El impacto del final de la Guerra Fría en el Caribe

Abstract

The article analyzes the impact on the Caribbean of the Cold War's end at the beginning of the 90's. The author points out that during the first three decades of the Cold War, Latin America and the Caribbean obtained a relative international negotiation power due both to its geopolitics and to itrs geo-economics. However, with the intensification of the Cold War and the economic crisis of the 80's, the international role of this region weakened, and Latin America and the Caribbean became the object of a renewed interventionism from the United States. With the end of the Cold War, next to other processes, like globalization and the information-technology revolution, the international vulnerability of Latin America grew stronger, in spite of the "democratic bonus". Nevertheless, the Caribbean maintains its geopolitical and geo-economical importance given the increase of the United States' political, economical and military requirements. For the Caribbean countries, the end of the Cold War meant more and more dependence on the United States and Europe. Finally, the author states that during the East-West confrontation, Cuba was able to avoid a direct conflict with the United States with the effective support that the USSR provided. As a result of socialism's breakdown, a deep economical crisis began in Cuba, with an unfavorable correlation of international forces for his country, facing alone a Cold War intensified by United States.