The Cuban Embargo: Punishing the Children for the Sins of the Father The key to understanding the foreign policy of a nation state is understanding that states national interest. The key to successful foreign policy is, as Henry Kissingerstated in 1998, defining an achievable objective. Thus United States policy towardsCuba fails because it neglects these two key ingredients of foreign policy. The USembargo of Cuba is four decades old and no longer serves the countrys national interest,rather it has proven to be a economic and political hindrance for the US. The embargoalso falls short in terms of having an achievable goal, since many of the requests thatembargo legislation calls for are simply not within the ability of the Cuban state. Byexamining the sanctions and their economic, political, and humanitarian affect on boththe Us and Cuba a strong case can be made for a revision of US policy.US policy towards Cuba and the government of Fidel Castro has, since the1960s, been a policy based on the objectives of removing Castro, instituting ademocratic system, and gaining reparations for confiscated US holdings. The initialsanctions were instituted because the US considered the close proximity of a communiststate to be a national security threat, and also because Castros regime confiscated USholdings, and thus US control, on the island. By enacting a policy that unilaterally cutCuba off from economic and political contact with the US, the US felt that it could forceCastro from power. In the decades since the embargos conception legislation has beencreated to even further enforce these concepts. In 1992 Congress passed the CubanDemocracy Act, which prohibited US subsidiaries abroad from having business relationswith Cuba (Ratliff and Fontaine 22). This law pushed Cuban profits even further fromthe grasp of US businesses. Three years later when the economic sanctions of the CubanDemocracy Act had failed to oust Castro from power...
