Normalization of US-Cuban Relations: Obama Doctrine and International Security in the Western Hemisphere

Strained relations between the US and Cuba after the victory of the Cuban revolution were a permanent element of the destabilization of international security in the Western Hemisphere. During the Cold War, this destabilization was a function of the East-West confrontation. Since the end of Cold War the importance of Cuba as a Western Hemisphere entity hostile to the United States has diminished radically. Definite steps to normalize relations with Cuba have been taken only in 2014. The media named the change of policies of the US towards Cuba (and Iran) as the Obama Doctrine. This article will try to prove that the continuation of the confron-tational and hostile US-Cuban relations after the collapse of the Eastern bloc was an exceptional and "unnatural" phenomenon from the perspective of realistic school of international relations, both for Washington and Havana.