The Fallen Continent: Cuba

A brief incursion into a southern land.

Population: 2,100,000
Largest City: New Miami

My father’s name was Hezekiah,
Mother’s name was Ann Mariah—
Yank through and through,
Red, white, and blue!

My father was so Yankee-hearted,
When the Spanish war was started
He slipped on a uniform
And hopped upon a pony.

My mother’s mother was a Yankee true,
My father’s father was a Yankee too:
And that’s going some,
For the Yankees, by gum!
Oh! say, can you see
Anything about my pedigree that’s phony?

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Introduction

Cuba is not an American state. It is not a part of the United States at all—unless you’re counting the Guantanamo Bay leased territory which has thirty years since been thoroughly irradiated. Nevertheless, the country’s history has been closely intertwined with the United States for 200 years, and its current situation influences events on the mainland in some important ways.

It is well-known that Cuba has been an enemy of the United States since the communist revolution of 1959. In 1962, Cuba was the center of the 20th Century’s closest flirtation with nuclear war: the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Cuba never again hosted nuclear missiles, that did not make them immune to conflict when World War III broke out. Despite the nominally far-right nature of the revived Russian Empire, communist Cuba sided with them against the United States, receiving aid from Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

During the period of conventional war, Cuba was invaded by a formidable interbranch American force, with Army, Navy, USMC, and Air Force elements all involved. The invasion was a two-pronged operation, consisting of a breakout from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in the south and a northern invasion across the Florida Straits. The initial invasion was successful, with the US military capturing Havana, but began to bog down after the first week of conflict as the invasion force overextended itself, while the Pentagon shifted their reinforcements away to other theaters in Europe and Asia.

Months later, the war escalated, and the Great War was the result. Cuba was devastated by twenty-seven nuclear strikes, destroying most of its major cities and leaving large swathes of land irradiated. The Havana metropolitan area was especially badly-hit. Nearly half of the strikes were not aimed at cities or bases, but at military formations on the front lines.

The Cuban government, already faced with the loss of Havana, was mostly destroyed along with its provisional capital of Camaguey and could no longer exert control over the whole of the island. The US military remnants, battered and without clear leadership, fell back west of Havana. Fortunately for both sides of the conflict, Cuba did not suffer any secondary strikes, as most remaining nuclear submarines had already spent their missiles in other parts of the world.

Cuba, much like the United States, suffered a period of anarchy, upheaval, and famine, though the famine was less pronounced than in North America due to the tropical climate. After nearly two generations have passed since the Great War, Cuba is working on the arduous processes of recovering, rebuilding, and reuniting.

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United States of America in Exile

Capital: New Miami (Harlem)
Classification: US Military Faction (Reformist occupation government)

State of Cuba
Capital: New Miami (Harlem)
Classification: US Military Faction (Reformist occupation government)
Allegiance: United States of America in Exile

During the buildup before the Third World War, the United States Southern Command in Doral, Florida organized the Joint Task Force Cuba, a further development of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, an interagency command meant to handle a hypothetical invasion of Cuba. The Task Force consisted of several revived US military units, including the Tenth US Army and the 6th Marine Division, as well as an auxiliary Cuban unit called the Cuban Legion. When WWIII went hot, this force was deployed to Cuba, striking from their staging grounds in Miami, Florida and the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

The Task Force saw initial success, capturing Havana in the north and Santiago in the south, before getting bogged down from overextended supply lines, a lack of reinforcements, and guerilla warfare. While the US geared up for total war in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East, Cuba was considered a low-priority theater and did not receive much attention. Havana was theirs and any potential Cuban threat to the US mainland was neutralized, so the Pentagon shifted their focus to more pressing matters for the remainder of its existence. Most of the Joint Task Force Cuba’s personnel and command staff were killed during the war’s nuclear phase, and those who survived fell back to Bahia Honda and San Cristobal, behind the greater Havana Exclusion Zone.¹ As the Task Force’s highest-ranking remaining official, Brigadier General John Hogeboom of the 77th Sustainment “Statue of Liberty” Brigade took command over the remaining US forces.

