Future Atlas

SCENARIOS

FIDELISMO WITHOUT FIDEL
Cuba’s current communist system persists.

Probability – Medium

Trajectory – Without Castro, would tend to transition toward the China Option or Normal Cuba scenarios.

Drivers:

• Cuba’s system is pervasive and generally competent.
• US antagonism makes the defiance of the current regime necessary in the eyes of many Cubans.
• Venezuelan aid and possible Cuban oil finds could keep the existing system afloat.

• Castro has always been central to the Cuban Revolution, and its durability in his absence is uncertain.
• There is substantial desire for change of some kind on the island.
• The Cuban government is probably disinclined to use large-scale force to maintain its rule if opposition builds.

Probability – Medium-low

Trajectory – Would tend to transition to Normal Cuba scenario.

Drivers:

• This would alleviate Cubans’ most common complaint, that they suffer from material deprivation.
• Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother and likely successor, is said be less ideologically rigid than the older Castro.

• Cuba’s past experiences, and the low danger of violent upheaval, are likely to make full democracy preferable to large numbers of Cubans.
• As revolutionary movements go, Cuba’s has been relatively sincere in its approach.

Probability – Medium

Trajectory – Likely to persist, with slight danger of slipping into the Neo-Batista right-wing authoritarianism scenario or one of the left-wing authoritarian scenarios.

Drivers:

• High levels of education and an ideology of citizenship may have prepared Cuba well for democracy.
• The US will likely offer substantial incentives to promote this outcome.

• Like any ruling elite, the Communist Party will have elements that wish to retain power.
• Cuban-Americans might push the US to maintain its hard-line stance, impeding a transition.

Probability – Very low

Trajectory – Would likely evolve toward a Normal Cuba scenario, but could revert via revolt to a Fidelismo scenario.

Drivers:

• Significant elements of the Cuban-American leadership remain extremist and might not accept the compromises that most transition scenarios are likely to entail.

• The Cuban population would strongly resist a new right-wing dictatorship.
• US and world expectations for democracy would be high.
• Much of the Cuban-American population expects and favors democracy.

Probability – Low

Trajectory – Would gradually coalesce into Normal Cuba or one of the authoritarian scenarios.

Drivers:

• Castro might prove to be the crucial structural element in Cuba’s political system.
• The existing system is all most Cubans have known, and has been in place nearly half a century.

• The current system is pervasive and competent.
• Internal divisions in Cuba don’t seem to be sharp.
• The US has strong incentives not to create a refugee-generating failed state 90 miles off its shores.
• Many Cubans would wish to prevent the opening for direct intervention by the US that this would open up.

Probability – Low

Trajectory – Would likely result in an eventual compromise that evolved toward a Normal Cuba scenario. Less likely would be such sharp resistance that the US loses heart and retreated, leaving Cuba to the Fidelismo outcome.

Drivers:

• The impatience of Cuban-American extremists could lead them to push for military intervention.
• Americans tend to have a black-and-white view of Cuba that does not reflect reality.

• Most elements of the US government seem to grasp that an invasion could be disastrous.
• A large portion of the Cuban-American populace would be reluctant to see war brought to their homeland.

[Cuba’s future / Cuban scenarios / Cuba scenarios / future of Cuba]