The New York Times notes that Cuba is teetering on the edge of collapse, and notes the “this is not a blockade” of Cuba is having an effect.
What I find fascinating is that the Russia / Ukraine pair is not mentioned.
As most folks who were around for at least part of the Cold War remember, Cuba was a client state of the USSR. Fidel Castro depended on the Soviet Union for fuel and other commodities; a blockade of Cuba was promulgated on discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles being shipped to Cuba. The blockade was canceled following Soviet agreement to withdraw the missiles, but it proved Cuba’s claims to self-sufficiency were dubious.
Now, I do not doubt that Russia, USSR’s predecessor and successor nation, continued as Cuba’s patron, if far more quiet about it, as Cuba constitutes an unsinkable aircraft carrier not far from the coast of mainland USA. When President Obama began squeezing Russia’s oil exports, it must have impacted Cuba, and I have to wonder if Obama’s peaceful gestures towards Cuba were attempts to lure it away from a patron exhibiting distress.
And then came Putin’s War, President Putin’s deeply mistaken war against Ukraine. Any war that lasts more than a few weeks becomes a drain on all primary parties involved; this war, in its military phase, has lasted four years, and Ukraine’s military has proven deft in its defense, including … the harassment and possible sinking of oil tankers.
Of even more importance is the depression of Russian influence world-wide. While neighbors in close proximity to Russia are undoubtedly nervous concerning Russia aggression, countries that can only be reached by nuclear missiles feel freer to harass, and even redirect, any commerce approaching Cuba. They know that patron Russia is distracted, has crap for a military due to Ukraine’s heroic defense, and the existence of the current Cuban government may be extinguished without too much tangible backlash from patron Russia.
Because even patron Russia may be in existential danger. Quite possibly, only the hold President Putin has on President Trump, whatever that may be, is keeping the current Russian government from drowning.