In the aftermath of the war, Hogeboom established a military government that controlled western Cuba and took in millions of American and Cuban-American refugees from Florida and the Gulf Coast. Faced with the choice of accepting the boat people or caring for the natives, he displaced millions of native Cubans and marched them east into communist-controlled territory, where most starved or died during the upheaval. The Task Force then resettled the boat people throughout western Cuba, founding the city of New Miami over the remains of Bahia Honda, a supply hub that was destroyed during the period of conventional warfare. The boat people founded numerous other settlements over the ashes of destroyed and depopulated Cuban localities throughout the Starving Time, such as Florida City, Fort Hogeboom, and Liberty Town. Not all natives were killed—many thousands of trusted collaborators were spared and integrated into the new regime—but western Cuba has a distinctly American character that it never possessed before the Great War.

After recognizing the Twin Falls, Amarillo, and Kahului governments, the Cuban occupation government was left on its own when the Hawaiian Spring toppled the Acting Commander-in-Chief’s regime. Kahului’s final orders to their remote supporters were to liberalize and hold democratic elections. Some factions, like the Mariana Islands, fully acquiesced, while others, like the US forces in Okinawa or the National Democratic Organization in Alabama, rejected their orders and doubled down on austere military rule. New Miami, like the naval regime in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, took a middle path and partially reformed. Answering their own calls for democratization within Cuba itself, the Joint Task Force held a special convention to restore the US Constitution (albeit with several austere amendments drafted by the military) and hold democratic elections.

With the first round of presidential elections, the Joint Task Force dissolved its occupation government and placed itself under the command of the newly-created United States of America in Exile. Despite the name, the USAIE did not consider itself to be fully in exile; the New Miami Convention also admitted Cuba to the Union as its 51st state. Although it holds regular elections, there is still a strong military presence in government. Only citizens with a record of military service can run for public office, and the large military population forms a solid voting bloc that decides elections in favor of the US Army’s pet Patriot Party. The more liberal US Navy runs the opposition National Union Party, which still desires a military-influenced republic in spite of their reformist stance. Given the constant threat of Caribbean piracy, native Cuban invasion, and the unwavering desire to reclaim the mainland, American Cuba remains a highly militarized society.

Although the stain of invasion and massive population displacement (bordering on genocide) lingers, the American exile culture is a cosmopolitan one. Throughout the State of Cuba can be found Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and many other, smaller American diaspora groups, as well as native Cubanos and Afro-Cubans. To accommodate this disparate population, the USAIE is officially bilingual, and administers the country in both English and Spanish. Generally, white Anglo-Americans and Cuban-Americans are the most favored economically, socially, and politically; every president of the USAIE has been an American of English or German heritage.

The USAIE’s foreign policy is dynamic and outward-focused. They have a strong navy (by postwar standards) dedicated to fighting Caribbean piracy and protecting trade, and are the second most-favored American faction when it comes to foreign recognition.² They don’t want the fighting in Cuba to escalate into a full-scale conventional war, and have been mostly focusing on establishing a continental foothold in Florida. To this end, they’ve achieved the recognition of several Floridian factions and even staged an invasion of the Florida Panhandle. The optimistic call New Miami’s newfound continental outlook a reflection of their earnest desire to reunify the United States; the more cynical might describe it as the USAIE hedging their bets, in case the native Cubans drive them out of Cuba and back across the Florida Strait.

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Gōnghǎi Jiànduì (公海舰队)

High Seas Fleet
Capital: Nueva Gerona
Classification: Special Case (Nuclear submarine state)

Tsang Fei-hung was a submarine captain of Cantonese origins serving in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy. During the period of buildup before World War Three, the PLA drastically expanded its nuclear capabilities, growing its arsenal from 600 active warheads to nearly 3,000 before the Great War. The Chinese nuclear submarine fleet was rapidly expanded as well, and Tsang found himself commanding their new High Seas Fleet, a task force meant to sail into Atlantic waters and take the fight to the United States in the event of a war.

When the Third World War broke out, the Gonghai Jiandui did just that, and suffered greatly at the hands of the larger, more experienced US Navy. Most of Tsang’s surface ships were lost, leaving only his submarine forces left. When the Great War occurred, his ships launched most of their missiles within the first two days, battering the eastern seaboard with atomic warheads. Some of his submarines retained their missiles for secondary strikes—Tsang’s own ship, the Type 096 Class Hai Chi, launched its second-to-last warhead at Daytona Beach. The last missile he kept in reserve, before turning south towards the Caribbean.

