President Donald Trump’s decision to seize Venezuela’s former dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and bring him to America for trial is a win for the United States and a strategic loss for Washington’s enemies. But while Tehran, Moscow, Pyongyang, and Beijing are all losers here, having been denied a partner against American interests, Havana is the biggest loser.
Venezuela was a democracy until Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, came to power in 1999. Chávez subverted Venezuela’s institutions and laid out the welcome mat for America’s adversaries. By the time that Chávez died from cancer in 2013, Caracas was a forward operating base for Iran, Russia, and China. But no country played a greater role in Venezuela’s shift from pro-American democracy to repressive anti-Western autocracy than Cuba. Ever since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Cuba has exported its brand of revolutionary despotism, working to subvert the U.S. at every turn.
Indeed, Castro’s Cuba was often more militant than its Soviet sponsor. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, it was Castro, not Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who was willing to go to nuclear war with the U.S. And while Moscow embraced détente and arms control talks with Washington, Havana began funneling arms and training to insurgencies from Nicaragua in Latin America to Angola on the African continent.
A tiny island, communist Cuba nonetheless managed to play an outsize role during the Cold War. On a larger scale, the conflict ended with the Soviet Union’s collapse in December 1991. But not for Havana. The Cuban regime has continued to be a very large thorn in America’s side. In some respects, the rise of Chávez in the late 1990s and the subsequent perversion of Venezuela’s democracy were Castro’s crowning achievements. Castro saw in Chávez not only a like-minded ally, but someone who could sustain the aging dictator’s long-standing war against the U.S.
Accordingly, Havana invested heavily in both the Chávez and Maduro governments. In a similar arrangement that it had worked out with other dictatorships, Cuba received discounted oil in exchange for providing the regime with security and medical assistance. The intelligence infrastructure that Cuba operated in Venezuela is extensive. Cuba’s intelligence service, the Intelligence Directorate (DI), has long been regarded as among the world’s best, consistently punching way above its weight.
As Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst, noted in his 2012 book Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine, “Many retired CIA officials stand in awe of how Cuba, a small island nation, could have built up such exceptional clandestine capabilities.” In his opinion, Cuban intelligence often “ran circles” around its American counterparts. Indeed, in his 1987 defection to the U.S., Florentino Aspillaga Lombard, a top DI operative, exposed that dozens of Cuban double agents had infiltrated American society, from nongovernmental organizations to the U.S. government. Many had been living in the U.S. for years. One infamous spy, Ana Belén Montes, spent nearly two decades ensconced at the Defense Intelligence Agency while spying for Havana.
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It was this intelligence apparatus that was charged with protecting Maduro. Dozens of Cuban agents served as the Venezuelan dictator’s bodyguards, while countless others were tasked with counterintelligence, rooting out spies, and “coup-proofing” the country’s military. But they failed.
Havana has said that more than 30 Cuban operatives died in the firefight with U.S. forces who remanded Maduro into U.S. custody. And according to Reuters, informants inside Venezuela, including members of the military, were key in locating Maduro. Now, Cuba’s vaunted intelligence services stand diminished. And Havana’s leaders must be wondering if they’re next.
The writer is a Washington D.C.-based foreign affairs analyst. His views are his own.