Havana, Cuba After the War

[El Presidente]

 

https://havanatimes.org/opinion/havana-cuba-after-the-war/

Havana, Cuba After the War

May 16, 2026

The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. / 14ymedio

Diaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro, but he is terrified of ending up like Ceausescu.

By Yunior García Aguilera (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – Havana looks like a bombed-out city, even though no enemy has yet signed the order to attack. Buildings split open like broken ribs. Balconies hang over the sidewalks with the stubbornness of the hanged. The city, one of the most beautiful in the region, now looks like a mouth full of cavities. Almost every photo arriving from the capital seems taken by a war correspondent.

Smoke rises from several corners. Garbage piled up for days burns in the streets. Plastic burns, rotten food burns, and patience burns. The air seems to come from a sick factory. People walk through those toxic clouds dodging sewage water, loose wires, potholes, and rubble. Havana breathes with lungs full of ash.

But the bombs still haven’t fallen. The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. The entire country has been devastated by a regime more persistent than white phosphorus.

In that landscape, the external threat almost appears as a gift for those in power. The Trump Administration mixes sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and increasingly harsh warnings. But everything suggests, for now, that Washington prefers to force a negotiation rather than open fire. The regime’s strategists seem to have understood this. That is why they play for time, raise the rhetoric, exaggerate resistance, and shift—as always—the full weight of the crisis onto the shoulders of the people.

When there is no prosperity left to promise and no future left to administer, there is always the besieged plaza. / 14ymedio

Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro. The former Venezuelan dictator, at least until today, remains alive, protected, and turned into a judicial figure rather than a corpse. Diaz Canel fears another kind of ending. He fears ending up like Ochoa, like the de la Guardia brothers, or like Alejandro Gil: devoured by the very machinery he helped sustain. But what truly ought to keep him awake at night is ending up like Romania’s Ceausescu, suddenly confronted by a crowd that no longer obeys or applauds.

That is why the external threat seems less nightmarish to him. It allows him to portray himself as a victim, gather international solidarity, and demand absolute loyalty within the country’s borders. The external enemy is the narrative oxygen of every exhausted dictatorship. When there is no prosperity left to promise and no future left to administer, there is always the besieged plaza.

In political science there is a social phenomenon called rally round the flag: closing ranks around the flag. John Mueller studied it in 1970 while analyzing spikes in presidential popularity during international crises. William Baker and John Oneal later expanded the debate about its causes. When a community feels attacked from outside, even those who detest the government may lower the volume of their criticism so as not to appear allied with the aggressor.

Iran offers a recent example. The Islamic Republic has repressed protests, imprisoned dissidents, and governed through terror. Yet in the face of external attacks or threats, critical sectors may close ranks in the name of national sovereignty. The external threat does not erase internal discontent, but it can discipline it for a time. It does not need to convince everyone; it is enough if it paralyzes a good number.

Cuba is not Iran, but the mechanism is similar. Many critical voices inside and outside the Island clearly recognize Castroism’s responsibility for the national ruin. But faced with the possibility of foreign intervention, some weigh every word, postpone demands, and moderate their tone. They fear appearing—through manipulation or clumsiness—in the invader’s photograph. The regime knows that hesitation. It exploits it without scruple. It needs Washington to shout so it can demand silence in Havana.

For Díaz-Canel, a war against the United States could also function as retrospective absolution. His administration has been disastrous. His authority is borrowed. His popularity has never even approached discreetly decent numbers. A real external threat would allow him to disguise mediocrity as martyrdom.

And part of the international press would seize the opportunity to tell the worn-out story of the besieged small country, the uncompromising leader, the modern Numancia. That is all Castroism needs to conceal the hunger, the garbage, the blackouts, the prisons, and the fear.

But reality insists on ruining their script. In Cuba, despite the blackmail of the besieged flag, protests are indeed happening. They are not always massive or organized. Sometimes they are merely a street standing up, a neighborhood shouting, a pot-banging protest in the middle of the blackouts, a garbage dump on fire, or a mother who simply cannot take it anymore. But they exist. And that is precisely what terrifies the regime.

