First of all, if you're in DC today, stop by our event today entitled "What Nixon Would Do on Cuba," featuring Dmitri Simes, Julia Sweig, Flynt Leverett and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.
Now for my post. Last week we showed in living color the continued dysfunction of Washington's dependence on the Embargo as a source of electoral votes.
This past weekend, however, it was Raul Castro's turn to lean on the embargo for political expediency. The occasion was the annual speech at Moncada Barracks, the site of one of the defining battles of the Castro brothers' insurgency. First, he implicitly admits that the embargo is not in any way isolating the island from the global economy, then he raises the spectre of the Imperial enemy to the north to justify unnecessary military spending.
Here's what Raul said:
We must bear in mind that we are living in the midst of a true world crisis which is not only economic but also associated to climate change, the irrational use of energy and a great number of other problems....I repeat that the revolution has done and will continue to do anything within its power to continue to advance and to reduce to the minimum the unavoidable consequences of the present international crisis for our people. Yet, we should timely explain to our people the difficulties so that we can be better prepared to face them. We must get used to receiving not only good news.
Cuba, in other words, is fully integrated into the global economy. If it were isolated, Raul would not need to set such low expectations for his people. Indeed, according to the Cuban government, the U.S. is even the country's fifth largest trading partner, behind Venezuela, China, Spain, and Germany. Tourism is up 14.8 percent over last year. Yet the economy is in a shambles. Agriculture is a wreck and they are importing billions in produce. Global integration plus poor economic management is a disaster waiting to happen.
What then, is the rationale for keeping our embargo up? Many pro-embargo activists will state that lifting the embargo will only enrich the regime, which controls trade through a very small number of state-owned enterprises. But those enterprises and their bosses already have access to the other 75% of the world's economy and Raul is warning of disaster.
I argue that the embargo is more useful to Havana than to the Washington. Havana, unaffected by the sanctions, uses the blockade as an excuse to maintain a outsize military and to ramp up nationalism. It is an essential crutch for a Revolution that cannot find a modern, progressive pathway.
So it is no surprise that this is exactly how Raul finished his oratory:
And together with production, we shall continue paying special attention to defense, regardless of the results of the next presidential elections in the United States.The country is doing well in its defense preparation. On November 2007 we conducted with satisfactory results the Moncada military exercise in the west and center parts of the island. This was done in the eastern territory last June since the decision had been made to postpone it to avoid interfering with the work of recuperation after the intense rainfall at the end of last year.
On the other hand, Operation Caguairán continues to favorably develop; this has enabled us to significantly raise the preparation of our reservists, who complement the regular troops, and of our militia.
At the same time, we have continued the engineering fitting-out of the military theater of operations and the modernization of the weapons and other means as well as the training and upgrading of officers. This year over 2,000 officers graduated; the highest figure in the last ten years.
Simultaneously, conditions are being created to perform with excellence and rigor, in the month of November, the Bastion 2008 Strategic Military Exercise.
What a waste of time and resources.