- Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Cuba to meet with the country's leaders as the island runs out of fuel due to a U.S. blockade and fears mount that Washington is preparing to do regime change. The United States is already pressuring Cuba by cutting off all foreign oil imports, increasing reconnaissance of the island, and indicting against its 94-year-old former leader Raul Castro.
- Regime change in Cuba could lead to unpredictable consequences for the United States, including uncontrolled migration flows and violent spillover. As DEFP non-resident fellow Alexander Downes has written, forcible regime change rarely installs friendly democracies and frequently generates insurgency.
- U.S. intelligence also claimed recently that Cuba may plan to use drones to attack the United States—a claim that deserves a healthy dose of skepticism and scrutiny. More likely, Cuba is investing in drones to gain a small measure of deterrence against its overwhelmingly more powerful neighbor in case it is attacked.
- The oil blockade is a more aggressive extension of long-standing U.S. policy toward Cuba, including its more than 60-year-old embargo, an invasion attempt, and countless failed (but colorful) assassination attempts. This policy has failed to produce positive political change while unnecessarily harming the Cuban people.
- By contrast, normalization with Cuba and lifting the embargo could lead to benefits in trade, investment, and tourism, as well as cooperation on issues like drug trafficking and immigration enforcement.
- The idea that Cuba—with its anemic economy and military capabilities—poses a threat to the United States is absurd. To the extent the island seeks security cooperation with China or Russia, it is due to the manifest threat it faces from the United States. Washington could reverse this situation, as it briefly began to do under the Obama administration, by normalizing relations and lifting the embargo.
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