DEEP DIVE — On February 13, nighttime light emissions across major Cuban cities had dropped as much as 50 percent compared to historical averages — the latest chapter in a crisis that has seen the island’s grid collapse multiple times over the past year.As desperate citizens in half the country waited in the dark, something else was accelerating along the island’s few electrified corridors. Chinese technicians continued installing telecommunications equipment, Russian engineers maintained radar stations, and intelligence operatives from both nations embedded themselves deeper into Cuba’s crumbling infrastructure.Just 90 miles from Florida, Cuba’s energy crisis has metastasized from an economic catastrophe into a national security vulnerability. Although Havana struggles to maintain the lights, Beijing and Moscow have come to Cuba’s aid not as charitable donors but as strategic opportunists seeking to expand their intelligence-collection capabilities.The State Department warned just one day after the latest outage that “scheduled power cuts occur daily, and unscheduled outages persist throughout Cuba.” The island’s thermoelectric plants, many dating back decades, now operate at barely 34 percent of their capacity. In February, five of eight Turkish-leased floating power plants departed Cuban ports after Havana failed to meet payment obligations.The crisis has intensified dramatically as Cuba’s oil lifelines have been severed. Following the U.S. seizure of control over Venezuelan oil operations in early January, Mexico had become Cuba’s primary supplier, shipping nearly 20,000 barrels per day through September 2025. Yet, under mounting pressure from the Trump administration, which threatened tariffs on any country supplying Cuba with oil, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced in late January that shipments had been at least temporarily halted.The figure had already plummeted to about 7,000 barrels per day, leaving Cuba essentially without oil imports for the first time in years.The breakdown has created an opening that America’s strategic competitors are exploiting with alarming sophistication. From this vantage point, intelligence services can monitor U.S. military installations across the Southeast, track Space Force launches from Cape Canaveral, intercept communications from Southern Command headquarters in Florida, and observe naval movements throughout the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.For Beijing and Moscow, Cuba’s desperation has become an important windfall.Beijing’s Digital Footprint ExpandsChina’s presence in Cuba has grown exponentially, particularly in telecommunications and digital infrastructure. In testimony before Congress last May, national security analysts confirmed that satellite imagery identifies at least four Chinese-linked signals intelligence facilities across Cuba — Bejucal, Wajay, and Calabazar near Havana, plus a newly constructed site at El Salao near Santiago de Cuba.”Cuba’s proximity to the homeland continues to make the island an attractive intelligence platform for U.S. adversaries,” Connor Pfeiffer, senior director of government relations at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Action, tells The Cipher Brief. “Within 400 miles of Havana sit the headquarters of the U.S. combatant commands for Latin America and the Middle East, U.S. Special Operations Command, and air bases that regularly host advanced U.S. fighter aircraft.”Need a daily dose of reality on national and global security issues? Subscriber to The Cipher Brief’s Nightcap newsletter, delivering expert insights on today’s events – right to your inbox. Sign up for free today.As Cuban telecommunications companies struggle with outdated Soviet-era equipment and chronic power failures, Chinese firms, particularly Huawei and ZTE, have positioned themselves as the only viable solution. These companies aren’t simply selling hardware; they’re installing the very networks through which Cuba’s limited internet traffic flows.”Because of this proximity, intelligence outposts in Cuba provide signals intelligence and other capabilities that are invaluable to Beijing and Moscow,” Pfeiffer explains.The El Salao site features a circularly disposed antenna array, a configuration highly effective at determining the origin and direction of incoming high-frequency signals. These installations can track signals up to 9,300 miles, providing Beijing with unprecedented visibility into U.S. military communications and operations.Meanwhile, MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, home to U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, sits less than 300 miles from Cuban shores. Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Naval Air Station Key West, and dozens of other sensitive military installations across Florida, Georgia, and Alabama all operate within easy range. The advantage over satellite surveillance is stark.”By contrast to what can be obtained from overhead satellite images and other collection from satellites in low earth orbit whose time passing overhead can be anticipated, the ELINT facilities in Cuba are a constant presence with line of sight to key U.S. facilities,” Evan Ellis, research professor of Latin American Studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, tells The Cipher Brief.The infrastructure crisis has made Cuba more dependent on Chinese technical expertise. In February 2025, Chinese Ambassador Hua Xin and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced China would construct 55 solar plants by the end of 2025, with an additional 37 planned by 2028. If completed, the network would add over 2,000 megawatts of capacity. However, this dependency gives Chinese intelligence services unprecedented access to Cuban government communications, military installations, and infrastructure systems.”During the present U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, and in a future U.S. conflict in the Indopacific involving U.S. deployment from bases on the Atlantic seaboard and transit through the Caribbean, the Chinese electronic intelligence gathering facilities in Cuba are well positioned to capture not only things like radio transmissions, but the emissions from U.S. facilities, and the signatures of U.S. ships and other forces,” Ellis underscores.In simpler terms: China’s Cuban listening posts can intercept not just what U.S. forces communicate, but the electronic fingerprints of their equipment, from radar emissions to communications arrays and ship propulsion systems. By using these signatures, adversaries can identify specific vessels and aircraft, track their movements, and potentially develop countermeasures to defeat U.S. military technology.Moscow’s Renewed Military PresenceRussia’s intelligence footprint in Cuba never entirely