The first of the year is still the anniversary, but the wind has already changed: there was… Guevara, sooner or later it won't be there anymore.
Between patches and the latest propaganda, it also yields the island fortress that has stood its ground against the Empire. A matter of ... weight: the official one is toilet paper and is there to disappear with the new wind; soon, only the convertible linked to the dollar will remain. The new wind also takes away the embargo, which from the 59, through the Torricelli Law, suffocates everything. America and Cuba will soon be good friends, like Coca Cola and Rum. The new flights between the USA and Havana and the new relations (without US embassies in the world remain only Iran and Buthan) prove it: a matter of little and a piece of history will die. Cuba is a dusty road destined for neon, at new rich and small Education Creole.
But the transition is not as automatic as it seems. The Cuban regime revolves around the military. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias they are the most important of the three levers of power in Havana. In fact they also control the other two, the PCC (the Communist Party, the only one in power) and the security system. From how they will move olive green Cuba's exit will depend on its antagonistic past.
The disintegration of the Cuban military apparatus is a process that has been underway for twenty years. It has gone from 300.000 ready men to use mid-year '60 to today's 62.000. The arsenals then updated by Moscow, today are antiquated and do not allow projection capacity. Armored forces are an example: le brigadas de tanques, already reduced to 4, they would not count more than 900 between modernized and still “efficient” old T-55 and T 62.
In the 2016 it would be a joke to support African adventures like those in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Congo and Namibia of the years '70 and' 80. Even the times of the US invasion of Grenada seem distant, when Cuban indirect support for the Grenadine army humbled the SEALs and American helicopter pilots. Its territorial commands (Western in Havana, Central in Matanzas e Oriental in Santiago de Cuba) appear more consistent with the maintenance of the status quo that with a dynamic approach. The top remains linked to elite departments like le Avispas Negras still trained by Vietnamese and special forces spetsnaz Russians, but the decline is there and concerns everyone, even the fleet: reduced to a coastal force, it boasts some “toy” submarines Sang-O Korean and some national experiments. The frigates are reduced to two ex-adapted fishing vessels and the missile force relies on some obsolete former Soviet units.
of the Fuerza Area not even talking about it. Even before Latin America in terms of number of aircraft, since the end of Soviet aid it has reduced its efficiency standard by more than 60%.
Since the closure of the Moscow tap in the 1990 the race for survival has looked above all at China, North Korea and Venezuela Chavista. With the end of Maduro's regime in Caracas, relations with Beijing and Pyongyang remain. The first are good for the agreements following the visit to Beijing in 2012 by the Vice Minister for FAR Quintas, the latter remain controversial due to the inconvenient position of North Korea in the international community and the risks of "nuclear smuggling". In this regard the episode of the ship Chong Chon Gang full of weapons seized in Panama in the 2013 is emblematic. 
However, the data does not change things: half of the economic activities in Cuba are controlled directly or indirectly by the FAR and their departure from key institutional roles appears problematic. In other words, whatever the scenario of succession to Raul Castro, it does not seem possible to do without the generals.
For now, the little charismatic brother of Fidel tries to pilot the inevitable transition from a socialist economy to a mixed one and the possible resizing of the world in uniform. But some already make the names of successors in a hypothetical post-communist militar-Caribbean regime accepted by all: Leopoldo Cintra Frias above all.
Meanwhile, between the sea, street musicians, domino games in the alleys, tank tops and crucifixes, in the rickety Havana they continue to eat. An average salary (60 dollars) is worth just to buy rice and bread with the ration card.
Cuba is iconographic. To understand it, just take a long tour El Malecon. Melancholy, fatalism, poverty, the sense of isolation that comes from History and Geography is everywhere. Since Fidel Castro and Che Guevara drove out Batista, everything remained suspended, slowed to the slow pace typical of a socialist island. Even the flags are flying slowly. With the advent of communism, the national flag has not changed. No symbols, no stars, no sickles, no hammers.
Cuba is a beautiful old woman and her age prevents a quick death. We are on the last page of the '900 that still does not want to run. Beyond ideologies, i murals, the patriotic-communist writings, everything looks like a museum, opened for a little longer.
In Cuba there is no internet and when it is there, it costs a lot and works little. The connection in a Cafes, it costs 10 dollars an hour: almost like going to hell. Cuba will soon be connected to the world and the network will be immediately annoying and too much. The internet cost will decrease. On the other hand, that of whores will increase.
La Simon Bolivar between Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Buick years' 50 remembers an episode of Happy Days. The machines are the same as in the last New Year of Batista, that of the Godfather II to understand each other; nothing has changed. Spare parts are invented and recycled like everything. Waiting for the military to do it, the country is slowly changing.
With the end of the Castro period in Cuba, not just a dictatorship will end. A century already digested will end; digested so fast that you don't even fear anymore. Globalization will soon win, engulfing everything.
The only hope is that when Cuba returns among the "normal", it remains somehow itself. These are words that unfortunately go away with the wind. What changes everything.
(photo: author / FAR / web)
