The rule since the arrival of a new American President is that there are no rules.
An ever moving red line in South America and the Caribbean has seen the rendition of a political leader in Venezuela and the virtual blockade of Cuba, all in the matter of a few months. The Cubans do not pose any threat to the USA and their military leaders have repeatedly said they do not intend to invade Cuba.
So where is the problem?
Cuba has a civilian population of over eleven million people and a standing army, including irregular militia, of one million combatants. They are all armed with basic weapons to the refrain of the school age children cries: If the Yankee comes, the Yankee will die. A human gunpowder keg with flames everywhere.
The Cuban population has been enduring a poor economy, lack of jobs, food, fuel, absent airlines and a disappearing tourism that mostly kept the Cuban economy barely alive. Many have fled overseas by all necessary means. They have not been bombed into the Stone Age, they have been starved into the New Age.
The entire Cuban population, many armed and some with access to missiles, are mad as bees at everybody, their leaders, the political elite, expatriate Cubans and the outside world. An explosion is about to happen.
The question is no longer what will the Cuban government do, but how long will the Cuba today last before disappearing into the abyss of multiple groups led by many former military officers. Cast your mind to Syria when nearly every corner of that woeful country was controlled by an armed group led by another mini sheikh in the recent unpleasantness. So it will be in Cuba, as electricity, food and fuel disappear into a social upheaval of multiple groups and multiple zones. It will become a poster child for internecine conflict.
In the event of the disappearance of social order in Cuba, America and the Caribbean can expect a flood of migrants, writ large, Mariel Boatlift 2.
Cuban leader Diaz-Canel is no Fidel or even, Raul.
There are many Caribbean islands close to Cuba and two of them are especially attractive for their wealth, food, fuel and high value individuals, being Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.
Bahamas is split into multiple islands and coastlines that defy proficient monitoring for any force incoming briefly or for a longer stay of occupation with a minimal military defence capability. Cubans, in a dynamic of multiple unconventional forces, free of government oversight, could subject the Bahamas to multiple raids without redress given the American military fixation elsewhere and the lack of Bahamian oil.
Although a further target, the Cayman Islands has a tiny population, smaller defence capability, but large resources, riches and high value kidnap targets. Several banks could be taken in a night. Hostages for political or financial purposes have not been limited to the Middle East but was a major arm of the Cuban satellite guerrillas, the FARC, in Columbia. Both Europe and the USA have a historic unwillingness to pursue hostage rescue missions, especially where the captives are spread wide over the Cuban jungle and moved regularly.
History remembers the Cuban USA exchange for American citizen Alan Gross and a Cuban mole for convicted Cuban spies. There has been no limits on the taking of hostages worldwide for the barest of reasons other than political expedience. In this, there is no difference between arrest and kidnapping.
At one time, American insurance companies kept a rescue vessel on call in the Cayman Islands to bring high value individuals vacationing in Jamaica out of that country from pre positioned locations in the event of civil unrest. Jamaica has a competent standing army as well as a widespread, experienced well-armed police force that offer a less desirable target, protective of their necessary tourists.
Cayman is not so lucky.
How the tables have turned.
Government to government assurances are meaningless against a background of chaos and the breakdown of society. Assurances from the U.K., Europe or the USA are without value against the large distances for troop movements, the lack of available forces and the political realities of today. Ask the Gulf states with closed airports, destroyed economies and widespread mayhem if they have been protected in the current Iran conflict.
The clock is ticking.