disappeared after the Cold War, yet Moscow’s activities have intensified dramatically. In March 2025, Russia and Cuba signed a military cooperation agreement that Russian lawmakers ratified in October. Ukrainian intelligence estimates that between 6,000 and 7,000 Cubans are currently fighting as mercenaries in Russia’s war against Ukraine — the second-largest foreign contingent after North Korea’s approximately 12,000 troops.Rather than operating out of a single massive facility like the Soviet-era Lourdes complex, Russian intelligence has embedded personnel and equipment within ostensibly civilian infrastructure projects. Russian engineers arrive whenever Cuba’s power grid requires emergency maintenance, bringing more than just technical skills. When radar systems at Cuban air defense installations fail, Russian specialists provide upgrades with built-in collection capabilities.Russia has also leveraged Cuba’s energy crisis to deepen military cooperation through increasingly frequent naval port calls in Havana; visits that allow Russian intelligence personnel to rotate in and out without scrutiny.Not everyone in the intelligence community shares the alarm. Critics argue the threat is being overblown by voices eager to justify increased defense spending or maintain hardline Cuba policies that have failed for six decades. Some policy experts argue the infrastructure crisis actually presents an opportunity. If Washington eased sanctions and provided assistance to Cuba’s energy sector, Havana would have less incentive to accommodate Chinese and Russian intelligence requirements.Yet Ellis rejects the notion that Cuba could credibly reduce its ties to Beijing and Moscow in exchange for U.S. economic relief.”Although U.S. economic coercion, taking advantage of Diaz-Canel’s currently desperate economic state, could facilitate a deal in which Cuba promises to reduce its Cuban or Russian presence, Cuba will promise to comply to the degree that it can without truly breaking those ties to China and Russia, which for it are both ideological allies and partners in its survival,” he continues.The regime’s dependency, Ellis stresses, runs too deep.”Not until there is a sincerely democratic pro-US regime in Cuba will the U.S. be truly secure from the type of extra-hemispheric threats that Cuba, like Venezuela, can host in the Caribbean,” he asserts.The desperation-dependence cycle gives Beijing and Moscow leverage that extends beyond traditional espionage. Cuban officials are not in a position to demand transparency when Chinese technicians install new telecommunications equipment. Moreover, when Russian engineers service radar installations in Havana, the government lacks leverage to refuse requests for expanded intelligence cooperation.”Without Venezuelan oil aid, the Cuban regime faces acute energy shortages and reduced inflows of much-needed foreign currency,” Pfeiffer says.The Trump administration’s successful pressure on Mexico to halt oil shipments represents a calculated gamble—one that leverages Mexico’s vulnerability during upcoming trade agreement negotiations. The complete severance could accelerate the regime’s collapse—or drive it even more desperately into Chinese and Russian arms.Strategic VulnerabilitiesThe intelligence implications extend far beyond passive eavesdropping.”The data that could be collected could allow the Chinese to capture particular intelligence transmitted in an imperfectly secure or decipherable fashion, but also just from the signatures, have an idea regarding the composition and state of activity of U.S. forces, their location, and signatures that could allow them to more effectively locate and defeat U.S. systems in combat,” Ellis points out.The worst-case scenarios involve cyber weapons pre-positioned in critical infrastructure, electronic warfare systems that could interfere with U.S. military communications during a crisis, or intelligence networks that could support hostile operations on America’s doorstep. The geographic proximity compounds every vulnerability.Yet not everyone views American intervention as the solution.Leon Valencia, a former ELN rebel commander and director of the Bogota-based think tank Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, offers a Colombian perspective that reflects broader Latin American sentiment.”We do see Cuba more as a victim,” Valencia tells The Cipher Brief. “Throughout several peace negotiations, Cuba has been a very important part. For example, the peace agreements with the FARC rebels, signed back in 2016, were negotiated in Cuba. Cuba has always kept its doors open towards us. We are thankful to Cuba, but we wouldn’t get involved in military actions; there would be a protest.”Yet Valencia and other regional analysts increasingly believe change in Cuba may be inevitable. Enrique Serrano, a Colombian political analyst specializing in Latin American authoritarianism, sees the current crisis as potentially terminal.”It’s very unlikely that the government in Cuba might survive this year,” Serrano tells The Cipher Brief. “I think finally we can change, and especially because Venezuela failed too, and even I think Nicaragua will fail to. Those authoritarian governments like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, what they try to do in real life is to gain time. They will disappear earlier or later.”Washington’s DilemmaThe expansion of Chinese and Russian intelligence capabilities in Cuba presents Washington with a challenge that defies easy solutions.According to Pfeiffer, “continued U.S. pressure will make it difficult for China or Russia to assist the Cuban regime in getting out of this crisis of their own making.”The infrastructure crisis complicates any potential diplomatic opening. A government desperate to keep the lights on may prove more willing to accommodate Chinese and Russian intelligence requirements than it would under less dire circumstances.The intelligence collection capabilities that Beijing and Moscow are establishing in Cuba will persist long after the current blackouts end. Once installed, telecommunications infrastructure operates for years or decades. Every blackout pushes Havana closer to Beijing, every grid failure necessitates Moscow’s help; each represents an incremental expansion of foreign intelligence capabilities on American soil.”The opportunities stemming from Cuba’s military and political alignment with the PRC, longstanding working relationship with its military and other personnel, geographical proximity, and other benefits, both before and during war, are hard to overstate,” Ellis adds.The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to [email protected] for publication consideration.Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business
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