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Cuba: United States
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Cuba was the last major Spanish colony to gain independence, following a lengthy struggle begun in 1868. Jose Marti, Cuba's national hero, helped initiate the final push for independence in 1895. In 1898, the United States entered the conflict after the USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor on February 15 due to an explosion of undetermined origin. In December of that year, Spain relinquished control of Cuba to the United States with the Treaty of Paris. On May 20, 1902, the United States granted Cuba its independence but retained the right to intervene to preserve Cuban independence and stability in accordance with the Platt Amendment. In 1934, the Platt Amendment was repealed.
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One immediate strategic result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the decision to place Soviet medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba. This precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, whereby the Kennedy administration was confronted with a next-door nuclear threat from the Soviet Union, which it denounced at the United Nations and demended immediate withdrawal of all missiles. The idea to place missiles in Cuba was brought up either by Castro or Khrushchev, but agreed by the USSR for the reason that the U.S. had their nuclear missiles placed in Turkey and the Middle East... the USSR was confronted with a next-door nuclear threat from the US. With minutes to go until the Soviet ships carrying a further shipment of missiles reached a US naval blockade, the Soviets backed down, and made an agreement with Kennedy. All the missiles were to be withdrawn from Cuba, but at the same time the US was to move its missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. Kennedy however couldn't lose face by doing this immediately, but made an assurance to withdraw the US missiles within a couple of months.
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Cuba has a low birth rate. The fertility rate of 1.66 children per woman is the lowest of any country in the western hemisphere (tied with Canada and Barbados). A contributing cause is Cuba’s policy of abortion on demand. Cuba has a high abortion rate of 77.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1996, 3rd highest in the world among 55 countries whose abortion rate was available to be compiled in a 1999 UN study. Selective termination of high-risk pregnancies is one factor contributing to the low official infant mortality rate in Cuba of 5.8 per thousand births. (State of the World’s Children 2005) However, this high abortion rate and very low birth rate, reminiscent of former Communist Eastern Europe and Russia, threatens to cause the population to shrink significantly in the coming decades, although this has not happened yet due to relatively small numbers of elderly.
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Cuba used to have a large sugar sector, which has gone into steady decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union, even though sugar exports remain one of the island state's largest earnings of foreign currency. The past two years has seen a resurgence of the sector, mainly driven by the ethanol opportunity, and experts predict Cuba to reap massive benefits from it because of the competitive advantage of sugarcane (earlier post).
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This was a grave disappointment for the anti-Castro exiles, who in the early 1990s believed that their return to Cuba, and (as they hoped) to power, was imminent. By the later 1990s the situation in Cuba had stabilised. By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. China ... emerged as a new source of aid and support, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found a new ally in President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a major oil exporter. Nevertheless, the economic situation remained precarious, and Cuba’s ability to go on maintaining its elaborate system of state-provided health care and education from its own resources was doubted by many economists.
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Cuba's brand of Marxist-Leninist socialism is total and reaches all aspects of Cuban life. All economic activity is planned and operated by the government, according to policies controlled by the Communist Party of Cuba. As the Revolution turned from a nationalist to a socialist one, the government took over banking, major industries, and a majority of the Cuba's farmlands. Then in 1968, the government nationalized the surviving 58,000 small businesses--from street vendors to repair shops. All self-employment and private trading were banned. Everyone became an employee of the state.
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