Vladimir Putin has brought his war on Ukraine to America’s Caribbean underbelly by deploying nuclear capable, missile carrying warships that docked in Cuba last week for prolonged exercises with local allies in the region that are expected to continue well into the summer. The frigate Admiral Groshkov that tested its missiles in waters off Cuba last week is now reported to be steaming to Venezuela while the nuclear submarine Kazan was last detected sailing north along Florida’s coast, coming as close as 30 miles from Key West.
One way to immediately correct course might be to turn up support for opposition movements in Cuba and Venezuela.
What some analysts consider Russia’s most significant show of force in the western hemisphere since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis could have immediate as well as long term consequences. U.S. clout in Latin America is way weaker than it was when the continent’s governments voted unanimously to support president Kennedy’s efforts to remove Russian ICBMs from Cuba and Putin may be testing U.S. and regional responses to future moves he has planned.
Soviet Russia did attempt to set up a submarine base in Cuba during a quieter Cold War episode in the 1970s but was dissuaded by the Nixon administration, which threatened to retaliate with moves around its borders. Today things are different. The U.S. is already actively involved in a hot war in what the Kremlin calls its “near abroad,” ramping up support for Ukraine’s resistance against an invasion by Russia which sees the growing supply of increasingly advanced Western weaponry to Kiev as an existential threat. (READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: Argentina Is Making Progress, But Not There Yet)
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that it would resort to its nuclear arsenal and consider targeting NATO countries if Ukraine strikes its territory which Kiev is gathering the capacity to do. Large numbers of medium range cruise missiles being delivered by NATO and F-16 jet fighters due to arrive in weeks, may well become the main tools for blunting relentless ground offensives by Russia’s numerically superior army. British admiral Anthony Radakin has said that long range missile and air attacks will become a “feature” of Ukraine’s war strategy.
Evolving military technology also gives Russia a flexibility to respond to Ukraine’s use of Western weapons. The Gorshkov is armed with hypersonic Onyx missiles which I saw destroying Ukraine’s port of Odessa some months back. Fired from frigates and submarines at sea, their mach 7 speeds enabled them to evade U.S. supplied early warning radar.
The Kazan is a highly advanced Yassan — M class submarine with stealth capabilities that inspired Tom Clancy’s blockbuster novel “Hunt for Red October.” The U.S. supposedly has no information about the type of missiles or torpedoes it’s carrying. The Cubans say they aren’t nuclear and the Pentagon appears to be taking their word.
A prolonged Russian naval presence in the Caribbean may also shore up anti-American dictatorships developing military ties with Moscow in an unstable region where a constellation of vulnerable mini states are turning away from the West. Venezuela is already armed with Russian S-300 missile systems, Su-25 fighter aircraft, T-72 tanks, and recently acquired Iranian Peykaap missile attack boats — assembled in Trinidad Tobago. The Gorshkov’s anticipated stop in Caracas would signal Moscow’s support for strongman Nicolas Maduro at a key moment for his regime.
Maduro may be planning to generate an international crisis to justify his ongoing crackdown on the political opposition in order to rig or cancel next month’s presidential elections, according to Dr. Evan Ellis, Latin America specialist at the U.S. Army War College. “His most logical vehicle to do this is through military action in Esequibo, the oil and mineral rich territory that he claims in neighboring Guyana. He may be counting on the presence of Russian war ships to complicate any U.S. defense of Guyana” whose army is vastly inferior to Venezuela’s Russian, Iranian, and Chinese equipped armed forces deployed along the Guyanese border, he says.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega similarly has Russian advisors running his security services, operating a satellite station as well as maintaining T-72 tanks and Zhuk class patrol boats. Regional powers Brazil and Mexico have kept silent about Russia’s naval maneuvers. They tilted towards Moscow at last week’s peace conference in Switzerland by refusing to support Ukraine’s proposal calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces from occupied territory. It might be noted that Brazilian president Lula da Silva hosted Iranian warships in Rio de Janeiro last year.
As might be expected, the Biden administration is tripping over itself in their response to what by their own statements should have been a predictable move by Russia. While sending an attack submarine to Guantamo and four destroyers to shadow the Russian squadron — which has complicated the U.S. task by splitting up — the Pentagon says that the warships present no threat to U.S. national security, and called their visit “routine.”
Not wishing to further embarrass itself by highlighting how governments in the region are rejecting its advances by hosting Russian frigates and submarines, the Biden administration has so far held back from condemning Cuba and Venezuela, which it’s been removing from terrorism lists and relaxing sanctions.
The idea that the U.S. can be hawkish with tyrants in Eastern Europe while dovish with dictators closer to home has created a power vacuum in the western hemisphere that Russia is clearly taking advantage of. Americans can no longer rest on the assumption that a military response to arming Kiev will be limited to Europe.
Despite serious blows dealt to Russia’s Black Sea fleet by Ukraine, or possibly because of it, Putin is rebuilding his navy, which is planning to commission 12 new ships this year including new ballistic missile submarines. His gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean could well affect the war’s outcome and pressure Washington in future peace negotiations.
China could take a cue from the Russians and respond to future U.S. deployments in the South China sea by moving its warships to the Caribbean, where the PLA already counts with an intelligence base in Cuba.
Reasserting the Monroe doctrine should become a central focus of U.S. foreign policy, whose planers must discard chips planted by Cuban moles like ambassador Manuel Rocha and Pentagon analyst Belen Montes that Latin America is somehow irrelevant to our National Security. (READ MORE: Milei Must Wiggle Argentina Out of China’s Grasp)
One way to immediately correct course might be to turn up support for opposition movements in Cuba and Venezuela. Putin may think twice about venturing into the Caribbean if some of his friendliest regimes begin hanging from a thread, with thousands in the street chanting “Rusky go home.”
