The U.S. Imperial State in Cuba 1952–1958: Policymaking and Capitalist Interest

Abstract

The literature on American foreign policy tends to emphasize nonstructural (national security, ideological, strategic, bureaucratic, etc.) factors in seeking to account for the differing U.S. government responses to nationalist movements that challenge for and/or capture state power in the Third World. In those instances where structural (e.g. economic) factors are acknowledged to be significant, they are still generally accorded a secondary role in the shaping of policy actions. As a result, most interpretations are rooted in discrete policy actions linked to particular and time-bound events unrelated to any core concept that could serve as an organizing principle (e.g. a theory of capital expansion) for understanding the observed continuities in U.S. policy over historical time. In contrast, this study contends that a focus on theinterfacebetween permanent (economic) and short-term (non-economic) objectives provides a more adequate explanation of U.S. imperial state policy in specific conjunctures. It is proposed that while ‘national security’ concerns, strategic interests, ideological outlooks and bureaucratic conflicts may directly influence Washington's policy toward Third World nationalism, these factors must also be understood in a context in which they converge, or are intertwined, with underlying long-term economic concerns (investment, trade relations, access to strategic raw materials, etc.)