The strategy that the administration of Donald Trump would be exploring for Cuba poses a paradox that at first glance may seem difficult to understand.
While Washington increases pressure to provoke deep changes on the island, at the same time, it is looking within the Cuban regime for officials it could work with in a transition scenario.
It's not necessarily about contradictory objectives.
A study published by The New York Times provides a particularly useful expression for understanding the logic that might be behind these movements: “more regime alteration than regime change”, meaning more of a modification or transformation of the regime than a strict change of regime.
The difference is not merely semantic.
In political science, a change of government, a change of leadership, and a change of regime describe distinct phenomena.
Replacing a president does not necessarily imply altering the fundamental rules that govern power. Even replacing a significant portion of a ruling elite may leave institutions, economic relationships, security forces, and control mechanisms intact.
A regime change, in a deeper sense, implies altering precisely those rules: who can compete for power, how one gains access to it, what institutions limit it, and what the effective political rights of citizens are.
Between both extremes, however, there is a wide space for hybrid processes. And it is in that realm where part of the American strategy described by the Times seems to be situated.
The scenario that Washington would be considering does not necessarily involve the immediate destruction of all existing structures in Cuba.
The Trump administration has asked its intelligence agencies to identify current or former officials of the regime who could assume positions of power and cooperate with the United States if U.S. pressure leads to a rupture within the leadership.
The reference model is Venezuela.
After the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in January, Delcy Rodríguez assumed the position of interim president. Washington regarded her, according to the Times, as a pragmatic figure capable of ensuring institutional continuity while simultaneously working closely with the United States.
The Venezuelan state apparatus did not disappear with Maduro. Nor were all of its officials, institutions, military personnel, police officers, judges, or administrators immediately replaced.
What initially changed was the center from which power was exercised and the relationship of that power with Washington. This type of process helps to better understand the concept of “regime alteration” used by the newspaper.
Instead of destroying the system first to then build another, the strategy consists of progressively modifying its operation by utilizing part of the existing structures.
The issue addresses one of the classic problems of any political transition: what happens the day after.
Overthrowing a power structure can be much quicker than building institutions capable of replacing it.
Authoritarian states are not solely comprised of their leaders. Beneath the top layer, there are ministries, provincial and municipal administrations, public enterprises, banks, courts, police forces, military units, intelligence services, and thousands of officials responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the country.
Cuba also faces an additional challenge after nearly seven decades of a socialist system: the boundary between the State, the Communist Party, the Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, and military-controlled economic conglomerates is deeply intertwined.
Simultaneously dismantling all those structures could create a difficult-to-manage power and institutional vacuum. That is why political transitions rarely start from scratch. Even when a regime disappears, a considerable part of the State usually survives.
The crucial question then becomes which institutions should be temporarily maintained, which need to be reformed, which should be eliminated, and which actors from the old system can participate in the transition.
The new information from Times reveals that the Minister of the Interior, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, may be considered acceptable by U.S. officials and that the Trump administration might also be open to considering Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, “El Cangrejo,” the grandson of Raúl Castro.
The newspaper does not claim that they have been chosen to govern Cuba or that there is a U.S. decision regarding this matter.
However, a controlled transition from within can reduce the risk of state collapse, but it does not, by itself, guarantee a democratic transition. The replacement of one elite by another from the same system may simply result in an authoritarian rearrangement.
The search for pragmatists within the Cuban elite suggests, in any case, that the Trump administration is considering not only how to increase pressure on Havana but also a significantly more complex issue: who would govern Cuba the next day and with what institutions would they do so.
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