gord462

Here's a little taste of the boring life I have carved out for myself. I actually sit at home and write this dribble.


As the USSR disintegrated and became the Russian Federation significant changes were made to the foreign policy of the new state. In discussing the new Russian foreign policy Karen Brutents formerly of the International Department of the CPSU states the new policy will be based on universally accepted human values and to abandon approaches based on ideology, narrow alliance commitments, and global strategies, which were very important in the past but are no longer important(RAC 66). This statement pertains to the old Soviet-Cuban relationship in numerous ways. First, as discussed earlier the Soviet-Cuban relationship was largely based on ideology, so with this new policy in effect Cubas significance to Russia would have to be largely diminished. Secondly, Brutents clearly alludes to the fact that Cold War priorities are no longer that important to the Russian Federation. Since the United States was no longer considered the enemy, then Cuba would change from a strategically placed ally to simply just another trade partner for the Russian Federation.

This shift in emphasis in the new Russian foreign policy would force the now Russian-Cuban economic relationship to look significantly different than the past Soviet-Cuban relationship. In fact this shift would bring about a drastic change in the economic relationship between these two states because only when their relationship is looked at from a strategic and ideological point of view does one see the benefits for the USSR. Economically speaking if one were to look at the Soviet-Cuban relationship in a strictly quantitative light then it becomes quite apparent that it was only economically beneficial to Cuba and the USSR was losing a significant amount of money in the deal( Its important to note for clarification that The USSR did profit economically from trade with Cuba in certain sectors such as nickel but that amount was still overshadowed when one looks at the whole picture). So now that strategic and ideological were no longer pertinent as Brutents claims, the USSR had to look at their relationship with Cuba in purely an economic light and act in their own best interests. Valery Nikolayenko of the Soviet Foreign Ministry in his Official Statement of the New Soviet Policy in Latin America, placed the new Russian-Cuban relationship in its proper context with just a few choice words. Our economic relations with Cuba will be streamlined to ensure maximum mutual benefits for both parties(RAC 61). The relationship between the two did not ensure the maximum mutual benefits for the USSR. Thus change was necessary.