When was the last time you visited cuba / talked to their people directly?

I went around 2018ish, and your take doesn’t track. You’re right, Russia doesn’t have the heft to support Cuba – but they haven’t had the heft to support Cuba for decades. Most Cubans in their 40s that I met, looked back at the days of a stronger Russia as an ideal time period, where they had more goods available – they literally long for the good old days when Communism was bigger on the world stage. They clearly associate/blame the USA’s actions for causing unnecessary famines and issues. Why on earth would you think people would be favorable to a foreign nation that is literally enacting economic warfare to starve the population?? “Thank you for the boot, may I have another?” What??

One of Cuba’s main ‘exports’, are doctors/medical staff for disasters facing other countries. Becoming a doctor in Cuba is basically free of charge, but you gotta work for the govt for a few years after you graduate – as a low paid, outsourced worker as part of these relief teams. Cuba’s govt charges western-ish rates for assistance, but pays those docs a lot less, pocketing the margin for funding govt activities / programs, such as their medical programs. Practically any country that has had a major natural disaster, has gotten assistance from Cuba in this way, because of how they’ve structured the program – so I reckon most of those countries would be friendly to Cuba. “Big” western nations aren’t the only ‘friends’ Cuba can have. Heck, there’ve been articles from numerous news sources even just recently, noting that increased American aggression on this front is impacting health services in various other countries.

America has a lopsided, bully-oriented, military approach at present. They spend an absolutely absurd amount on their military – hell, they could probably blow up most of the UKs government if they wanted to, which is why your politicians are being such pussies when it comes to the US going rogue and openly boasting about committing war crimes. They have the operational capacity to attack/destroy most other governments. It’s not clear they have the capability to occupy and control additional land / regions though, as evidenced by their fumblings in the middle east in recent past, and in that they didn’t stick around in Venezuela (they didn’t even topple that regime, just abducted the dictator at the top). Having soft power / the support of the people, is an essential component to that sort of thing – and seeing as America’s recent actions are pissing off / alienating even Western powers, I see no reason why anyone would think they’d have much ‘success’ in occupying foreign lands. They’d meet active resistance, just like their attempts to setup in Iraq/Afghanistan – likely to a much larger degree even.