American Hegalone Can T Solve for Global Instability

American hegalone can’t solve for global instability

LA Times 11(“Bay of Pigs and the limits of superpower,” Los Angeles Times, 6-27, AAD, <

The Bay of Pigs operation was only one of many American interventions aimed at beating back left-winginsurgencies andrevolutions during the Cold War(often to the advantage of repressive, undemocratic regimes with which the U.S. had allied itself).Still, it stands out as a textbook example of American bungling overseas, characterized by untested assumptions, repeated miscommunication and a strange combination of arrogant overconfidence and last-minute jitters. It is tempting to make comparisons to today's entanglements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,but of course the details are very different. The Bay of Pigs operation, for example, was planned in the context of a bipolar global struggle; the United States' Soviet rivals had seemingly gained a communist beachhead just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Indeed, a year later, the two superpowers would nearly go to war over the USSR's decision to base nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion was, furthermore, supposed to be covert; our contemporary wars in the Middle East are not. Still, there are broader lessons.These days not just conservatives but liberals as well are arguing that the United States has a significant role to play in determining political outcomes in nations around the world. But we should remember that American judgment is not always foolproof, American planning is not always successful and the use of power is rarely predictable, and should be undertaken only as a last resort. A superpower cannot always have its way even with a much smaller country, especially when the planners are miles away and insufficiently familiar with the culture and politics of the nation they hope to influence.

Cuba needs to stay on the list – its affiliation with other rogue states is a threat

Katel 07 (Peter Katel is a veteran journalist who previously served as Latin America bureau chief for Time magazine and as a Miami-based correspondent for Newsweek and The Miami Herald's El Nuevo Herald. He also worked as a reporter in New Mexico for 11 years and wrote for several NGOs, including International Social Service and The World Bank. He has won several awards, including the Interamerican Press Association's BartolomeMitre Award, “Cuba’s Future,” 6-26, AAD, <

The Soviet Union's demise in 1991 not only ended the Cold War but also Cuba's alliance with a nuclear-armed adversary of the United States. Today, nonetheless, Cuba is still viewed as a threat. It has earned a place on the U.S. government's "state sponsors of terrorism" list, in part because of its "close relationships" with Iran and North Korea. Last year, the State Department reported, "The Cuba-Iran Joint Commission met in Havana in January." Also, it noted, "Cuba and North Korea held military talks at the general staff level in May in Pyongyang. The North Korean trade minister visited Havana in November and signed a protocol for cooperation in the areas of science and trade." And, the report said, "Iran offered Cuba a 20-million Euro line of credit, ostensibly for investment in biotechnology." The reported line of credit echoed a much-disputed 2002 claim by a high Bush administration official that Cuban transfers of biomedical research and technology to other countries could be aimed at helping terrorist states develop germ-warfare capabilities. "The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare (BW) research and development effort," said John Bolton, then undersecretary of State for arms control and international security. "Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states. We are concerned that such technology could support BW programs in those states." Fidel Castro immediately denounced Bolton’s speech as a lie. Later, other American government experts charged that Bolton distorted intelligence to buttress his political claims. The Cuba bioweapons speech was "pure surmise, as far as I know," said Greg Thielmann, the recently retired head of the State Department’s Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office. Bolton responded, "Thielmann knows nothing." In any event, U.S. officials no longer repeat Bolton's accusations. Asked if Cuba constitutes a threat,McCarry, the State Department's Cuba transition coordinator, says: "Cuba is a designated state sponsor of terrorism." He adds, "It's important to understand that an undemocratic Cuba is a destabilizing influence, and ultimately it is the Cuban people who suffer the consequences of a dictatorship whose purpose is to perpetuate itself in power."Decoded, the administration position amounts to an admission that Cuba doesn't pose a threat, conservative Cuba-watcher Peters argues. The Bush administration, he says, "would have screamed to high heaven if there was some revival of Cuba's military capability or some actual activity that supports terrorism, or any effort to develop weapons of mass destruction." In fact, he says, "They haven't." Peters acknowledges that Fidel Castro's mentorship of Venezuela's Chávez has energized Cuba's political proselytizing in the region, aided by the dispatch of Cuban doctors to various countries. "But that's normal political competition," Peters says. "It doesn't add up to a security threat." Those who view Cuba as a danger cite U.S. military intelligence — but in a singular way. "At present, Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S. or to other countries in the region," the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported in 1998. "Cuba has little motivation to engage in military activity beyond defense of its territory and political system." But that conclusion was written by a Cuban spy. Ana Belen Montes, then the senior DIA analyst on Cuban affairs, was unmasked in 2001. She pleaded guilty the following year and is serving a 25-year sentence. Former CIA officer Latell, who knew Montes, wrote that he and his colleagues concluded after her arrest that all of their analyses had been transmitted to Cuba's spy agency. Rep. Diaz-Balart noted that other cases of Cuban espionage have surfaced in recent years. Among them: an infiltrator of the Brothers to the Rescue organization who returned to Havana before the shootdown of the two planes in 1996; 10 men and women arrested in 1998 in Florida and charged with spying (five pleaded guilty, and five were convicted at trial and are appealing); and an associate professor at Florida International University in Miami who is serving five years in prison after pleading guilty in February to filing reports to Cuban intelligence on the Cuban-American community. But while conceding that Cuba could hardly mount an invasion, Diaz-Balart cites the State Department's annual report on state sponsors of terrorism."Combine that with the fact that the Cuban regime has killed American citizens in international waters. It has infiltrated the American government. The Cuban regime is certainly an asymmetric threat, mostly because of its deepening alliance with other state sponsors of terrorism."

