Dan Griswold. “Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba”. Cato Institute. October 12, 2005 – “The embargo had a national security rationale before 1991, when Castro served as the Soviet Union’s proxy in the Western Hemisphere. But all that changed with the fall of Soviet communism. Today, more than a decade after losing billions in annual economic aid from its former sponsor, Cuba is only a poor and dysfunctional nation of 11 million that poses no threat to American or regional security.
A 1998 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that, ‘Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S. or to other countries in the region.’ The report declared Cuba’s military forces ‘residual’ and ‘defensive.’ Some officials in the Bush administration have charged that Castro’s government may be supporting terrorists abroad, but the evidence is pretty shaky. And even if true, maintaining a comprehensive trade embargo would be a blunt and ineffective lever for change.”