The sea does not forget. Sixty-four years ago, Soviet missiles pointed at the heart of an American empire from a sliver of a Caribbean island, and the world held its breath at the edge of annihilation.

The crisis passed. The missiles were removed.

However, the punishment never ended. What Washington called an embargo, what Havana has always called by its true name, a blockade, began on February 3, 1962, and has never stopped.

It is the longest sustained campaign of economic strangulation in modern history, outlasting the Cold War, outlasting the Soviet Union, outlasting every justification ever offered for it, and now, in the spring of 2026, it has metastasized into something that should terrify anyone still capable of being terrified.

In what appears to be a carefully calibrated show of force, the United States has deployed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group into Caribbean waters, a move that coincided with the unsealing of murder charges against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro for a 1996 incident in which Cuban forces shot down planes operated by the Miami exile group Brothers to the Rescue.

US Southern Command framed the move as a demonstration of operational readiness, citing the carrier’s prior combat operations from the Taiwan Strait to the Persian Gulf to underscore its capabilities and reach.

READ: Cuba will be failing pretty soon: Trump

“Welcome to the Caribbean, Nimitz Carrier Strike Group!” the command posted on social media, with the casual menace of a man pressing a boot to a throat.

This is the Imperial Theatre. It is the language of domination dressed in legal costume.

This is the Imperial Theatre. It is the language of domination dressed in legal costume.

The empire always needs a........

© Middle East Monitor