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen opposes plan, says it poses a national security risk

Derby 6/24/13 (Kevin Derby is the associate editor of the Sunshine State News, “Edward Snowden, Cuba and Ecuador Draw Fire From Florida Congresswoman,” 6-26, AAD, <

Over the weekend, as the world wondered where Edward Snowden, the former CIA analyst who leaked NSA information to the press, is headed, U.S. Rep. IleanaRos-Lehtinen, R-Fla., ripped into the Cuban regime.Snowden was expected to be headed to Cuba but he was not on a flight to that communist nation on Monday. “It would not be surprising if the NSA leaker finds safe haven in Cuba or Venezuela, two regimes that have a longstanding history of giving refuge to fugitives from U.S. law,” Ros-Lehtinen said on Sunday. “Let us not forget that Phillip Agee, former CIA agent, leaked classified information about CIA personnel and fled the U.S. to seek refuge until he passed away in 2008 in Cuba. “The cruel irony is that there are no press freedoms in either Cuba or Venezuela, yet Snowden -- who supposedly stands for transparency in government -- seeks refuge in police states like these two countries,”she added.“Those who misrule over Cuba and Venezuela, Raul Castro and Nicolas Maduro, do not allow independent free press, do not cooperate on terrorism-related issues, disregard due process and an independent judicial system. “Cuba – a U.S. designated State Sponsor of Terrorism - is currently harboring over 70 fugitives, including Joanne Chesimard who is on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted Terrorist list.The Cuban regime has also used our senior health care system, Medicare, to scam the American people in order to funnel funds to the Castro thugs,”Ros-Lehtinen continued.“I’m concerned that Castro or Maduro can use the NSA leaker as a bargaining chip to get more concessions from the Obama administration. Cuba has a sophisticated espionage service that controls the Venezuelan regime and undermines U.S. interests. If the NSA leaker shares our intelligence capabilities with either authoritarian state, it would further jeopardize our national security.”

Alt cause for Cuban economic stability – what’s crucial is more efficiency

Burbach 13 (Roger Burbach is director of the Centre for the Study of the Americas, based in Berkeley, California. He is the co-author, with Jim Tarbell, of Imperial Overstretch: George W Bush and the Hubris of Empire, “A Cuban spring?” 6-26, AAD, <

