Cuba

Flag of Cuba

**Cuba** Officially the **Republic of Cuba** is the largest and most strongest of the Island nations in the Caribbean sea. Cuba despite being a Unitary Presidential Republic, does make a distinction between its head of State and head of Government allowing for more checks to put on the power of the president. Cuba recently underwent a massive internal crisis called the "Havana Strikes" that along with other similar events in the Caribbean are collectively known as the "Caribbean Revolution" with the West Indies Federation having been massively destabilized by them, possibly contributing to it's collapse in 1946. Cuba was formed in 1902 after the Spanish-American War and several american interventions in Cuban politics. Cuba did not fight in the Second Weltkrieg however it became a key stop on the supply chain between Berlin and New Orleans with Cuban ships usually carrying the cargo. Cuba is a member of Mexico's Alliance and was one of its founding members, thus Cuba is aligned to, but not a member of, the Entente.

## History

Cuba in 1936 was undergoing a wave of instability as strikes in Havana continued to get worse and the situation looked as if it would blow over into some sort of revolution. This was only exacerbated by the Black Monday Crisis witch would cut off the tourism life line of the republic. The government not wishing to end up like the governments in Britian and France would end up negotiating with the workers witch would placate them for a few weeks. However soon came the attempt by the military to sign a "National Protection Act" in response to the rising tensions, however the Social Democratic government utterly refused it. This allowed Cuba to prepare for what was about to happen next as the military tried to forcefully remove the government, however this would fail and the coup was quickly broken up and its ringleaders detained. After an unstable year the people of Cuba were now finally at peace in a stable nation as Cuba once again began to focus on foreign affairs. The outbreak of the Second American Civil War had occurred only a week after the attempted coup and the Cuban government saw an opportunity to cement its authority over Cuba and restore its legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Thus Cuba would seize Guantanamo Bay, officially suspending the rights of the United States to the port via renting. This would cause mass shock within both societies and it would cause a surge of popularity for the Social Democrats witch would continue in 1938 and 1939 as Cuba began to emulate its neighbor Mexico. Cuba would slowly turn into a paradise with many social programs for the poor allowing for the people to be lifted out of abject poverty. This would clearly been seen in the Election of 1940 in witch a supermajority would vote for the Social Democrats again. Cuba would also enter into negotiations with Mexico and Central America as Cuba became worried about Syndicalist and Integralist agitation within the Caribbean and Latin America as a whole as nations like Brazil had fallen into civil war, and a new block of Military dictatorships stretched from Lima to Montevideo. And thus out of that came the Democratic Alliance of the Caribbean as a massive defensive and economic pact for the Caribbean nations as an attempt to protect from foreign intervention from the Entente or the United States, while also protecting from the National Populistic Argentina and other nations similar to them. However the economic aspect of the alliance was to help nations like Haiti and Puerto Rico get off of the ground and onto stable footing. After this little has happened in Cuba aside from the most recent election in 1944 where surprise, surprise, the Social Democrats won once again and the current president Ramón Grau would be put in power. Cuba's future looks to be stable for now, but the wave of Syndicalist agitators will cause instability in these Social-Democratic countries, and Cuba is especially vulnerable given its more bellicose working class compared to the rest of the Caribbean.

## Military

Cuba's Military is relatively small compared to other nations of its size, however it is still well equipped and currently on high alert. The Cuban Army has been trained for the mountainous, jungle warfare of the Greater Antilles, and it has its own special marine corps. However it struggles from a lack of manpower as due to the Social Democratic government generally favoring a smaller military compared to other forms of governance. Cuba also has a small respectable navy made up of the ships captured at Guantanamo Bay all those years prior. Cuba also has a small air force witch it is working on building up and being able to do operations in Tandem with other members of the D.A.C.