Dismantling last vestige of Cold War

ON December 17, Barack Obama made a bold and courageous announcement that the US would establish an embassy in Cuba and open negotiations to normalise its relations with the communist country, ending more than five decades of, at times, and terrifying Cold War politics.

In a speech at the White House the president urged Cubans and Americans to leave behind the “tyranny of both colonisation and communism.” He said neither Cubans nor Americans were “well served by a rigid policy that's rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.”

Last year, Obama authorised high level diplomatic talks with Cuba, which were hosted by Canada, and in his speech at the White House he thanked both Canada and the Vatican for facilitating talks with Cuba. President Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro spoke on the phone for about 45 minutes, the first presidential level communication between the two nations since the Cuban revolution in 1959.

Why did the president change the policy?

There are several reasons, and some of them deserve mention. First, the US has been isolated from the Latin American countries on the Cuban policy and its traditional influence with them has been waning steadily. In 2012, at the Latin American summit, Obama faced a barrage of calls from Latin American leaders to admit Cuba into future summits. As a result of divisions over Cuba, the summit ended without a Joint Declaration signed by the 31 leaders in attendance, as also happened at the hemispheric meeting in 2009.

Second, China has emerged as a key economic and political player in Latin America as the US had shifted focus in the Middle East since 9/11. China's move to bring large-scale infrastructural projects to South America has been largely responsible for its recent success in the region. China's trade with the region has risen 50% in the past two years to roughly $180 billion. The frequent visit of Chinese leaders to Latin American countries is evidence of China's consolidation of political and economic relationships with the Latin American countries, the backyard of the United States.

Third, given the growing presence of the US and Nato in Eastern Europe, Russia is similarly looking at ways to expand its presence in America's backyard as well. Russia has sought to build up its political presence and military-technical cooperation in Latin America. Putin visited many of the Latin American countries this year in July after the Ukrainian crisis and proposed the establishment of a Russian naval base on Nicaraguan territory, which could upset the balance of power in the region. Putin's offer to Nicaragua reportedly came only days after the Central American country announced plans to construct an Atlantic-Pacific canal by 2020. The inter-ocean canal will compete with the Panama Canal, allowing large ships to transit through the region.

All these reasons seem to have motivated President Obama to normalise ties with Cuba to counter the growing Chinese and Russian economic, political and military power in Latin America.

For years, politicians have been wary of re-establishing ties with Cuba for fear of alienating the well-organised overwhelmingly conservative Cuban diaspora centered in Florida. But given the passage of time and the failure of the embargo some analysts believe the political danger has waned. Furthermore, second generation Cuban Americans are thought to be less supportive of the embargo than their parents' generation, many of whom lost everything when Cuban businesses were nationalised without compensation during the revolution.

Obama's announcement is seen as being consistent with the policy he hinted at six years ago when he said on January 21, 2008, presidential primary debate: “I will meet not just with our friends, but with our enemies because I remember what (President John F.) Kennedy said, that ''we should never negotiate out of fear but we should 'never fear to negotiate.'”  Before he leaves the White House, he will leave his legacy of dismantling the last vestige of the Cold War.

The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.