U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative

The U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative seeks to take advantage of recent internal developments to redirect U.S.-Cuba policy and relations towards a more sensible, mutually beneficial direction and forge a new consensus of national stakeholders in an engagement strategy with Cuba rather than the decades old tried and failed strategy of isolating Cuba and its citizens.

The U.S.-Cuba playing field has one big dividing line down the middle making it nearly oxymoronic to talk about "U.S.-Cuba relations" -- except as a relationship defined mostly by two parties closely related historically, culturally, and geographically that nonetheless have Cold War-fashioned anachronistic rules of tense, standoffish engagement with each other.

The overall focus of the initiative will be to build policy and intellectual capital and a network of new policy stakeholders designed to push a “tipping point” in U.S.-Cuba policy beyond activities that mostly consolidate the part of the political and policy spectrum that already supports a more enlightened approach in US-Cuba relations. To facilitate this, the initiative will produce a series of private meetings, public events, conferences and collaborations as well as an online forum, The Havana Note, all designed to rewire this policy arena for change.