Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel speaks in the National Assembly of Cuba. Photo: PCC.
By Ángel Guerra Cabrera – Jul 21, 2022
Cuba must learn to live, advance and develop under the rigors of the fourth generation warfare, or hybrid warfare, which the United States systematically imposes on it. That is the approach that emerges from observing the tireless efforts of the government, the Communist Party and the Cuban institutional system in all spheres of economic, political, social and cultural activities. To give a couple of examples of great importance, the island, in addition to struggling to recover and transform its economy, is engaged in two tremendous political and legislative challenges: the debate on the family code—already approved in the National Assembly of People’s Power, after receiving substantial modifications in popular assemblies, and the new communication law; two instruments that will try to enhance the vibrance of Cuban democracy.
Precisely, on Wednesday, July 20, the day in which the parliamentary commission discussed the family code, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in the economic commission, called for a strengthening of Cuban democracy in the face of economic strangulation and the subversive plans of the US. The imperialist and counterrevolutionary attempt of July 11 was defeated, but every day the Cuban people have to face numerous effects of hostility, both in the economic, political and diplomatic order as well as in the cultural-communication battle. It is worth reiterating, so far President Joseph Biden has changed very little of the 243 measures added by Donald Trump to reinforce the blockade.
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The Biden administration announced the reestablishment of family remittances and delivery of a greater number of visas, but so far he has not implemented them. However, the veteran Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on July 20 the inclusion of Cuba in the black list of countries that do not perform well in human trafficking. It is a big lie, as the US brands Cuba’s prestigious medical cooperation as “trafficking.”
In order to understand what comprises the fourth-generation warfare, or hybrid warfare, as applied to Cuba, I briefly return to my post of the previous week. There I summarized different forms of aggression the United States (US) applies against Cuba since 1959, the year of the revolutionary triumph. I tried to historically frame the social disorders provoked in Cuba on July 11, 2021 and to explain the combination of problems that came together to propitiate them. Some, like the pandemic and the lockdown, are an objective reality. Others, the most deliberate, such as the cruelty with which the government of Donald Trump sought to intensify during the pandemic the hardships and shortages caused by the blockade in order to inflict the maximum degree of pain and despair on the Cuban people. And all this combined with a ferocious onslaught on social media and in the conventional media.
Based on its long experience of wars of aggression, hostile campaigns and coups d’état against peoples and governments, including those of the first Cold War against the USSR, the US has been modifying its military doctrine, adapting it to its scientific and technological advances and the lessons learned from those it considers its enemies. That is to say, the revolutionary and progressive movements and governments, as well as those that do not subordinate themselves to the dictates of the empire. The fourth generation war is the combination of economic, financial and commercial asphyxiation, with which the US tries to divide the Cuban people. It is the use of digital networks, the digital media created for that purpose as well as the conventional ones, to sow hatred and violence in Cuba, no matter the lies and slanders used. It is also the repeated calls for US military intervention by the most vicious spokespeople of the counterrevolution. It is the millions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money used to sustain the media campaigns and to pay the mercenary fifth column within Cuba. In the height of delirium, they have gone so far as to use the slogan revolution, understanding as such the unleashing of chaos and social disorder in Cuba. Everything seems to be next to nothing to precipitate the longed-for day of the end of “communism.” It was not July 11 of 2021, nor November 15, 2021 and nothing happened this July 11 either. Instead, Havana is very calm.
It does not matter, however. Four days later, they were already mounting an operation on Twitter, denounced by the Union of Cuban Journalists, whose analysts found 8,190 users, the vast majority located outside Cuba, who have generated 27,301 interactions in the last few days, in which, with the greatest impunity, they call for violence in the island. It is obvious that none of these accounts will be shut down by Twitter, unlike what it has done to many users who defend the Revolution.
(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)
Angel Guerra Cabrera
Journalist and Cuban political analyst. He was director of the Juventud Rebelde newspaper (1968-1971), Bohemia magazine (1971-1980) and other Cuban publications. He has worked as a journalist in countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the USA. In Mexico he is a columnist on international issues of the newspapers La Jornada and Excelsior. He is coordinator of the Mexico and the Current World Political Reflection Forum, jointly organized by Casa Lam and La Jornada.
