Opinion | Cuba And The End Of An Era

Updated: Mar 26, 2026 18:16 pm IST Published On Mar 26, 2026 18:15 pm IST Last Updated On Mar 26, 2026 18:16 pm IST

Published On Mar 26, 2026 18:15 pm IST

Last Updated On Mar 26, 2026 18:16 pm IST

Cuba's deepening crisis represents more than the failure of an economic model-it signals a turning point in Global South politics. While attention remains fixed on the Middle East, consequential shifts are unfolding across Latin America, shaped in significant part by a more assertive U.S. policy posture that has intensified long-standing pressures on the region.

The island is facing a severe economic and energy crisis, driven by structural weaknesses and the cumulative weight of external constraints. Decades of U.S. economic embargoes-tightened in recent years-have pushed an already fragile system toward breaking point. Fuel shortages, power outages, and rising social strain reveal a system under acute stress, reflecting a wider shift in hemispheric dynamics. Cuba, long seen as an emblem of resistance to Western dominance, now confronts the practical limits of that posture.

For decades, countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia were romanticized across the Global South as symbols of sovereignty and defiance. Figures like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Hugo Chávez occupied an outsized place in this imagination. Yet ideology and symbolism often obscured more complex........

© NDTV