Tsang knew that his home city of Guangzhou was gone, and that most of China was gone with it. With no home to return to, he led the last remnants of the High Seas Fleet to the Caribbean and seized Isla de la Juventud, Cuba’s second largest island, now cut off from government authority. He transformed the isle into a Chinese military fiefdom, following the model of other submarine warlord states. By anchoring their nuclear submarine in the harbor, the crew can utilize it as both carrot and stick to rule over the locals. Its arsenal deters attackers and rebels, while its reactor can provide virtually unlimited energy to the community, encouraging locals to collaborate.³

Despite his foreign, despotic rule, the Hai Chi’s regime is surprisingly stable. A new generation of officers has been raised up after intermarriage between the original crew and Cuban locals. The population is loyal, but Chinese efforts to Sinicize them have been so far unsuccessful, and many in the young guard want to transition to a Spanish-language administration. The Chinese effectively rule as military warlords, but they effectively utilize communist, anti-imperialist propaganda to frame their presence in Cuba as a united struggle against American invaders. They frequently harass American merchant shipping (and most maritime traffic in general) and have endured some tense standoffs with the USAIE. The American exiles would love to wipe out this bleeding ulcer off their southern coast, but that last Chinese warhead has kept all their plans stuck at the drawing board.

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Committee for the Liberation of Cuba

Comité de la Liberación de Cuba
Capital: Colón
Classification: Cuban Military Faction (Military junta)

The Committee for the Liberation of Cuba originated shortly after the Great War, among the sparse remnants of the Cuban Revolutionary Army that survived the atomic bombings. When the provisional government in Moron ordered the CRA to withdraw to the south to defend the new capital, a clique of officers seized control of remaining military forces in the north to hold the line against the Americans. They now run their own Cuban military government, maintaining only vestigial traces of communism. Standing in the place of the old regime is a totally militarized society, bent on revenge above all else. Their goal is to annihilate not only the Americans, whom they view as subhuman devils, but also the traitors who abandoned Cuba in its hour of need.

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Province of Sancti Spiritus

Provincia de Sancti Spiritus
Capital: Trinidad
Classification: Provincial Legacy (Cuban provincial government)
Allegiance: Republic of Cuba

Cuba doesn’t have a federal structure like the United States, but it does still have some measure of devolved local government. Below the national level, Cuba has fourteen provinces, each ruled by local People’s Provincial Councils. Although the provincial capital of Sancti Spiritus was lost, surviving members of the Sancti Spiritus Provincial Council were able to establish control over nearby Trinidad, working with an eclectic combination of law enforcement, local militiamen, and military personnel. Sancti Spiritus Province recognizes the national government in Moron, but has yet to be fully reintegrated into the country. As things stand now, they and the local regime in Remidios serve as Moron’s first line of defense against the ultranationalists.

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Remidios Committee for the Defense of the Revolution

Comité de Defensa de la Revolución de Remedios
Capital: Remidios
Classification: Local Government (Local militia regime)
Allegiance: Republic of Cuba

One of the main organs of the Communist Party of Cuba are the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. These are neighborhood watch organizations scattered throughout the country that represent the communist party at the ground level. They perform community service acts like teaching literacy or vaccinating the population, but they also serve as a surveillance network to monitor the populace and scan for counter-revolutionary activity. At times, they function like an auxiliary police force and even engage in mob behavior to intimidate dissidents into stepping down.

In the city of Remidios, the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution stepped up and organized a municipal defense in the chaotic aftermath of the Great War. Growing from a neighborhood watch organization into a bona fide paramilitary, the Remidios CRD soon became the de facto rulers of the city. Like the Province of Sancti Spiritus, they recognize the national government in Moron.

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Republic of Cuba

República de Cuba
Capital: Moron
Classification: Left-Wing Ideological Faction (Cuban rump government)

After the loss of Havana, the Cuban government fled to the centrally-located city of Camaguey to make as much space as it could between themselves and the American invasion force. When the Third World War grew into the Great War, Camaguey and most of the Cuban government was annihilated. A surviving member of the Politburo rounded up the remaining members of the legislature and Communist Party congress and led them to Moron. There, in what was now Cuba’s largest remaining city, they established a provisional government.

The Republic of Cuba still endures as a single party communist state, trying to recover from the scars of the Great War. They have typically been less concerned with national reunification and more worried about immediate survival and providing for the people within their own territory. This is beginning to change, however, as the newest General Secretary has risen to power on a platform of aggressive nationalism and devotion to Cuban Marxist-Leninism. The Moron Government lacks much in the way of foreign support, but they have a solidly built-up base in central Cuba, sheltered from Caribbean piracy or American molestation. If they can unite their disparate supporting elements, they may be able to overpower the warlords and ultranationalists and unite Cuba, before finally driving the Americans back into the sea.

