Cuba's Cold War Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From Agitator to Mediator

Abstract

Cuba's Cold War policy in the Middle East embodies the Third World undercurrents that played an important role in shaping the international order beyond the U.S.–Soviet binary. Castro believed that his revolution would inspire a coalition of developing nations from among the Arab World bound together by past experiences of imperialism. The experiment, however, was far less glorious. Contradiction and complication plagued Cuba's Cold War policies in the Middle East. Castro, inspired by the ideals of nationalism yet handicapped by Soviet dependency, enacted rather convoluted, seemingly hypocritical foreign policies in the Middle East. Broader still, Castro's inability to secure cooperation with the Arab World during the Cold War exemplified the fractionalization that plagued Third World relations. The failures in Cuba's Middle East relations reflected the failure of unity that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Empire and ultimately the Cold War.