Roughly 65 years after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion failed to topple the entrenched Castro regime, the potential of American boots on the ground in Cuba is being discussed in Washington as the weakened island’s communist regime staggers along under the weight of crushing American economic sanctions.
Military plans have been drafted as a possible summer collapse is envisioned by the Trump administration, according to Axios.
To date, economic sanctions, rather than bombs, have been the weapons of choice.
“The best way to describe it is ‘accelerationism,’” one senior administration official said, speaking of trying to collapse the regime.
“But we don’t want to kill off the regime just yet. There’s a method to this. It’s in stages.”
Squeezing the Cuban regime is a holding pattern that offers results as President Donald Trump seeks to bring the war with Iran to a close.
“Iran’s not finished, and the president is not in a rush,” a senior administration official said. “Trump wants to exhaust all the levers that he can. But at this point, there aren’t as many levers as before.”
“We have a pretty deep toolbox, especially when it comes to sanctions and enforcing them. More is on the way,” another official said.
U.S. Southern Command has held tabletop exercises to map out a plan if troops become part of the equation.
“Everything is on the table, but no invasion is planned or imminent,” an official said. “When POTUS says go, we’re ready for anything.”
Summer could provide the catalyst, the official said.
“It’s going to be hot. People won’t have electricity. Food spoils without refrigeration. People get angry. They can take to the streets. And then what happens? I can’t see the president doing nothing if there’s repression,” one source said.
A Trump adviser said any troops sent to Cuba would not remain there very long.
“The president does not want boots on the ground for more than 48 hours. It’s a quagmire in the making. This could get messy.”
One adviser said the strategy is “classic Trump: Push your enemy off balance. It’s pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure, watch the response, apply more pressure.”
“We’ve never seen this kind of pressure,” Max Meizlish, a former Treasury Department official who worked on Cuba sanctions, said. “It’s an entirely new ballgame.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is driving policy toward Cuba and has made his position clear.
“Cuba is in a lot of trouble because, unfortunately for them, it’s run by a bunch of incompetent communists,” Rubio said at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, according to WPLG-TV. “Being a communist is bad, being an incompetent communist is like the worst.”
“Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States,” he added, according to Politico.
The words carry an implied threat, because the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group is in the Caribbean, while the USS Kearsarge ships and escorts, which carry 2,500 Marines, are preparing to deploy. Surveillance planes and drones have been watching Cuba for months.
“The Nimitz is likely there primarily for intimidation, though it could be used in a military operation if needed,” Mark Cancian, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
If a raid is in the offing, “Air strikes are possible to take out their air defenses to allow broader air operations or, perhaps, destroy their leadership with the idea of establishing a relationship as we have with Venezuela. Raul Castro would be their first target,” he said.
Castro, the brother of Fidel Castro, was indicted this month on charges that he ordered the downing of aircraft in 1996 that led to the deaths of several Americans. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said he expects Castro to appear in a U.S. courtroom to answer the charges.
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