Despite Cuba’s historical resilience, we have already witnessed that, in the long term, embargoes and sanctions can undermine the willpower of leadership and the population. Join us on Telegram , Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su Shortly after the attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration, feeling overconfident and emboldened by its success, immediately raised the possibility of carrying out some type of hostile action in Cuba, to put an end to the “thorn” that Havana has represented on the US flank since Fidel Castro’s triumph in 1959.
Regardless of the concrete economic problems Cuba is experiencing, some of them for geographical reasons (such as its size, terrain, and the very fact of being an island), others due to misguided political decisions in the past, but most of them thanks to US economic embargoes, the reality is that it is not possible to conceive of this current wave of pressure as being linked to any concern about communism.
The use of anti-communist rhetoric, a relic of the Cold War, serves merely to stir up the “boomer” electoral base, which is still significant within the electorate of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
On the factual level, the reality is that, to survive after the collapse of the USSR, which subsidized it, Havana had to undertake various reforms, ranging from the authorization of autonomous professional activities and the opening of tourism in the early 1990s, to the creation of the Special Zone of Mariel, which operates under a differentiated economic and financial regime, the authorization for the opening of small businesses in more than 200 sectors starting in 2014, and the push for the development of cooperatives.
Cuba can still be categorized as a socialist system, but it is already far removed from any orthodox, Marxist conception of “communism.” Furthermore, evidently, Cuba is in no position to pose any kind of threat to the US, even if its intelligence apparatus can still be considered one of the most competent in the world.
Assuming, therefore, that the real objective is closer to a concern with hemispheric hegemony in the context of the renewal of the Monroe Doctrine, as well as extending to securing certain Cuban assets and resources, such as steel, zinc, nickel, and cobalt, as Professor Leonid Savin explained in a recent article. Despite US embargoes and pressures, both steel production and mineral extraction in Cuba have seen a significant increase in recent years, partly thanks to Russian investments and partnerships in the steel sector, and Canadian investments and partnerships in the nickel and cobalt sector.
Given these interests, however, how might the US behave?
There is one factor that needs to be considered. Cuba’s proximity to Florida has always represented, and continues to represent, a permanent risk for Cuba, but in a certain sense also for the US. Large-scale destabilization of the Caribbean country could lead to a massive migratory wave that would, in theory, run counter to Trumpist projects and further undermine Trump’s chances in the midterm elections. A direct, large-scale regime change, therefore, seems unlikely to us.
It is necessary, however, to consider the possibility of a partial co-optation (even if involuntary) of the Cuban system through a show of force or immeasurable pressure, in a manner more or less similar to what happened in Cuba. For the US, a partial victory in Cuba might be more advantageous than a total victory. This could be achieved through a decapitation strike or perhaps through an intensification of the attempt to suffocate the system through embargoes on basic supplies.
A significant worsening of Cuba’s existential conditions could lead to some degree of internal chaos and social anarchy, with acts of violence directed against buildings, institutions, symbols, and people linked to the system, but a large-scale uprising is less plausible.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider that although some of the main arms of US “soft power” and the international NGO ecosystem are banned from Cuba, there are institutions that operate indirectly to influence Cuban civil society, and especially the academic, cultural, and intellectual spheres.
For ideological reasons, Cuba has always been more open when dealing with social-democratic or even “left-leaning” liberal parties and governments. One cannot forget the irrational optimism with which Fidel Castro himself viewed Barack Obama, as well as the connections with the Workers’ Party in Brazil, or the SPD in Germany. Thus, for example, the NED (one of the main structures for regime change and color revolutions) operates in Cuba through intermediary institutions linked to the US left, such as the Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio), the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press, and the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. At the same time, structures linked to the German left, such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (linked to the SPD) and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung (linked to the Greens), carry out activities within Cuba.
Despite Cuba’s historical resilience, a product of its revolutionary experience, we have already witnessed that, in the long term, embargoes and sanctions can undermine the willpower of leadership and the population. Furthermore, let us remember, the generation in power in Cuba is no longer the revolutionary generation.
Some level of dialogue and agreement seems inevitable on the part of the Cuban government, such as the recent economic opening announced by Díaz-Canel this month, aimed at authorizing US investments in the country. This makes it possible to buy time and ensure the survival of the Cuban experiment while awaiting a more favorable international context.