Cuban President Diaz-Canel Oversees Military Preparations
To defend the island against US threats
The boastful rhetoric contrasts with the obsolete weaponry shown in images broadcast on national television.
HAVANA TIMES – Once again, on a Saturday marked by fear and uncertainty among Cuba’s leadership, Miguel Díaz-Canel donned his olive green uniform to lead military maneuvers that the regime presents as “national defence drills”. In reality, however, the deployment seems to respond less to a credible security strategy than to an urgent need for internal propaganda at a time of extreme political fragility.
According to information released by the state press, January 24th included the observation of “demonstrative tactical exercises” with tanks, shooting practice with university students and combat drills, as well as visits to anti-aircraft defense units. The official account insisted on linking these actions to the “hegemonic offensive” of the United States, following the military operation on January 3rd in Venezuela, which ended with the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
“The best way to prevent aggression is for imperialism to have to calculate the price of attacking our country,” Diaz-Canel told the cameras. However, if the operation in Caracas made one thing clear, it was the weakness of the Cuban military.
The speed with which the forces linked to Maduro’s protection were neutralized, the absence of a credible strategic response and the human toll of the operation – with dozens of Cubans killed on foreign soil – have had a devastating impact on the morale of those who still believe in the strength of the island’s military apparatus. The epic strength repeated by the propagandists on State TV’s Round Table program is one thing; what professional strategists discover when they analyze what happened in Caracas without slogans is quite another. In military terms, it was a disaster for Cuba.
The images broadcast on the government’s nightly news program reinforced that impression. Tanks kicking up columns of dust, a helicopter maneuvering over a fortified model and a soldier waving a flag from the roof of a semi-ruined building made for a scene more akin to a low-budget war film than a modern defense exercise. Even so, Diaz-Canel congratulated the participants on the “success” of the training, in a gesture that underscored the gap between official discourse and peoples’ perception.
Most Cubans did not even see the news program. Some were plunged into scheduled power cuts; others have simply stopped paying attention to messages they consider irrelevant to their daily lives. Soldiers camouflaged with dry grass, old officers watching a rudimentary-looking drone with childlike wonder, and militiamen instructing civilians in the use of obsolete rifles have served more as raw material for memes on social media than as a demonstration of deterrent force.
Díaz-Canel’s constant return to the olive-green uniform also revives an ambiguity that has been carefully managed for years. When he was appointed president in 2018, biographical profiles circulated that presented him as a retired lieutenant colonel and former internationalist combatant in Nicaragua. Over time, official biographies softened that profile. They acknowledged his stay in Nicaragua between 1987 and 1989 but described him as a “civilian” and avoided detailing his military functions, rank or position. If it was previously convenient to erase his military footprint and sell him as a technocratic and modern leader, the regime is now once again emphasizing his image as a “commander” in an attempt to confer martial authority on an increasingly eroded leadership.
Beyond the warmongering rhetoric, the question remains: what real significance does this deployment have for the Cuban population? And who truly feels threatened?
From Havana, the official discourse continues to fuel the idea of imminent aggression from “imperialism”, the euphemism used to refer to the United States for more than six decades. This narrative has historically served to justify the lack of freedom, economic failure and the repression of any dissent. Today, it is being recycled amid a real regional crisis, but it seems to respond more to fears of internal fractures than to a concrete threat of foreign invasion.
In parallel with the maneuvers, the National Defense Council approved “plans and measures” to give way to the so-called “state of war”, a concept shrouded in opaqueness. No details have been provided on its scope, duration or legal implications for citizens. Official media outlets such as Cubadebate and Granma presented it as part of the “War of the Whole People”, without explaining which rights could be affected or under what conditions it would be activated.
This secrecy is reminiscent of other moments in recent history when the regime has resorted to grandiloquent terms – “maximum alert”, “economic war”, “revolutionary offensive” – to justify internal measures aimed less at confronting real threats than at containing social discontent and internal betrayals.
But this theatre has its limits. Most Cubans know from experience that “defending the homeland” does not translate into food on the table, medicines in hospitals or wages sufficient to live on. The great threat to the Cuban population does not seem to come from the north. Rather, it comes from the system’s own inability to solve structural problems. In this context, the display of military muscle serves merely as a distraction for a citizenry that is demanding real answers with increasingly less patience.
Translated by GH for Translating Cuba.