Alliances change, but the aspiration of people to live in freedom remains

The independence of the United States was made possible by a combination of internal will, leadership, popular sacrifice, and foreign support. Without George Washington, the Continental Congress, the militia, farmers, merchants, and the families that supported the cause, independence would not have been achieved. However, without France, Spain, the Netherlands, and various actors from the American continent, victory would have been much more difficult, more costly, and perhaps impossible.

French assistance was probably the most decisive in the final moments of the war. France had very specific reasons to intervene. It had been humiliated by Britain in the Seven Years' War and had lost important territories in North America in 1763. Assisting the American insurgents meant weakening its major imperial rival. However, alongside this geopolitical calculation, there was also sympathy for the ideas of liberty, representation, and natural rights that the revolutionaries championed.

Benjamin Franklin played a crucial role in Paris. His diplomacy, combined with the rebels' victory at Saratoga, convinced King Louis XVI and his government that the colonists could win. The Treaty of Alliance in 1778 formalized French support with money, weapons, officers, troops, and a powerful fleet.

Among the French protagonists, the Marquis de Lafayette stands out as a young aristocrat driven by idealism and admiration for the American cause; Count Rochambeau, commander of the French troops sent to America; and Admiral De Grasse, whose fleet blocked the British escape by sea at Yorktown.

The combination of Washington, Rochambeau, and De Grasse made the siege that forced Cornwallis to surrender in October 1781 possible. France delivered the decisive blow by transforming a colonial rebellion into an international war that Britain had to fight on multiple fronts.

Spain, however, was also indispensable. Madrid did not formally ally with the United States as France did, but it entered the war against Great Britain in 1779 as an ally of France. Its reasons were primarily strategic: to regain lost positions, protect its American holdings, and weaken a maritime adversary that threatened its empire. The key Spanish figure was Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Spanish Louisiana.

Gálvez organized decisive military campaigns in the Gulf of Mexico, captured Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola, and expelled the British from West Florida. This prevented Britain from concentrating more forces against Washington and the insurgents. Spain also provided resources, weapons, gunpowder, credit, and supplies through Havana, New Orleans, and other ports of the empire. The war was not determined only in Yorktown; it was also fought and sustained from the Caribbean, the Mississippi, the Gulf, and the Hispanic trade routes.

France was more decisive in the final military victory, particularly due to its navy, troops, and role in Yorktown. Spain was essential in terms of strategy, finance, and territory, by opening new fronts and striking Britain in Florida, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean. France helped to win the decisive battle; Spain made it possible for victory to come under favorable conditions.

The Netherlands also contributed credit, trade, and political recognition. On the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, the first international salute to the American flag took place in 1776, while Dutch bankers provided significant loans to the new republic. Additionally, there were European volunteers: the Prussian Wilhelm von Steuben, and the Poles Pulaski and Kosciuszko, among others motivated by ideals of freedom, adventure, political romanticism, or a rejection of British power.

The lesson is clear: national causes require internal will, but can succeed or fail depending on the international environment. No people can delegate their freedom to foreign forces; however, no sensible person disregards allies, diplomatic support, resources, information, or international pressure.

The Castro-communist regime has survived for decades thanks to that very principle. The Soviet Union sustained it with subsidies, oil, credits, armament, advisors, intelligence, and political support. After the Soviet Union's demise, Hugo Chávez's Venezuelan regime provided oil, financing, preferential trade, and a political alliance that helped prolong the life of the communist dictatorship. This dependency was laid bare when Nicolás Maduro fell on January 3 of this year.

Today, the regime in Havana receives varying degrees of diplomatic, economic, and political support from Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran, North Korea, and other like-minded regimes. Russia has stated that it will continue to "support Cuba," although it did not specify the material scope of that assistance; China has expressed political support and a willingness to provide aid. The governments of Mexico, Brazil, other Latin American countries, and several European nations are helping to sustain the oldest and most criminal dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.

That's why many Cubans believe that the United States and all of the West must act firmly against the repressive machinery, the businesses of the ruling elite, and the international networks that support the dictatorship. This firmness must include severe and increasing sanctions, direct support for civil society, for the pro-democracy opposition, assistance to political prisoners, backing for independent media, and coordinated diplomatic pressure. Today, July 7, no democratic nation should support the tyranny in the UN debate on U.S. sanctions.

The mambises understood that the struggle for Cuban independence required not only great courage but also external assistance. Máximo Gómez, Calixto García, José Miguel Gómez, and other patriots saw in the U.S. intervention the means to defeat Spanish colonialism, even though Washington also acted out of its own interests. This is how the world works: governments rarely move for a single reason. Spain supported the American insurgents to weaken Great Britain; the United States intervened in Cuba for humanitarian, strategic, and economic reasons. Interests and alliances may change, but the aspiration of people to live freely endures.