The Cuban missile crisis prevented the U.S from fully occupying Cuba; but now that the Soviet Union is gone, does Cuba still have nukes? If not, then how and why is Cuba not being terrorized right now?
There haven’t been nukes in Cuba for 60 years. They were removed in exchange for the US removing nukes that were deemed unacceptably close by the USSR (with good reason).
As for why Cuba isn’t being taken over, I doubt there is real political will in the US to do something like that. Sure Republicans like to show off how tough they are on the Cuban government because the Cuban diaspora forms part of their base. But the last time the US tried to take over Cuba covertly, it turned into an embarrassing clusterfuck. Cuba also just doesn’t really form a real threat.
Also, China protects Cuba.
Militarily? I doubt it. China doesn’t have the ability to project power like the US does, and certainly not from the other side of the globe. China could conceivably provide weapons, but that has its own logistical hurdles.
China is in a position to apply significant geopolitical and economic pressure on US if they invaded Cuba. Similarly to how the west is currently trying to do to Russia in Ukraine right now.
But China could do nothing if the US decided to invade Cuba, just like they could do nothing in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Lybia. The reason that Cuba is not being invaded is that it would be too expensive, and not worth it (lack of natural resources).
Times are changing rapidly. China was weak back when US invaded Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Lybia, and there was little any country could do back then. Nowadays, China is becoming increasingly more assertive in geopolitics, and I expect that trend to continue going forward.
I completely agree that US actually invading Cuba is unlikely since it would provide them very little practical value while further tarnishing their image globally.
But does it have the motivation to? Remember that any economic action with a significant impact on the US will hurt China as much if not more. That would potentially hurt the legitimacy of a government premised on bountiful growth. The West is mostly getting involved with Ukraine because Russia has brought war to its front doorstep. Europe is willing to do immense damage to itself to send a message. But is China willing to do that for a country with little strategic value? I doubt it.
Economic action against US will absolutely hurt US more than China. That’s not even debatable. China is self sufficient in terms of manufacturing, and it’s actively developing a dual circulation economy as a buffer against problems in global economy and sanctions. Meanwhile, US is entirely dependent on China and it would be absolute chaos if China chose to restrict exports of even a few key items to US.
The west is getting involved with Ukraine because it’s a proxy war with Russia. Framing it any other way is counter to decades of history that led up to the conflict.
While it’s true that Ukraine has more strategic value to the west than Cuba has to China, that doesn’t mean there is no strategic value. Demonstrating that China is able to effect US foreign policy sends a very strong geopolitical message.
Demonstrating that China is able to effect US foreign policy sends a very strong geopolitical message.
But is this enough of a motivating factor that China would be willing to hurt itself? In the short term, the US forms roughly a fifth of the Chinese export market and 3% of total GDP. Long term, using their position as world’s manufacturer has a risk of causing other countries to shy away from relying on China. Countries are perfectly fine taking their business elsewhere if it means they’re nothing going to have China’s desires held over their head. We’ve seen some of the same happen with reliance on the dollar.
Now balance that against Cuba from China’s view. There are ideological parallels, of course. But besides that, China gets no real economic benefit from Cuba. I just don’t see China sacrificing trillions of dollars over time mostly for ideological reasons.
China knows that US is a geopolitical rival, and US has been pretty open about its intentions to break China. Cuba could provide the necessary justification to accelerate decoupling from US that would override any immediate financial concerns.
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