>>2884290>conflating "deterrence" with "nuclear deterrence"Nukes are one form of deterrence, but not the only one. States weigh costs, benefits, domestic politics, alliances, logistics, international legitimacy, and opportunity cost before going to war. If military capability were the only variable, the US would've just invaded Cuba after 1991. It didn't, and it still hasn't. Also, "the US would never allow X to develop" is a truism, not an argument. Every anti-imperialist state develops under constant sabotage. The question is whether it can still expand its productive forces despite that pressure. If your answer is "nothing matters except nukes," then you're saying every socialist project outside the DPRK is doomed by definition. That's analysis by slogan. The irony here is that you're accusing me of idealism while reducing geopolitics to a single variable.
>>2884621The USSR was decisive, sure. But the USSR collapsed thirty-five years ago. Cuba didn't. If Cuba's existence were explained solely by being a Soviet client, it should've disappeared in the 1990s. Instead, it survived the Special Period, decades of sanctions, and repeated US attempts to isolate it. That doesn't mean Cuba is invincible or beyond criticism. It means the "it only existed because of the USSR" explanation stopped being sufficient a long time ago. Material conditions change, but analysis should too.