ABSTRACT
Cuban foreign policy since the Revolution of 1959 completed a full cycle by the outset of the 1980s. The strain on the international system created by public attention to Cuba's military roles in the Caribbean and Central America is indeed serious. It is not so much that Cuba's stepped-up support for clandestine arms shipments to left-wing guerrillas, first in Nicaragua and later in El Salvador, violates international law, for such transgressions are frequent in world politics. Cuba's expanded economic, political, and eventual military involvement in the Caribbean and Central America results from two basic conditions. First, Havana's capacity to become involved has increased over the years, notably in the military dimension but also in the fields of education and medicine. Secondly, the opportunities to extend its presence clearly expanded throughout the 1970s as some leftwing governments emerged in the Caribbean and Central America and as revolutionary leftist groups sought governmental power through force in other countries.
