On the beaches east of Havana, you can still see rusted remnants of watchtowers on the roofs of buildings along the island’s northern coast. Constructed in the early 1960s, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, these emplacements were designed to provide early warning of an attack by the United States—or “the Empire,” in Cuban revolutionary parlance. But by the time I saw them in 2002, during my time in the country as a young U.S. foreign service officer, they seemed like relics of a bygone era, monuments to Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s inability to accept the end of the Cold War and thus the island’s geopolitical irrelevance. Although its relations with the Bush administration were strained, and harsh rhetoric flew in both directions, Havana was, at best, of peripheral importance to a White House focused on expanding NATO, managing relations with China, and fighting in the Middle East. It seemed truly ludicrous to think the United States would ever bother invading Cuba.

But that was then. Today, two decades on, Washington is indeed threatening to attack Cuba’s revolutionary government. “Cuba is going to fall pretty soon,” U.S. President Donald Trump told CNN on March 6, as U.S. naval ships floated around the island. A few weeks later, the president told a business forum that after Iran, Cuba “is next.” Already, the United States has imposed a near-total oil blockade of the country, plunging much of it into darkness. Thanks to U.S. sanctions and Havana’s internal mismanagement, the country is facing economic disaster. Although the Cuban government has survived previous predictions of collapse, many observers sense that this time may actually be different. Trump, after all, has now twice made good on promises to attack U.S. adversaries. And it is obvious that the Cuban government’s model has run its course and has lost the support of many of the citizens who backed it in the past. Cubans’ desire for change is palpable.

Since the early 1960s, successive U.S. administrations have wanted to see Cuba’s communist government fall. Until Trump’s second term, however, most shied away from pursuing regime change through military force. The United States has legitimate policy interests in the island—preventing its use by geopolitical rivals, managing migration, resolving U.S. property claims. The Cuban government has been willing to discuss some of these issues, such as migration, with the United States.

But it has steadfastly rejected any discussions regarding its form of government, which the United States sees as the island’s fundamental problem. Trump’s team sees a historic opportunity to overcome the Cuban government’s resistance and bring the revolutionary period to an end. Waging war on Cuba, however, is unlikely to bring the change Trump seeks. Cuba’s regime may not be as resilient as Iran’s, but its leaders are much more entrenched than was Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, so an effort to unseat them would likely yield not a quick victory. What it would do is open the door to a variety of dangerous possibilities, such as a protracted, bloody insurgency or societal collapse.

Rather than trying to bring change to Cuba by force, the Trump administration should use its leverage to engage in diplomacy. It should promise to forswear military action if Havana distances itself from U.S. rivals. It should offer economic relief in exchange for pro-market reforms and political openings. It should urgently review how its sanctions regime may, paradoxically, stifle reforms it has long sought. And finally, it should push to empower Cuba’s own people, unlocking their economic and political creativity. Doing so may not immediately transform the island into a democracy, but it will directly aid the intended beneficiaries of U.S. policy—Cuban citizens—and set the stage for a sustained national recovery.

SLOUCHING TOWARD WARFARE

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has slapped escalating restrictions on Cuba in what seems like an attempt to break the island’s economy. In addition to imposing an oil blockade, the United States has expanded sanctions against Cuban government entities. It has imposed Treasury Department designations on a growing list of individual Cuban officials and their families. Most important, the Trump administration issued an executive order sanctioning........

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