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Abstract
Many analysts have criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba as an anachronistic holdover from the Cold War. Yet its problems go well beyond that. In many regards, the U.S. embargo against Cuba represents a caricature of the various American misapplications of economic sanctions: if the goal is to end the Castro regime this policy has not only failed, but has spent half a century doing so. If the intent is to support Cubans in their aspirations for a different political system the sanctions have failed in that regard as well, since even the most vocal dissidents in Cuba criticize the embargo. In the face of the “smart sanctions” movement to develop economic tools that target the leadership rather than the people, the embargo against Cuba represents the opposite pole: it impacts the Cuban population indiscriminately, affecting everything from family travel, to the publication of scientific articles by Cuban scholars, to the cost of buying chicken for Cuban households.