How Obama’s Cuba Deal Is Strengthening Its Military

How Obama's Cuba Deal Is Strengthening Its Military
Castro's real heirs are the generals, and they're going to make a bundle
from normalization.
By JAMES BRUNO March 17, 2015

In the hit 1992 movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson's fictional Colonel
Jessup famously declares: "I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Cubans
who are trained to kill me." The Cuban officers I met never gave me that
impression. As the State Department's former representative to
negotiations with Cuba's military, I can tell you that our discussions
were typically convivial and constructive. And today, President Barack
Obama's initiative to normalize relations with Havana has presented the
United States with a truly mind-boggling prospect: Our most reliable
partner on that long-isolated island is probably going to be the Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias, Cuba's military establishment.

And soon they're going to be making a lot of money.

The Communist Party of Cuba may constitute the country's political
leadership, but it is seen increasingly as an anachronism by the
population, and after Fidel Castro, 88, and Raúl Castro, 83, pass from
the scene, the party may too. Cuba's legislature, the National Assembly
of People's Power, is a rubber stamp appendage of the party and likewise
held in low popular esteem. Civilian agencies have proven inept and
sclerotic in managing government programs. The powerful Ministry of
Interior is widely feared as the blunt instrument of oppression, but it
too is likely to be swept aside eventually by the tide of change. And
more than a half-century of authoritarian single-party rule has stunted
civil society and held the Catholic Church in check.

This leaves the FAR. Under Raúl Castro's leadership from 1959 until he
succeeded brother Fidel as president in 2006, the now 60,000-strong
military has been widely considered to be Cuba's best managed and
stablest official entity. Furthermore, it has never been called upon to
fire on or suppress Cuban citizens, even during the so-called Maleconazo
protests in 1994, and most observers believe the FAR would refuse any
orders to do so.

For years our discussions with the FAR have focused on cooperating on
practical matters: avoiding tensions along Guantánamo Naval Base's
17-mile perimeter, collaborating on firefighting and working out
arrangements for the return of Cuban citizens who were picked up at sea
while trying to escape their country. In contrast with our stiff
exchanges with the North Koreans at Panmunjom, these monthly encounters
tend to be productive, constructive and amiable.

Now they could be historic. And for the FAR, profitable. Indeed,
Americans flocking to Cuba in years ahead will likely be shoring up the
Cuban military's bottom line. Today, senior FAR officers are in charge
of sugar production, tourism, import-export, information technology and
communications, civil aviation and cigar production. It is estimated
that at least 60 percent of Cuba's economy and 40 percent of foreign
exchange revenues are in the hands of the military and that 20 percent
of workers are employed by the FAR's holding company, GAESA. Tourists
sipping a mojito at Varadero beach, flying by commuter to lush resorts
in the Cuban keys, visiting historic attractions, enjoying the cuisine
at a five-star hotel or lighting up a Cohiba after one of those meals
are unconsciously contributing to the coffers of the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias and the communist government to the tune of several
billion dollars a year. Some of this hard-currency infusion has fed
corruption within the FAR. Nonetheless, when the U.S. embargo is
eventually lifted, American companies interested in investing in Cuba
will need to partner with enterprises under the control of the Cuban
military. It follows, therefore, that the U.S. government will need to
broadly engage with the FAR on economic and trade as well as political
and military matters. Former CIA Cuba analyst Brian Latell believes the
pragmatic-oriented FAR will be easier to deal with than the old-guard
civilian leaders.

The FAR is the most demographically representative Cuban institution as
well, traditionally a vehicle for rural poor and black young men and
women to advance themselves. During my time on "the Line," the
Afro-Cuban colonel commanding the Border Defense Brigade (the spearhead
of Col. Jessup's perceived nemesis) was one such soldier. Though
difficult to gauge, the FAR appear generally to be held in respect by
Cubans. No other institution will be able to force through policies that
a unified and disciplined military command will not support. The Cuban
military therefore is the 800-pound gorilla in Havana, an institution
Washington will need to work with well past the Castro era. "The
generals will either dominate a praetorian successor regime after Fidel
Castro dies or is incapacitated, or, like the militaries in the former
communist countries of Eastern Europe, be the willing accomplices in the
demise of Marxism," according to Latell.

Cuba's falling-out with Moscow following the demise of the Soviet Union
and the end of that country's subsidies impelled then-defense minister
Raúl Castro to replace the FAR's Soviet-style centralized planning and
command system with Western-style management and accounting methods. He
sent some of the FAR's brightest officers to Europe and Latin America
for training in capitalist business practices, creating a new cadre of
"technocrat soldiers" to manage the FAR's growing military production
enterprises. After assuming the presidency in 2006, Raúl further
expanded the military's role in both the political and economic spheres.
The Council of Ministers executive committee is dominated by military
men, while eight of the government's 27 ministries are led by active
duty or retired FAR officers. Half of the Communist Party's Politburo
comprises individuals with military background.

The end of Soviet subsidies also led the FAR to expand into
non-military-related economic activities in order to help pay for
defense outlays as well as to fund the civilian side of government. It
has focused its efforts on three key sectors: agriculture, manufacturing
and tourism. Many high-ranking active and retired FAR officers
subsequently have turned into "entrepreneur soldiers," i.e., olive-drab
businessmen in charge of large, hard-currency-earning industries, all
controlled by GAESA, headed by Raúl's son-in-law, Luis Alberto
Rodríguez, an Army brigadier who speaks English with an impeccable
upper-class British accent.

James Bruno is a retired Foreign Service officer, writer and blogger.
His book, "The Foreign Circus: Why Foreign Policy Should Not Be Left in
the Hands of Diplomats, Spooks and Political Hacks," is now out.

Source: How Obama's Cuba Deal Is Strengthening Its Military - James
Bruno - POLITICO Magazine -
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/cuba-relations-obama-revolutionary-forces-far-116158.html#.VQlsp47F9HE