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National Reconstruction Government

Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional
Capital: Las Tunas
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Neo-feudal regime)

The National Reconstruction Government is Cuba’s only true neo-feudal state, established by a renegade communist party official who took advantage of the postwar chaos and seized power for himself. His claims to legitimacy include his control over a mostly-intact prewar provincial capital, his opposition to the hated Cuban Constitutional Republic further south, and his Afro-Latino background that has earned him the support of fellow Afro-Latinos within his realm. Despite the wide-eyed promises of sweeping economic, social, and political reforms that are always coming just around the bend, the NRG is mostly propped up by sheer brute force.

The NRG’s eastern front is secure through an alliance with the Spanish Armada, but Las Tunas is facing increasingly powerful rivals from both north and south. Like any neo-feudal dictatorship, it is showing its age and stagnating compared to more dynamic powers. Unfortunately, Las Tunas has thus far been resistant to change, and will likely serve as a springboard for either the communists or the Cuban Exiles to unite the rest of the country, unless the long-awaited reforms actually manage to manifest themselves.

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Cuban Constitutional Republic

República Constitucional de Cuba
Capital: Manzanillo
Classification: Right-Wing Ideological Faction (Cuban exile legion)

While the Tenth US Army rolled through Havana, the southern forces of the Joint Task Force Cuba consisted of the US Marines and an army of Cuban exiles, bent on reclaiming their homeland from communism. The CIA organized them into the Cuban Legion, and trained them extensively to cooperate with US military forces, in the hope of avoiding another Bay of Pigs disaster.

The Cubans exiles fought with tenacity, often outpacing American forces despite their lack of heavy equipment. When the Great War occurred, the exiles were holding the line at the Joint Task Force’s western flank in Rio Cauto. Most of the Americans in the south were annihilated near Holguin or at their home base in Guantanamo, while the survivors withdrew to their enclave around Baracoa. The Cuban Legion, on the other hand, stood its ground, and the exiles carved out their own regime in Manzanillo.

The Cuban exiles had high hopes that the Americans would help them restore the republic of old, but were betrayed by the formation of a US exile government and its unilateral annexation of Cuba. In protest, the Cuban Legion broke with the US military and founded their own Cuban Constitutional Government, a right-wing nationalist government that aims to establish a free, capitalist Cuba. Although they modeled their government off of the United States (or at least a certain idealized right-wing image of it), the Constitutionalists have since distanced themselves from their former benefactors. The exiles are hated by the rest of the country as traitorous collaborators, and it’s long been the goal of the Constitutionalists to prove that they are as loyal to the nation as anyone else. If that means casting out the Americans who brought them back home in the first place, then so be it.

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Spanish Armada

Armada Española
Capital: Gibara
Classification: Warlord (Pirate warlord)

The Spanish Armada is Cuba’s principal warlord faction, and one of the greatest contributors to Caribbean piracy. It is ranked alongside the Third Haitian Empire, the Second Republic of Pirates, and the Florida Admiralty as one of the great forces disrupting maritime traffic throughout the Caribbean Sea. Like the other great pirate factions, the Spanish Armada is not made up of pirates themselves, so much as it gives them safe harbor, organizes them, and supports their raids and ventures with men and materiel. They’re a constant source of suffering for the 6th Marines, and the ring of NEZs surrounding their territory makes them difficult to attack. As organized factions grow and take a vested interest in protecting the sea lanes, warlords like the Spanish Armada serve as a reminder that they still have a ways to go before Caribbean piracy can be eradicated.

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National Revolutionary Militia

Milicias Nacionales Revolucionarias
Capital: Palma Soriano
Classification: Cuban Military Faction (Cuban state militia regime)
Allegiance: Republic of Cuba

North of the smouldering remains of Santiago de Cuba, the National Revolutionary Militia ekes out its existence. When the Cuban Army was brushed aside by the invaders, the militia hunkered down and waged a guerilla warfare campaign across Santiago Province. After the bombs fell, the Americans and Exiles withdrew to the coasts. The militia rose up and seized control of what remained of Santiago Province, which they now use as a base to harry the invaders and warlords on behalf of the national government in Moron.

