The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - A Chinese Listening Post in Cuba: What It Means for the US || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

The news of a "new" Chinese listening post in Cuba sparks the question: why is Cuba so important to the US? No, we're not talking about cigars. We're talking about Cuba's role in American strategic planning. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/a-chinese-listening-post-in-cuba-what-it-means-for-the-us

Hey everyone, Peter Zion here, coming to you from the slightly less smoky Okanagan. Today we're going to talk a little bit about Cuba. Specifically, there's news recently that the Chinese are maintaining a new listening post. That's pretty much bullshit. It's been there for years. In fact, the Biden administration came out a few days after the initial report and said, yeah, it's been there at least since 2019. Probably been there a little bit earlier. Now, Cuba will always figure hot and heavy in American street street planning because it controls the

Straits of Florida and the Yucatan Straits, which command access to the Gulf of Mexico. And if for whatever reason the greater Mississippi system could not trade with the rest of the world, that is the core of American power, capital generation, and agriculture and energy. So kind of a big deal. And this is the reason why JFK almost got us into a nuclear war over the Cuban missile crisis back in the 60s because the Soviets were militarizing Cuba. Cuba itself certainly doesn't have the military capacity to challenge the United States or close the straits. but it could be a base for hostile power from out of hemisphere.

Of course, the conversation now is whether or not the Chinese are in that role. Not yet, and probably not ever. The Chinese don't have the ability to project power that sort of distance without, ironically, American assistance. So the only Chinese military base abroad anywhere in the world is in Djibouti, and it is only able to function there because the Americans basically indirectly help out with logistics and naval patrol. So I'm not worried about that right now.

That doesn't mean that things with Cuba aren't going to get interesting. In the post-Cold War environment, with the Russians no longer a significant factor in Havana, the question has been, how long can Cuba last in this sort of environment? And there's really two big paths that this could go. Number one is a diplomatic solution to the embargoaglio in relations between the two. This is something that Barack Obama attempted floppy and sophomorically. and ultimately it was shot down by Congress. But the idea of bringing Cuba into the North American family, perhaps even into NAFTA, makes a lot of sense because the workers in Cuba are probably about a third as productive as Americans, but they work for one-tenth of cost.

So it would be a really good compliment to what the Mexicans really need to industrialize more of their system right now. It would be a huge value add, not to mention the boosts in agriculture and tourism. So some sort of negotiated deal makes a lot of sense, but we'd probably need a best negotiating team than what we had under Obama, but that is literally every other president we've ever had. So, you know, don't rule it out. It's a political question on both sides. There just has to be willingness to work on it again. The second option is a more direct military option, which would include overthrowing the government or occupying it. And we've done that in the past, too, although not recently.

At the moment that is off the table, it would take a lot more provocation from the Cubans than hosting a listening post. They would have to actually accept more advanced military assistance and have a base, and the Chinese are simply not the power to do that, and the Russians no longer have the capacity either. So it would only happen if the United States president just woke up one day and said, you know what, let's conquer Cuba. I don't find that likely. And then between those two extremes, you get, actually. economic warfare. One of the things that we've discovered in a system that is as dysfunctional politically and economically as Cuba is there are a lot of weak points. Probably the single biggest

one is food, and that's one of the reasons why when we had that proto deal with the Obama administration that the United States used its agricultural surpluses as a way to induce the Cubans into making concessions, and it worked. The other one would be energy. The Cubans get almost all of their fuels from Venezuela. And so if you have a break in the Venezuela, system, all of a sudden the Cubans are high and dry and without fuel, diesel, or power. So there's a lot of ways that the Cuban system can kind of collapse under its own weight. And as with everything with the United States, there is a belief in Washington accurately that we can outweigh this problem.

And unless we have some sort of acute challenge to American security, that's just kind of the safest thing to do. It's probably a good bet, but that doesn't mean it's going to last forever. All right. Everyone take care. See you next time.