ABSTRACT
In addition, by the mid-1980s, approximately 15,000 Cubans – one out of every 625 – were working in civilian foreign aid missions in more than 30 countries. The Soviet Union had long opposed Cuba’s engagement in liberation conflicts, in part because it had sought detente with the United States and worried that Cuba’s actions would undermine improved Soviet-American relations. The goals that prior leaders established continued to guide Cuban foreign policy at the start of the 2020s. Cubans may have hoped that the 2020 American presidential election would create new possibilities for rapprochement with the United States. It is still unclear what particular changes in Cuban foreign policy will result from Diaz-Canel’s 2018 election as president and 2021 elevation as PCC first secretary. As they respond pragmatically to a changing global context, they aspire to maintain a commitment to the principles that their predecessors established.