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6th Marine Division

Capital: Annapolis (Baracoa)
Classification: US Military Faction (Extremist military government)
Allegiance: United States of America in Exile

The revived 6th Marine Division of the USMC had blitzed past Guantanamo and had nearly captured Las Tunas when the Great War reached its horrible climax. Most of the “Striking Sixth” perished in Holguin with the rest of the southern wing of the Joint Task Force, but the survivors were able to limp away to safety. Their base in Guantanamo Bay was long gone, but the coasts of southeast Cuba could still provide safe haven. The reorganized 6th Marines established a military government here from the city of Baracoa.

They recognize the USAIE in New Miami, but do little to follow their precepts (nor do they receive any aid, in return). Instead, the 6th Marines persist as an armed band of doomed men, vengefully perpetuating the Great War of old against the remnants of Cuba.

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Index

Click here to read the master post of the series, with links at the bottom of the page to all other Fallen Continent entries.

Previous Entry: Florida
Next Entry: Georgia

1. Cuba was never included on Twin Falls President Tony Battista’s famous map detailing the approximate locations of the country’s Nuclear Exclusion Zones. The Joint Task Force Cuba, however, designated their own Cuban NEZs under the direction of their WMD command. Like Battista in the United States, General Hogeboom’s military government published a map detailing said NEZs, which was extensively reproduced and distributed throughout the island—even to areas not under American occupation. This episode remains a remarkable instance of post-war US-Cuba cooperation that has not been replicated since.

2. Countries that recognize the USAIE include:

• The Republic of the Bahamas

  • American filibuster state that overthrew the antebellum Bahamian government.

• Federation of the Turks and Caicos Islands

  • Not a filibuster state, but heavily influenced by American immigrants.

• The Cayman Islands

  • Former tourist warlord state, gone legitimist to clear out pirates.

• Jamaica

  • Legitimate Jamaican government, hates pirates.

• The Fourth Republic of Haiti

  • Haitian rump government, having a tough time dealing with rebels.

• The Kingdom of the Netherlands in Exile

  • The Dutch monarchy survived in the person of King Claus-Casimir, a cousin of the antebellum king who established a rump government in Curaçao.

• Saint Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla

  • Anguilla joined St. Kitts and Nevis after the war.

• Saint Martin and Barth

  • Former French colonies in the northern Antilles. The northern half of St. Martin is ruled by the Netherlands-in-exile.

• The Kingdom of Montserrat

  • British patrol vessel HMS Medway went rogue and established a legitimist warlord state on this island.

• The Confederation of the French Antilles

  • Former French colonies of Guadaloupe and Martinique.

• The Third Republic of Yucatán

  • Secessionist rump state government; scared that the Mexican government in Acapulco will get their act together and annex them.

• The Republic of El Salvador

  • Legitimate Salvadoran government; few Spanish countries love the USAIE, but they know the Hondurans and Nicaraguans hate New Miami more than them.

• The Moskito Republic [sic]

  • American filibuster state on the Nicaragua coast, unrelated to 19th Century protectorate.

• The Kingdom of Portugal

  • Far-right rival Portuguese government in Aveiro that controls roughly the northern third of the country. Their rival, the Portuguese rump government in the Azores and middle third of the mainland, is too close to the USA-Elizabeth City for comfort.

• The State of Madeira

  • Far-right separatist republic with a similar hatred for the Azorean Portuguese government.

3. Isla de la Juventud is far from the only submarine state; there are about a dozen overall, both former and extant. Some ones relevant to our story include:

• The Republic of Jackson: Established in French Polynesia by the USS Henry M. Jackson.

• The Russian Trans-Pacific Military District: Established in Washington’s San Juan Islands by the St. Feodor Ushakov.

• The Surf City Authority: ruled not by the crew of the USS Wyoming, but by the warlord of Surf City, North Carolina, who seized the vessel after the ship put in there. It has since been conquered by the USA-Elizabeth City, and the heavily-damaged Wyoming was scuttled.

• The State of South West Africa: The damaged British submarine HMS Warspite put in at the city of Luderitz, Namibia. The captain of the Warspite hoped to pressure the Namibian government into becoming a British protectorate, that it might serve as a new British homeland, far removed from exclusion zones, Russian army remnants, or the nuclear winter. The British government denounced the Warspite, while the United States of America Abroad cooperated with the Namibian government to capture the vessel and disarm its remaining warhead. After a successful operation, the American exiles disarmed the nuke, scuttled the submarine, returned the city to Namibia, and deported the surviving crew to the Afrikaner Volkstaat as part of a plea deal.