The government would like to convince the world that every internal protest is an enemy operation. It would like every outraged Cuban to have to choose between patriotic hunger and a foreign missile. It would like to reduce the country to two miserable options: obey the Party or serve as a pretext for Washington. But after decades of accusing us of being “CIA agents,” it turns out they are the ones now sitting comfortably chatting with the ogre from the storybook. Raul Castro’s grandson has been closer to the CIA than the most radical Cuban dissidents.

The scenario the government fears most is the insubordination of the hungry. Not an aircraft carrier off the Malecon seawall, but the entire neighborhood standing in front of Party headquarters. Not the attack order signed in Washington, but the intimate, collective, and irreversible decision to lose fear in Cuba. If the social explosion repeats itself, Díaz-Canel will discover that his true ending was not written in English, but in Cuban.

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

https://havanatimes.org/opinion/havana-cuba-after-the-war/

[Dadof3]

Authoritarian regimes have the ability to wait for change in US policy interests. The ruling regime will eat and keep their lights on one way or another while the local folks struggle.  

[gillmiller]

Sad photos.

[BrightonCorgi]

5 hours ago, Dadof3 said:

Authoritarian regimes have the ability to wait for change in US policy interests. The ruling regime will eat and keep their lights on one way or another while the local folks struggle.  

Those in charge don't go hungry.  

[Dadof3]

2 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Those in charge don't go hungry.  

That's the problem. Why will the folks in charge cave in to the US if they aren't suffering? They won't relent just because their citizens are suffering. The Cuban people have suffered for years on end.  

[BrightonCorgi]

13 hours ago, Dadof3 said:

That's the problem. Why will the folks in charge cave in to the US if they aren't suffering? They won't relent just because their citizens are suffering. The Cuban people have suffered for years on end.  

They should be reminded that the US knows where each one of them sleep at night. Those in charge know the capabilities the US has to make pinpoint kills or captures. How many references do they need?

[El Presidente]

11 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

They should be reminded that the US knows where each one of them sleep at night. Those in charge know the capabilities the US has to make pinpoint kills or captures. How many references do they need?

Those in charge also know that this administration has its hands full right now, will provide extension after extension, and in the end is likely to cut a deal if enough (or the right) sacrificial lamb is brought to the alter. 

Gaesa are running a multi billion dollar business. Diaz or Castro or whoever are inconsequential/collateral damage...as unfortunately appear to be the remaing Cuban populace. 

Drones/massacres/carriers/invasions...it's all theatre. 

God forbid this doesn't all end up being US/Gaesa Joint ventures in golf courses, property developments, business investments. 

[Dadof3]

11 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

They should be reminded that the US knows where each one of them sleep at night. Those in charge know the capabilities the US has to make pinpoint kills or captures. How many references do they need?

I don't think the US wants to actually provoke a military confrontation. Could the US win that fairly easily, yes but they have to commit soldiers which the country seems unwilling to do in Iran and I'm skeptical they'd want to do that in Cuba. Just targeting a few regime leaders doesn't necessarily turn things over as we are seeing now elsewhere. Ultimately the citizens in these countries have to decide they want real change. The issue for Cuba is the ones who want real change have tended to leave rather than try to change their system.  

[BrightonCorgi]

11 hours ago, El Presidente said:

God forbid this doesn't all end up being US/Gaesa Joint ventures in golf courses, property developments, business investments. 

Or some variant of this is not a farfetched idea at all.  

[Duxnutz]

6 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Or some variant of this is not a farfetched idea at all.  

Better than even odds there will be real estate/development deals signed to any Cuba agreement. 

[VeguerosMAN]

As long as the military is in control, nothing will change in Cuba. I am sure Diaz and the ruling class have learned their lessons from Romania's Ceaușescu in the past. I believe a part of the reasons for ongoing blackouts since 2024 is to prevent big crowd gatherings in different provinces.