Beyond the Digital Noise: Keys to Understanding the War Against Cuba

Image via the Communist Party of Cuba

By Raúl Antonio Capote, translated from the Spanish

While the world focuses its attention on other conflicts, Cuba has become the scene of an unprecedented communication offensive. Be careful, we are not talking about an invasion in the style of the last century; This is more subtle, and perhaps that is why more dangerous. It is a war designed to shape perceptions, sow doubts, fabricate realities.

Three techniques are, with surgical precision, employed against the island: framing, agenda setting, and gaslighting. These strategies aim to influence global public opinion and, crucially, attempt to undermine the Cuban people's resistance from within.

To provide some context, at the end of January 2026, the U.S. government released an Executive Order, labeling Cuba as an "unusual and extraordinary threat."

In this context, from February 1st to 15th, an intense digital campaign was unleashed, filled with calls for violence and civil disobedience. The Cubadebate Media Observatory noted that while the operation generated significant noise, it did not result in actual mobilization within the country.

Let's examine how these three techniques function. According to George Lakoff's framing theory, the one who sets the frame wins the debate. In the ongoing offensive against Cuba, the framing is evident and follows a deliberate strategy.

At the international level, that Executive Order is not a simple administrative measure. It is, in itself, a major framing operation. By describing Cuba as an "unusual and extraordinary threat," by associating it with Hamas, Hezbollah, China and Russia, a mental framework already pre-existing in the Western imagination is activated. That of the "axis of evil", the "terrorist threat", the "geopolitical danger".

As The Black Alliance for Peace rightly points out, such rhetoric "reflects the dehumanizing narratives used against Venezuela and Iran." And it has a very specific purpose: "to manufacture consent for aggression by presenting Cuba as an evil actor."

Framing is effective because it avoids discussing concrete facts or engaging in debates about Cuba's independent foreign policy or its internationalist solidarity. Instead, it places everything within a broader, more digestible narrative: the "war on terror" and the "containment of China."

Internally, the framework aims to instill the belief that the resolution of economic and social issues does not lie in collective effort and resistance, but rather through violent disruption and foreign intervention to bring about "regime change."

The Cuban situation is framed as a dead end that can only be resolved through collapse, ignoring the various forms of daily resistance, the foundational principles, revolutionary institutions, and community organizations that sustain the nation.

DECIDING WHAT TO TALK ABOUT (AND WHAT NOT TO TALK ABOUT)

McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting theory reminds us that the media does not tell us what to think, but what to think about. So far in 2026, we have seen a clear effort to impose an agenda that focuses the debate on collapse, violence and chaos.

The report from the Cubadebate Observatory details how the examined campaigns aim to foster a perception of an impending collapse. The strategy is classic: repeatedly asserting that "Cuba is burning," that "the people are rising," and that "the end is near."

Meanwhile, the international media and social networks, by amplifying these messages, succeed in shaping the global public agenda regarding Cuba to focus on instability, crisis, and an imminent social explosion.

However, and this is an important distinction, the report concludes that despite the commotion, none of these calls successfully resulted in an actual mobilization within the country.

The gap is revealing between the media agenda and material reality. That distance demonstrates the ineffectiveness of this technique in fomenting mobilization. However, we must remain cautious.

The Observatory describes a "media feedback loop" where content is crafted to be easily reportable and provocative enough to be picked up by authorities or the media. By doing so, they lend it legitimacy and increase its algorithmic reach.

As a result, a minor publication that originates in an online cave turns into a public issue. The agenda becomes skewed, leading us to discuss what they want rather than what actually happens.

TO MAKE CUBANS DOUBT THEIR OWN REALITY

We come to the most perverse of the three: gaslighting. It functions not on a superficial level, but rather on a profound psychological one. Its aim is not to persuade, but to cause the victim to question their own perceptions.

In the current Cuban context, this manipulation manifests itself in subtle but devastating ways. Because contemporary cognitive warfare does not always aim to provoke an immediate explosion, its objective is more basic: to sow doubt. Induce collective anxiety.

To prepare the ground for narratives that, later, legitimize diplomatic pressures or external interventions. The "erosion of trust" is the essence of gaslighting.

The Cuban, who is experiencing genuine economic hardships due to the economic war, is simultaneously bombarded with messages saying: "Your government is lying to you." "The Revolution has been unsuccessful." "Everything is worse than you think." They begin to ask themself: "Could it be that what I live is not reality? Could it be that they are hiding the truth from me?"

Thus, this mechanism of collective manipulation operates by denying the legitimacy of shared experiences. People are told, in essence, that what they feel and live is not true, that they are wrong, that they should think differently.

In this context, Plato's cave myth takes on both a tragic and hopeful aspect. The manipulators aim to keep Cubans focused on the shadows they cast on the wall: shadows representing violence, chaos, and despair.

But the reality – that of the neighborhoods, that of the communities, that of the daily resistance – is still out there. In the light of day, no campaign of manipulation will be able to defeat Cuba, its history, its people.

Sources: Cubadebate, The Black Alliance for Peace.

This work was translated and shared via a License CC-BY-NC