The Washington Diplomat

International Relations — Latin America

Using Old Friend Cuba as Its Base,
Russia Reasserts Its Latin Influence

by Larry Luxner

In 1967, while posted to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Wayne Smith attended a rally protesting the murder of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. A student handed him an anti-American placard that, translated from Russian, read “Hands Off Cuba!”

For years, that sign has occupied a prominent place on the wall of Smith’s office at the Center for International Policy. Now 77, the retired diplomat says it pretty much sums up his attitude toward Washington’s anti-Cuba policy during the last 50 years.

“U.S. policy is dictated by the hard-line exiles in Florida. It has almost nothing to do with what happens in Cuba,” said Smith, who from 1977 to 1981 served as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, a sort of quasi-ambassadorial position in the absence of real diplomatic relations.

“We used to tell Fidel Castro during the 1980s that if he would get his troops out of Africa, stop giving arms to guerrillas in Central America, and reduce his military relationship with the Soviets, then we could move ahead and improve relations in a significant way.”

Over time, the Castro regime met all those conditions yet U.S.-Cuba relations only got worse — even after the Soviet Union imploded and Russia’s new democratic leaders left Castro out to dry, leading to Cuba’s worst economic disaster in living memory.

But lately, the Kremlin is reaching out to its old friend — and making its presence felt close to American shores.

In fact, while international attention remains riveted on Moscow’s growing influence in its backyard, namely in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine, the former “Soviet sphere” isn’t the only place where Russia is trying to reassert its authority. Just as Russia announced plans to modernize its armed forces, boost its nuclear weapons, and build military bases in the Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, halfway across the world, it’s also been staging a resurgence of sorts in Latin America — using Cuba as its base of operations.

Last October, top-ranked Russian Lt. Gen. Alexander Maslov visited Cuba and signed key treaties in information technology and communications with his Cuban counterpart. Later that month, a massive Russian Orthodox cathedral was inaugurated in Old Havana — even though virtually no Cubans belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Then in November, President Dmitry Medvedev visited Havana, marking the first such visit of a Russian leader to the Cuban capital since 2000. On Dec. 19, a Russian anti-submarine destroyer and two logistical warships docked in Havana Bay — in what AP correspondent Will Weissert called a “thumb-your-nose port call” aimed at Washington in waters just 90 miles from Florida. Russian sailors in white-and-tan dress uniforms stood at attention on the deck of the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer, which chugged into Havana Bay amid a cloud of gray smoke.

Russian officials said the visit was non-military, an extension of a tour that included a stopover in Venezuela, where Russia staged a series of joint war games that included a large flotilla of Russian warships. But outsiders say the idea was to flex some muscle in America’s backyard after the Bush administration supported the former Soviet republic of Georgia in its brief war with Russia.

More recently in mid-March, a top Russian military official confirmed that the Kremlin was considering using bases in Cuba or Venezuela as logistics stops for its long-distance bomber patrols. “If the two chiefs of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there,” said Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, head of Russia’s strategic aviation forces, also noting that “there are four or five airfields in Cuba with 4,000-meter-long runways, which absolutely suit us.”

The Pentagon though quickly mocked the announcement. “That would be quite a long way for those old planes to fly,” Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary, told the Associated Foreign Press.

No decision has been made on the Cuban or Venezuelan stopovers, but outsiders predict the move is as much about giving Moscow added leverage in talks with Washington as it is about building up a military presence within range of the United States.

It could also be good old-fashioned payback. After all, it’s no secret that the Kremlin is still annoyed by what it sees as U.S. encroachment on its neighborhood, including Washington’s efforts to build a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic as well as American support for Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

“Part of what motivated them was irritation at what they perceived as the Bush administration’s interference on their periphery,” said noted Cuba-watcher Phil Peters, vice president of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. “The missile defense system and the U.S. relationship with Georgia clearly irritated them, and I think their building up a relationship with Cuba and Venezuela is their way of responding.”

But Peters doesn’t think Russia’s increased presence in Cuba is cause for concern. “I don’t think the Cubans would put their own security at risk,” he said, alluding to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. “The Cubans are more cautious than anyone in that regard.”

Smith agrees.

“A few months ago, the Russians were really pissed off at us because of the missile shield program in Europe; they indicated that their strategic bombers could fly out of Cuban airfields. But this was not an official statement. Then they sent a military mission to Cuba, and it was expected that they’d sign some sort of agreement,” Smith explained. “But the mission came back with nothing. A Cuban military spokesman said his country had no interest in a closer military relationship with Russia, because they’d been down that road before.”

To that end, Cuba seems to be pursuing a policy of practical engagement with its old benefactor. “What Cuba and Russia are doing today is using each other for mutual convenience,” says Daniel Erikson, director of Cuba programs at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

“For Cuba, this is part of a broader strategy of diversifying foreign relations and trying to secure new sources of credit which Russia has promised,” Erikson told The Washington Diplomat. “In addition to that, there was so much bad blood between Fidel Castro and the Russian leadership following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now that Raúl [Castro] is president of Cuba and Medvedev is president of Russia, that’s enough of a leadership transition for both sides to let bygones be bygones.”

On Jan. 28, Raúl arrived in Moscow for a weeklong state visit — his first since 1984 — that culminated with a “strategic partnership” between the two leaders. A total of 34 agreements were signed covering everything from the creation of joint ventures to cooperation in biotechnology to the establishment of a joint electronic scientific research center.

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