While the world focuses its attention on other conflicts, Cuba has become the stage for an unprecedented communications offensive. Mind you, we're not talking about an invasion in the style of the last century; this is more subtle, and perhaps for that reason, more dangerous. It's a war designed to shape perceptions, sow doubt, and fabricate realities.
Three techniques, basically, are being applied with surgical precision against the island: framing, agenda setting, and gaslighting, with the aim of contaminating world public opinion, but also—and this is key—to try to break the Cuban people's resistance from within.
Let's put this in context. In late January 2026, the United States government issued an Executive Order declaring Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat."
Against this backdrop, between February 1st and 15th, a fierce digital campaign was unleashed, filled with calls for violence and civil disobedience. According to the Cubadebate Media Observatory, the operation generated a lot of noise, but failed to achieve real mobilization within the country.
Let's analyze, then, how these three techniques operate. George Lakoff's framing theory teaches us that whoever defines the frame wins the debate. In the current offensive against Cuba, this framing is clear and reflects a deliberate strategy.
Internationally, this Executive Order is not a mere administrative measure. It is, in itself, a major framing operation. By labeling Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat," by associating it with Hamas, Hezbollah, China, and Russia, it activates a pre-existing mental framework in the Western imagination: the "axis of evil," the "terrorist threat," the "geopolitical danger."
As The Black Alliance for Peace aptly points out, this 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 a malign actor."
The framing works; it doesn't address the concrete facts, it doesn't engage in debate about Cuba's independent foreign policy, nor its internationalist solidarity. No. What it does is reposition everything within a larger, more easily digestible narrative: that of the "war on terror" and the "containment of China."
Domestically, this framing seeks to instill the idea that the solution to economic and social problems lies not in collective effort and resistance, but in violent rupture, in foreign intervention to achieve "regime change."
Cuban reality is framed as a dead end from which the only escape is through collapse, thus denying the multiple forms of daily resistance, the principles, the revolutionary institutions, and the community organization that keep the nation alive.
DECIDING WHAT TO TALK ABOUT (AND WHAT NOT TO)
McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting theory reminds us that the media doesn't tell us what to think, but rather 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 Cubadebate Observatory report documents how the analyzed campaigns seek to create a sense of imminent collapse. The strategy is classic: to insistently repeat that "Cuba is burning," that "the people are rising up," that "the end is near."
Meanwhile, international media and social networks, by amplifying these messages, succeed in making the global public agenda on Cuba one of instability, crisis, and imminent social explosion.
However —and here's a crucial point— the report itself concludes that, despite the noise, none of these calls to action translated into real mobilization within the country.
The gap between the media agenda and the material reality is revealing. This distance proves the failure of this technique to mobilize. But, note: not to poison public opinion.
In fact, the Observatory speaks of a "media feedback loop" that works like this: easily denounceable content is designed, provocative enough for the authorities or the media to reproduce it; by reproducing it, they grant it legitimacy and algorithmic reach.
Thus, a marginal publication, born in a digital cave, becomes a public issue. The agenda is distorted. We end up talking about what they want us to talk about, not what's really happening.
MAKING CUBANS DOUBT THEIR OWN REALITY
We arrive at the most insidious of the three: gaslighting. This doesn't operate on the surface, but at a deep psychological level. Its objective isn't to convince. It's to make the victim doubt their own perceptions.
In the current Cuban context, this manipulation manifests itself in subtle but devastating ways. Because contemporary cognitive warfare doesn't always aim to provoke an immediate explosion, its objective is more basic: to sow doubt. To induce collective anxiety.
To prepare the ground for narratives that, later on, legitimize diplomatic pressure or external interventions. This "erosion of trust" is the essence of gaslighting.
The Cuban facing real economic hardship, a consequence of the economic war, is simultaneously bombarded with messages telling him: "Your government is lying to you." "The Revolution has failed." "Everything is worse than you think." He begins to wonder: "Is what I'm experiencing not real? Are they hiding the truth from me?"
Thus, this mechanism of collective manipulation operates by denying the legitimacy of shared experiences. People are essentially told that what they feel and experience isn't true, that they are wrong, that they should think differently.
Plato's allegory of the cave takes on a tragic and hopeful dimension here. The manipulators want Cubans to continue looking at the shadows they project on the wall: shadows of violence, chaos, and despair.
But reality—the reality of the neighborhoods, the reality of the communities, the reality of everyday resistance—remains out there, illuminated by the sun. No manipulation campaign can defeat Cuba, its history, or its people.
Sources: Cubadebate, The Black Alliance for Peace.
