Another Cuban Missile Crisis in the Making? China’s Stealth Offensive in the Western Hemisphere, By Charles Taylor (Florida)
There was a time when the mere mention of foreign adversaries establishing bases in Cuba would send shockwaves through Washington. In 1962, it brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Today, the warnings are eerily similar, but the response from the Trump White House is muted, bordering on negligent.
Satellite imagery and open-source intelligence from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) have revealed what many feared: China is embedding itself in Cuba with potentially far-reaching consequences. A suspected circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA), the kind used for long-range signals intelligence, is taking shape just outside Havana, within striking range of every U.S. military base on the East Coast. This isn't a communications hub; it's a listening post for a foreign superpower with adversarial intent.
The Chinese Communist Party has never made a secret of its ambitions. But now it's acting with unprecedented boldness, establishing what could effectively become a forward operating base for electronic warfare just 100 miles from the Florida coast. This is not hypothetical. It is happening, and the US leaders are not wake to the gravity of the threat.
This isn't simply about surveillance. The proximity of China's Cuban installations to American military and space infrastructure, Guantánamo Bay, Cape Canaveral, Kings Bay, and the Kennedy Space Center, could allow China to map electronic signatures, monitor response times, and, most worryingly, prepare the electromagnetic battlefield for future conflict. These are the early moves in a silent war, an intelligence and cyber war that bypasses missiles but aims directly at America's strategic nerve centres.
In 1962, the Soviets tried to install nuclear weapons on Cuban soil. That brazen act led to a thirteen-day standoff that brought the world closer to Armageddon than ever before. Yet it also provoked a unified American response that forced the USSR to back down. President Kennedy drew a red line, and enforced it.
Today, the lines are blurry. China's encroachments are cloaked in civilian partnerships, digital infrastructure, and "economic cooperation." But the goals are unmistakable: surveillance, disruption, and strategic advantage in America's backyard.
The troubling truth is that we may be witnessing the quiet prelude to a new Cuban Missile Crisis, one that trades warheads for data, missiles for microwaves. And if Washington fails to respond with clarity and resolve, the cost could be steep.
China does not need to fire a shot to undermine U.S. security. It just needs a foothold. And in Cuba, it's getting one. Of course, communist China already has a foothold in the pacific region with its colonisation of Australia.
"China's aggressive push into Cuba is sounding alarm bells, with fears of covert surveillance operations targeting the United States, a concerning new report from Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reveals.
The worrying findings, drawn from open-source intelligence, expose a suspected circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA) at Cuba's Bejucal signals intelligence site, just a stone's throw from Havana, according to Fox News. The antenna could zero in on radio signals from 3,000 to 8,000 miles away—putting U.S. military bases and even Washington, D.C. within range, the news outlet noted.
"The CCP's poisonous alliance with Cuba has posed significant threats to U.S. national security for decades," House Intellience Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AK) told Fox News. "Their alleged involvement in signals intelligence hubs in Cuba is outward, unconcealed adversarial behavior against the U.S. The CCP's actions are becoming increasingly more bold and thereby detrimental to Western Hemisphere security."
"The PRC is positioning itself to systematically erode U.S. strategic advantages without ever firing a shot," read a letter written by Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) and a group of other lawmakers to Noem. "The geographic proximity of suspected PRC-linked facilities in Cuba to sensitive U.S. installations, including Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Kennedy Space Center, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, may enable the PRC to monitor American detection and response capabilities, map electronic profiles of U.S. assets, and prepare the electromagnetic environment for potential future exploitation."
"If left unchecked, the PRC's activities in Cuba could establish a forward operating base for electronic warfare, enable intelligence collection, and influence operations that directly undermine U.S. national security interests," the lawmakers added.
In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that China and Cuba reached an agreement under which Beijing would pay Cuba several billion dollars to establish an electronic surveillance facility on Cuban territory, aimed at monitoring the United States.
"We are deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people. The United States must respond to China's ongoing and brazen attacks on our nation's security," Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in a joint statement at the time. We must be clear that it would be unacceptable for China to establish an intelligence facility within 100 miles of Florida and the United States, in an area also populated with key military installations and extensive maritime traffic."
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