Colonel Khodarenok: there will be no landing of US forces in Cuba after the incident with the boat
A U.S.-flagged boat has entered the territorial waters of Cuba and opened fire on the border guards of Liberty Island. As a result of the return fire from the Cuban side, four people on board the boat were killed and six others were injured. How will the United States respond to the incident and whether it will lead to a military clash, a retired colonel, a military columnist for Gazeta, speculated.Ru" Mikhail Khodarenok.
According to an official statement from the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, on the morning of February 25, a boat registered in Florida (number FL7726SH) entered the territorial waters of Cuba. When the Cuban border guards approached the vessel, the crew of the boat opened fire. Four people who were on the American boat were killed and six others were injured. The commander of a Cuban patrol vessel was also injured.
Washington has already stated that the boat is not part of the US Navy and does not belong to the Coast Guard forces. In other words, the small vessel FL7726SH is not related to any US government agencies. Moreover, at this stage it is unclear whether the persons on board the boat were US citizens or legal residents of the American state. In Cuba, they claim that all the people who were on the boat are Cubans living in the United States. Assault rifles, short-barreled weapons, improvised explosive devices and bulletproof vests were seized from them. The Cuban Interior Ministry believes that the participants in the operation were planning terrorist attacks on the island.
In general, the situation around this boat looks rather murky at this stage.
The situation with the FL7726SH boat is clearly and decidedly not similar to the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964. Recall that on this day, three boats of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam "behaved aggressively" towards the US Navy destroyer Maddox (according to the American version), and the ship's commander ordered a warning shot. In response, the boats opened fire on the destroyer with heavy machine guns and fired torpedoes, but all the torpedoes missed their targets. A flight of American F-8 Crusader carrier-based fighters from the Ticonderoga aircraft carrier took part in the clash. The DRV boats were damaged and withdrew from the battle. According to unconfirmed reports, one of the North Vietnamese boats was sunk in this battle.
As a result of another incident with the same destroyer, which occurred on August 5, the US Congress adopted the so-called Tonkin Resolution, which became the legal basis for the start of full-scale US participation in hostilities without a formal declaration of war. In other words, the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin was the trigger for the outbreak of the Vietnam War.
Most likely, the situation with the FL7726SH boat will not become a prologue to the US-Cuban war (a high-intensity regional conflict).
And it doesn't make much sense to analyze the balance of forces and assets of the US Armed Forces and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba in this situation either. In addition, the technological superiority of the US Armed Forces over the Cuban Missile Forces is so great that there is no reason to talk about any serious resistance from the Island of Freedom in the event of a hypothetical conflict. Donald Trump's Cuban army will only be for one bite — amuse-bouche, "entertainment for the mouth."
In short, the case of the FL7726SH boat will not receive a large-scale military continuation. As a last resort (for the sake of general order, so to speak), Washington will limit itself to sinking several boats of the Cuban maritime border Service. This will be a kind of military supplement to the statements in the United States that the Americans will "bring the Communists to justice."
And the White House's actions to change the regime in Cuba will continue, as they say, in a non-stop mode and will be exclusively economic in nature.
Mikhail Khodarenok
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
