apartheid. There is no other instance in modern history in which a small, underdeveloped country has changed the course of events in a distant region - humiliating one superpower and repeatedly defying the other. There is no other instance in which an underdeveloped country has embarked on a program of technical assistance of such scope and generosity. The Cold War framed three decades of Castro’s revolutionary zeal, but Castro’s vision was always larger than it. For Castro, the battle against imperialism - his life’s raison d'etre - is more than the struggle against the United States: it is the war against despair and oppression in the Third World.
56 Fidel Castro, in "Indicaciones concretas del Comandante en Jefe que guiaran la actuacion de la delegacion cubana a las conversaciones en Luanda y las negociaciones en Londres (23-4-88)," 5, CIFAR.
World History
