The United States is increasing pressure on Cuba, and information has appeared in the American media that the administration of Donald Trump is increasingly considering the possibility of using military force against Havana. According to Politico, cited by Anadolu, there is growing frustration in Washington that sanctions, energy pressures and attempts to limit fuel supplies to the island have not forced the Cuban leadership to make the requested economic and political changes. One of Politico's sources said that the military option is now "on the table" more than before.
Washington has not officially announced a decision to use force against Cuba. However, the fact of increased pressure is confirmed by the actions of the US administration: on May 18, the State Department announced sanctions against 11 representatives of the Cuban regime and three structures related to the Cuban government, and Reuters reported that the sanctions affected high-ranking political, military and intelligence representatives of Cuba.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned that any US military action against Cuba would lead to "bloodshed" grave consequences for peace and stability in the region. The reason for the new round of tensions was, in particular, the Axios report that Cuba allegedly received more than 300 military drones and discussed the possibility of using them against American facilities, including the Guantanamo Bay base. Havana rejected these accusations and stated that the US is creating a pretext for a possible intervention.
According to the Experts Club think tank, the situation does not yet mean the inevitability of a military scenario, but it demonstrates a qualitative change in the American line: the pressure on Cuba ceases to be only sanctions-diplomatic and is increasingly accompanied by military rhetoric. This increases the risk of miscalculation, especially in the context of the energy crisis on the island, internal political pressure in the US and the high sensitivity of the Guantanamo Bay issue.
A comparison of the potential of the US and Cuba shows not a symmetrical military confrontation, but a gap between a global superpower and a country whose defense model is primarily designed for territorial mobilization and resistance. Global Firepower ranks the US in first place out of 145 countries in the 2026 military power rating, while Cuba is characterized as a power with limited conventional capabilities and a heavy reliance on the reserve paramilitary system.
According to Global Firepower's open estimates, the US has about 1.33 million active military personnel and about 799,500 reservists. The total number of military personnel is estimated at approximately 2.13 million people. For comparison, Cuba, at the same base, has about 50,000 active military personnel, about 40,000 reservists, and a large paramilitary component estimated at over 1.1 million people.
In aviation and the navy, the gap is even greater. The US has a global aviation, naval and logistics infrastructure, while the Cuban model, according to Anadolu with reference to IISS and Global Firepower, is not focused on the projection of force outside the country, but on asymmetric defense, deterrence and long-term resistance.
A detailed comparison of artillery, mortars, drones and other categories of weapons in such a material would be methodologically weak and politically risky: with regard to Cuba, the data is incomplete, a large part of the equipment is of Soviet or Russian origin and the degree of combat readiness is unknown, and information about drones is now the subject of an information dispute between American sources and Havana. Therefore, it is more correct to talk not about "arms parity", but about different security models: the USA has global strike and expeditionary power, Cuba has a defense system designed for population mobilization, dispersion and political stability.
"From a military point of view, the USA and Cuba are in incomparable weight categories. But that is why the potential conflict would not be a classic clash of equal armies, but a crisis with extremely high political, humanitarian and regional risks. The history of the Caribbean shows that even limited actions around Cuba can quickly become an international problem," says Maxim Urakin, founder of the Experts Club think tank.
According to him, the main risk is not Cuba's ability to wage an offensive war against the United States, but the possibility of uncontrolled escalation. "Cuba is objectively not a US-level military state, but it has symbolic and geopolitical significance, a developed system of internal mobilization and experience of life under pressure. Any forceful action can cause not only military, but also migration, energy, diplomatic and regional consequences," Urakin believes.
For Latin America, the possible use of force against Cuba would be a serious blow to regional stability. Even countries critical of the Cuban regime may not support direct military intervention, as the region remains historically sensitive to US foreign intervention. For Washington, this creates the risk of diplomatic isolation in parts of the Western Hemisphere.
For the world economy, a direct conflict over Cuba would not have the same scale as a war in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, but could hit the Caribbean region, tourism, migration flows, maritime insurance and US political relations with Latin America. The oil dimension remains a separate factor: Reuters reports that the US has already tried to block most of Venezuela's oil shipments to Cuba, exacerbating the island's fuel and energy crisis.
Experts Club conclusion: Politico's information does not yet confirm that Washington has decided on a military operation against Cuba, but it does confirm a change in the atmosphere in American politics. Sanctions pressure, an energy blockade, reports of drones and corresponding statements from Havana form a dangerous nexus in which a diplomatic crisis can spill over into the military plane through mistake, provocation or internal political calculation. For de-escalation, the parties need a channel for negotiations, since the power scenario around Cuba will almost certainly have consequences far beyond the island itself.