THIS IS A FRUITFUL PERIOD OF EXPERIMENTATION and debate in Cuba.It is now almost seven years since Raul Castro replaced his brother Fidel, first as interim president in 2006 and then as president in 2008.Under Raul, the country is taking steps to transform the economy, and a critical discussion is erupting over the dismantling of the authoritarian Communist model.Julio Diaz Vazquez, an economist at the University of Havana, declares: "With the updating of the economic model, Cuba faces complex challenges ... in its social and political institutions. ... The heritage of the Soviet model makes it necessary to break with the barriers erected by inertia, intransigence, land] a double standard." He adds, "These imperfections have led to deficiencies in [Cuba's] democracy, its creative liberties, and its citizens' participation."Among the most important changes that have echoed internationally is the decree that took effect January 14 allowing Cubans to travel abroad without securing a special exit permit. Also, homes and vehicles can now be bought and sold openly, recognizing private ownership for the first time since the state took control of virtually all private property in the early 1960s. The government is distributing uncultivated land, which constitutes about half of the countryside's agriculturally viable terrain, in usufruct for 10 years in 10-hectare parcels with the possibility of lease renewal.To date there are 172,000 new agricultural producers. Beyond agriculture, 181 occupations filled by self-employed or independent workers such as food vendors, hair stylists, taxi drivers, plumbers, and shoe repairmen can now be licensed as trabajoporcuentapropia--self-employment. As of late 2012, about 380,000 people are self-employed in a work force of 5 million. The most dramatic move against the old economic order came in April 2011, when the Sixth Communist Party Congress issued 313 lineamientos, or guidelines. A potpourri of measures and recommendations, the document calls for autonomy for the state enterprises, an expansion of cooperatives, new taxing laws, and changes in the system of subsidies, including modification of the monthly food rationing system. The government established a committee of over 90 people, led by former minister of economy MarinoMurillo, to implement the policy recommendations. A major weakness of the lineamientos, according to Armando Nova of the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, is that they fail to tackle major macroeconomic challenges. While the lineamientos acknowledge the country's low economic productivity, as well as large trade deficits, there is no analysis of how to overcome these systemic problems. Moreover, the lineamientos contain no overarching conceptualization of where the society is headed other than a general commitment to socialism. "What type of socialism is being referred to?" Nova asks.' Is the new socialism akin to what Lenin outlined in the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, when Russia permitted small-scale peasant production and private businesses? What is the role of private property in Cuba, and how can a new economy curb the growth of inequality? These are all critical questions that the Sixth Party Congress failed to address. There are, however, different schools of thought on how to move the economy forward. CamilaPineiroHarnecker, in an essay titled "Visions of the Socialism That Guide Present-Day Changes in Cuba," describes three different visions: (a) a statist position, largely reflecting the old guard, (b) a market socialist perspective, advanced by many economists, and (c) an autogestion-aria, or self-management, stance that calls for democratic and sustainable development primarily through the promotion of cooperatives.The statists recognize that Cuba faces serious economic problems but argue that they can be corrected through a more efficient state, not through a dismantling of the state. They call for more discipline and greater efficiency among state industries and enterprises. A loosening of state control, they contend, would result in greater disorganization and even allow capitalist tendencies to emerge. This position points to the disaster that occurred in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s after an attempt to end central control over state enterprises.

US-Latin America relations already strong and improving in the status quo

Munoz 9/10/13 (Heraldo Munoz, a former Chilean ambassador and president of the UN Security Council, serves as assistant secretary-general and UN Development Program director for Latin America and the Caribbean, “The United States turns to an emerged Latin America,” Al-Jazeera, 6-26, AAD, <

US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden recently visited a transformed Latin America and Caribbean - a region defined increasingly by optimism, opportunity, growth and democracy.In a public speech in Rio de Janeiro, Joe Biden said that Brazil taught the world that "there is no need to choose between development and democracy, between a free-market system and real growth and opportunity". Indeed these seemingly contradictory objectives are compatible, as the region's countries are showing.Brazil, Chile and Mexico, among others, have been pioneers in the three main development drivers: more proactive states in development policies, greater integration with global markets, and exemplary innovation in social policy, according to theUN Development Programme(UNDP)'s 2013 Human Development Report. Latin America has already emerged.Brazil is the world's seventh-largest economy; Argentina, Brazil and Mexico hold seats in the G-20; Chile and Mexico have joined developed countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.Moreover, Latin America and the Caribbean are not experiencing or exporting major conflicts. Over the last decade, Latin America has become a region of middle-income countries growing faster than the global average, reducing trade deficits thanks to a commodities boom, improved investments, and growing domestic markets. The region has lifted 58 million people out of poverty and into the middle class since 2002. The United States is still the region's top foreign investor. In 2012, US exports to South and Central America plus the Caribbean totaled $205bn, compared with $110bn in exports to China. US exports to Mexico alone reached $216bn last year. But US exports to Latin America and the Caribbean have receded during the last decade. This vacuum is being filled by China, while India's trade with the region is also growing substantially. The United States has become Brazil's second commercial partner after China. Bilateral trade between the countries stood at about $100bn but Vice President Biden said there is "no reason" why that number could not be $400-500bn.Among developing regions, Latin America and the Caribbean has the second-highest Human Development Index figures - a metric taking into account income, health and education indicators - surpassed only by Europe and Central Asia, UNDP figures show. Despite some setbacks, the region has experienced its longest period of democratic rule, beginning in the 1990s.Apathy has turned to activism, particularly among social media-savvy youth. Citizens want their governments to play a substantive role in boosting employment, education, and health. Problems still exist, though. Weak institutions, corruption and citizen insecurity hinder the region's development. And although poverty and inequality have been declining in the past years, 10 of the 15 most unequal countries in the world are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Women, youth, indigenous peoples, citizens of African ancestry and those who live in the countryside still lag behind. Another concern is that growth has been driven by consumption and is dependent on commodities in countries that have regressive tax structures.Even though global economic turmoil is a cause of uncertainty, Latin America, unlike the past, is part of the solution and not part of the problem. If the region tackles its pending problems, and with its young population, abundant water and renewable energy resources, food production capacity, growing markets, and increasingly resilient democracies - the future looks promising.