Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Two days after the US Navy seized a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil, Cuban President Díaz-Canel announced on national television that the country was heading toward a deepening economic crisis. The connection between these two events is no coincidence. It is a public expression of the close existential relationship that inevitably links the immediate destinies of both countries. The economic, military, and political interdependence between the two countries is extremely high, albeit asymmetrical. It is not a market relationship but rather the product of a political pact grounded in ideological identity. Venezuela provides the island with a preferential supply of oil and oil products, without requiring payment for the service. It has also made abundant financial transfers, especially when its economy was selling large quantities of oil resources to the world market. Venezuela also granted soft loans and advance payments for its services.
Cuba, for its part, offers Venezuela “professional” services, mainly in the form of doctors and health services, educators, teachers, and sports coaches. All of this on a large scale: at one point, there were hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Venezuelan territory. However, the most relevant Cuba’s “professional” service was the contribution of militiamen as trainers for the Venezuelan army, to train them in the use of their Russian weapons (aircraft, missiles, radar equipment, espionage technology, etc.), in addition to specialized intelligence services to design strategies for controlling internal dissidents, opponents, citizen movements, and opinion leaders. Maduro’s personal security forces and those of his close associates and family members are, in many cases, Cuban, not Venezuelan. They enjoy a loyalty bought or rented, with all its risks.
While Venezuela contributes material and financial resources that are increasingly scarce, Cuba contributes abundant human capital, often eager to leave the island in search of new opportunities. In this sense, the relationship is asymmetrical. Venezuela does not depend on Cuba to survive. But Cuba does depend on Venezuela to survive. There is a strategic but unequal interdependence between the two nations. Cuba relies on Venezuela for energy and access to foreign currency to keep its economy afloat. Venezuela, on the other hand, has required Cuba’s political, organizational, and ideological capabilities to construct its narrative of government. The relationship between these nations is so close that the disappearance of one will inevitably cause the other to collapse. Today, conditions are very different from those in 1991, when the disappearance of the Soviet Union did not cause the fall of the Cuban regime. This must be understood to visualize the possible fall today.
The Cuban revolution always depended on Soviet support to overcome the economic conditions imposed by the US embargo, combined with the fragility of a small agricultural economy in the 1960s and 1970s. In those years, Cuba was the crown jewel of the global socialist model. Its achievements in education, health, and housing impressed both friends and strangers alike. The USSR contributed approximately $11 million a day to the Cuban economy, without expecting anything in return, including the oil needed to keep the economy running. Thus, Cuba was able to present a face of extraordinary economic and social success. In addition, it contributed combatants to African and Latin American wars where the Soviet government had interests to promote or defend. But it always saluted with someone else’s hat.
When the Soviet Union disappeared, the “Special Period” began, and Cuba radically changed its economic and political structure. The overseas military adventures came to an end. The economy fell by 40%, there was no more oil, and living conditions deteriorated to the point of overwhelming. They opened up to international tourism, allowed limited foreign investment and certain self-employed jobs, always under control. The armed forces were brought in to control society, the nationalist narrative was reinforced, and the US embargo became the external enemy to be defeated.
Why, under such difficult conditions, did the Cuban socialist model not collapse? Because there was centralized, charismatic leadership in the figure of Fidel Castro and a robust apparatus of coercive government and social control. There was still revolutionary legitimacy, now seasoned with a narrative of reinforced nationalism. Gradually, the government managed to get society to accept material shortages in the face of the reality of a weak society with a strong government. The political culture of “resistance” permeated. Then Hugo Chávez and Venezuela appeared on the scene as Cuba’s salvation. Cuba poured all its resources and expertise into ensuring that a regime was consolidated in Venezuela, where there was no danger of a change in power. Only in this way was it possible to save Cuba from its own misfortune. Defending Venezuela is an act of self-defense for Cuba.
But today, the internal and external conditions in Cuba are very different. With Maduro’s likely departure in Venezuela, the conditions for surviving another “Special Period” no longer exist. Today, Cuba has a bureaucratic and charismaless leadership. The revolutionary memory has been lost, and the social logic is no longer resisting but departing.” The population is aging and embittered. This is how Leonardo Padura describes it in his recent book on Havana. Internet connectivity prevents the regime from deceiving the population, and anger is running high. With the possibility of the collapse of Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, the eventuality of a collapse in Cuba becomes highly probable. President Díaz-Canel’s recent speech was enlightening. He sees that the government is corrupt, inefficient, and inept. And the US embargo does not explain everything, as it did in the past.
The collapse of the Cuban regime will likely accompany the collapse of the current government in Venezuela. How quickly this will happen cannot be predicted, but the connection between these events is clear. The dialectic of their strategic interdependence has created the right conditions for these events to occur. As if it were a Shakespearean warning, the collapse of one portends the collapse of the other. The intervention of the US government is clearly aimed at provoking regime change in Venezuela and, following the logic of the domino theory, catapulting the collapse of the Cuban regime. A radical political change is expected in the Caribbean Basin, with profound consequences for the rest of Latin America, mainly for Mexico. But that is a subject for another analysis.
In slow or fast motion, this progression of events is underway.
@rpascoep
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