Cuba in War and Peace
Academic conference, open to the general public
Sponsors: Center for Force and Diplomacy, History Department, Spanish and Portuguese Department, Global Studies Program, Political Science Department, Temple University Library
Temple University, April 20th-21st, 2018
Goal of the conference:
On April 19th 2018, head of the army and president of Cuba Raúl Castro, will step down from power and a new era will begin. War, its means and policies, has dominated Cuban history. Fears of foreign intervention have been ever-present. Yet peace remains a strong hope and challenge for its people. This conference seeks to examine Cuba’s history from the counterpoint of war and peace, a necessary and innovative framework of analysis for understanding the past and future of Cuba, an island in the crossroads of empires.
Participants:
This symposium will bring first-rate scholars from some of the best universities to Temple University. This will not only be a stellar group but also a diverse and inclusive one in terms of gender and national origins, as we will count with North Americans, Spaniards, Cuban Americans, Cubans, and Latin Americans.
Topic description and relevance:
Since its early colonial past, Cuba has held great geopolitical importance. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Havana served as one of the major ports of the Atlantic world, the first point of arrival for ships coming from Europe and Africa and the last point of departure for vessels sailing from Spanish America. Yet Cuba’s other crucial role in the Spanish empire was that of military bastion, protecting access to the viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico) and Peru. In 1762, at the peak of the Seven Years’ War, the British attacked Cuba and occupied Havana. A year later, the Treaty of Paris returned the control of the island to the Spanish Crown and drove Spain into a hurried program of reform for Spanish America, in which the military took priority. Facing the menacing British navy, Spain built a large standing army on the island and merged the highest political and economic offices with military ones. As a result, Cuba’s government and society became highly militarized. Not surprisingly the island remained loyal to the Spanish Crown until 1898.
Cuba’s struggles for independence began in the 1860s, lasted for thirty years, and its last efforts resulted in a major imperial clash between Spain and the United States, which issued in the Spanish American War. Cuba’s first republic came to being in the midst of two occupations by the United States. Weak institutions, corruption, and the constant threat of military dictatorship marked the first decades of Cuba’s independent life. In 1959, after years of plotting and organizing, Fidel Castro led a successful revolution and drove crooked dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. Facing aggressions from the United States, Fidel Castro forged an alliance with the USSR. In 1962 World War III almost broke out as Soviet nuclear missiles were deployed on the island with the capacity to reach Washington D. C. in one hour. Since then Cuba and the United States have lived in a cold war that has seriously undermined Cuban economy and produced tensions between the Latin America and the United States. Under these circumstances, the Cuban Revolutionary government consolidated itself by expanding the power of the military.