by Jim Hodgson

Even as Cuba’s foreign minister rose to speak Saturday in the United Nations General Assembly, CBS News reported that the U.S. Army Reserve is considering how it can support the military’s Southern Command in coming months.

James LaPorta of CBS News reported that the reserve is looking at providing support units, including police forces and medical personnel, to the Southern Command, which covers Latin America south of Mexico, the waters around Central and South America, and the Caribbean, including Cuba.

The memo reviewed by CBS doesn’t say for what operation the troops would be needed “in 90 to 120 days,” but LaPorta reported that “multiple U.S. officials” said the planning is for a potential operation aimed at Cuba.

Days earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump told the General Assembly that Cuba was a “failed state” and that he was seeking a “fundamental change” on the island, declaring that “freedom will be coming to Cuba.”

The speech Saturday by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was partly a rebuke to Trump, but he also called for the United Nations to be preserved and strengthened while becoming “more democratic and effective” and closer to the peoples it serves.

“We are convinced that the current course of international relations, of disrespect for international law, contempt of the United Nations, and the imposition of the unilateral will of the most powerful on other countries, through intimidation and coercion, is dangerous and unsustainable. The law of the jungle cannot be the future of humanity,” he said.

Rodríguez repeated that Cuba remains willing to engage in dialogue with the United States to seek resolution of bilateral differences, but without “interference or pre-conditions.

Actions you can take:

• Before October 11: if you are in Canada and have not done so already, please sign this House of Commons petition. It will be presented in the House by opposition Members of Parliament on October 12.
• Common Frontiers and its allies have revamped their Take Action so that you can press the Canadian government to support Cuba in a UN General Assembly vote on October 27 or 28 to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Canada must also increase humanitarian aid to Cuba.
• If you are in any other country, please write to your representatives and/or foreign minister to press for support to the Cuba resolution in the UN General Assembly and to increase aid to Cuba. The 2026 annual threat assessment from combined U.S. intelligence agencies largely portrays Cuba as an “enabling environment” for “larger geopolitical competitors” like Russia, China and Iran, rather than as an independent strategic threat.

U.S. military lays groundwork for potential action around Cuba [Section adapted from the CBS report cited above.] 

Earlier this year, U.S. forces conducted reconnaissance operations on the seafloor and maritime approaches that surround Cuba, multiple U.S. military personnel told CBS News. Separately, U.S. airpower components were placed on heightened readiness and directed to pre-stage personnel for potential deployment. Those plans, however, did not come to fruition.

CBS News reported in May that U.S. intelligence officials were assessing how Cuba would respond to possible U.S. military action. 

In July, CBS News reported that U.S. military planners had examined a range of options for possible action against Cuba, including an Army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. soldiers to be carried out by the 101st Airborne Division, the only unit trained for such a task. 

U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News in July stressed that the briefings were not an indication that the president or the Pentagon had decided to go forward with an operation.

“Siege warfare:” unilateral coercive measures

Meanwhile, the Trump regime has continuously upgraded its sanctions on Cuban government entities and officials.

For an excellent description of how the Trump administration is using “starvation and misery” to achieve regime change in Cuba, please read Joy Gordon’s long analysis in Lawfare. She concludes: “what the U.S. is doing to Cuba is illegal, it is indefensible, and it is indecent.”