Guantanamo's
Place in U.S. Caribbean Strategy
Last week, the Cuban government
declared that for the United States and Cuba to normalize relations, the United
States would have to return the territory occupied by a U.S. naval base at
Guantanamo Bay. Washington clearly responded that returning the base is not on
the table right now. This response makes sense, since quite a bit of
politicking goes into the status of the base. However, the Guantanamo Bay issue
highlights a notable aspect to the U.S.-Cuban negotiations - one that is rooted
in the history of the U.S. ascension to superpower status as it challenged
European powers in the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. Expansion in the Western
Hemisphere
Cuba, the largest island in the
Caribbean, has a prominent position at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico,
separating access to the gulf into two choke points: the Yucatan Channel and
the Straits of Florida. It is also situated on the sea-lanes between the U.S.
East Coast and the Panama Canal, the shortest route for naval traffic between
the two coasts of the United States. Cuba thus has been pivotal to the U.S.
strategy to safeguard economic activity in the Gulf of Mexico and naval transport
routes beyond that. The evolution of U.S. naval capabilities, however, has
changed the part that Cuba, and thus the base at Guantanamo, has played.
The United States began extending
its ambitions into the Caribbean, challenging the classical European colonial
powers and arguably starting its ascent to the rank of a global power, with the
Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Named after then-President James Monroe, the doctrine
sought to prevent intervention by European powers - most notably Spain and
Portugal - in their former colonies as the colonies achieved independence. The
doctrine largely was a hollow statement at first because the United States did
not have the naval power it would need to enforce it and establish the hegemony
that it sought to put in place with the doctrine. However, the United Kingdom,
which at the time had considerable naval capabilities, supported the Monroe
Doctrine and committed to enforcing it because it also secured British access
to the markets in these former colonies as long as they were not recovered by
their former rulers.
Although it was a notable shift in
U.S. foreign policy toward the Western Hemisphere as a whole, the Monroe
Doctrine did not affect Cuba directly. The doctrine did not seek to meddle in
the affairs of existing European colonies, and the Spanish ruled Cuba and
Puerto Rico until the Spanish-American War in 1898. At that point, after the
Monroe Doctrine had set the stage, U.S. military capabilities were catching up
with its foreign policy intent. It was during the Spanish-American War that
U.S. naval power entered the global stage and eventually resulted in the United
States' taking Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines from Spain.
However, Washington first needed a
reason for intervention in Cuba. That opportunity came with the USS Maine
explosion. The ship was deployed to Havana to protect U.S. business interests
on the island. Moreover, news was spreading of atrocities committed by Spanish
forces against the Cuban population. This intervention included the exact
moment when U.S. forces arrived in Guantanamo Bay. In June 1898, a battalion of
Marines landed at Fisherman's Point in the Bay of Guantanamo to pin down the
Spanish forces in the city of Guantanamo, preventing them from reinforcing the
Spanish positions on San Juan Hill as Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders led the
charge there.
Several years after the U.S. victory
against the Spanish, in 1903, the newly independent Cuban government signed an
agreement with Washington for the perpetual lease of Guantanamo Bay as a naval
base. Initially, the peace agreement with Spain had transferred sovereignty
over the island to the United States, but Washington decided to leave the
island under the control of the local Cuban leaders who had started the
rebellion against the Spanish. The U.S. naval station at Guantanamo, the result
of the first real show of U.S. expeditionary power, went on to become
instrumental in the further deployment of U.S. naval power. In those days, the
time that naval vessels spent at sea was limited significantly by the fuel they
required: coal. Having access to forward deployed coaling stations such as the
one at Guantanamo extended the U.S. Navy's ability to operate in the Caribbean.
Guantanamo's Changing Role
After World War II, during which Guantanamo
also played a direct part in supporting merchant shipping convoys from the U.S.
East Coast, the role of Guantanamo Bay changed considerably as a consequence of
the Cuban Revolution. Throughout the revolution, Guantanamo Bay not only became
a key element of U.S. resistance to the rebels led by Fidel Castro, it also
became a pawn in the new bipolar world order pitting the United States against
the Soviet Union. The relations between the new Cuban government and the Soviet
Union made Cuba the Soviets' most forward position toward the continental
United States - something made very obvious during the Cuban Missile Crisis in
1962. The naval base at Guantanamo did not necessarily play a leading role in
this part of history, although the continued U.S. presence in Guantanamo Bay
persisted as a major source of dispute between Washington and Havana.
After the Cold War, the base's
military significance began to wane. The fall of the Soviet Union left Cuba a
much less significant element in U.S. foreign policy, and the development of
new technology had reduced the need for the base to support U.S. naval
operations in the Caribbean. As much as geopolitics dictates history, the
evolution of manmade technology can significantly alter states' physical limitations
and capabilities. The use of new and more efficient fuels in naval vessels
improved the range and speed of these vessels to the point where the Gulf of
Mexico's security and naval movement beyond the U.S. coastline no longer
required a logistical support node in Cuba.
The U.S. Navy continued using Guantanamo as a training ground, but the
base's significance even in this regard evaporated. By the mid-1990s, activity
at the naval base at Guantanamo was demoted to Minimum Pillar Performance
(limiting the activities and presence there to only that which is necessary to
maintain the existence of the facilities). The U.S. military has maintained
this caretaker presence at Guantanamo, but it has done so mostly in the service
of the State Department, which intends to retain Guantanamo as a bargaining
chip or leverage in relations with Havana, rather than out of military need.The United States also realized that other similar naval operating bases in Latin America lost their utility in a new geopolitical and technological reality. During World War II, the United States had established such a base in Rio de Janeiro, but after the war this base closed, having served its military purpose. Similarly, the United States managed a series of naval bases throughout former British territories in the Western Hemisphere that it obtained in return for 50 Town-class destroyers through the lend-lease agreement with London. Most of these bases also were shut down shortly after World War II or during the Cold War. The United States intends to use its forward deploying military capabilities without establishing full-blown bases, as seen in Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but even then Guantanamo falls outside of Washington's "places-not-bases" intent.
A new use for the base was discovered after 9/11, when it became host to a detention facility holding suspected terrorists. The ambiguous legal status of the base at Guantanamo Bay provided grounds for this sort of use because it is technically a base leased by the U.S. government located on foreign soil. Terrorism suspects are not subject to the same guarantees they would receive if held on sovereign U.S. soil, generating a useful dynamic in the complex issue of dealing with enemy combatants in the U.S.-jihadist war. Guantanamo served a similar purpose when it was used to hold HIV-positive refugees in the early 1990s.
The potential for Guantanamo Bay to be returned to Cuba will depend greatly on the negotiations between Washington and Havana, as well as the domestic U.S. politicking that is influenced significantly by the anti-Castro Cuban immigrant population of Florida, a swing state that is key in presidential elections. It is key, however, to see Guantanamo in its current context and not in its past role in the development and protection of U.S. power in the Caribbean and beyond. The part Guantanamo plays in U.S.-Cuba negotiations is defined by Washington's desire to play this card at will. The only constraint on Washington is the requirement to disband the detention camp at Guantanamo to accommodate Cuba's demands, though this does not mean that the United States will give up the naval base easily. Once played, the Guantanamo card will be gone and Washington's long-term leverage over Havana will be forever altered.
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