Challenges to a Post-Castro Cuba.

• Author: Moon, Bart

Those hoping Fidel Castro's death will set off "Springtime in Havana" with freedom in the streets and warm relations with the United States should forget about it, according to Dr. Suchlicki, director of Miami University's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

Writing for The Harvard International Review, Suchlicki concedes that Fidel's successor, brother Raul, will face daunting challenges: popular unrest fueled by severe rationing of foodstuffs; a woefully inadequate electrical, transportation, and communications infrastructure; and deteriorating sanitary and medical conditions, including cracks in the regime's vaunted health care system. With sugar production at depression-era levels, Cuba's economy is in a downward spiral ameliorated only by tourism, Cuban-American remittances, and Venezuelan oil.

Suchliki nevertheless considers Cuba's dissident groups too weak to threaten the regime because they have no access to the media, are easily penetrated by state security, and routinely harassed by the police. Hardened by 47 years as Minister of Defense, Raul will likely face no popular uprising so long as he retains the support of Cuba's well-trained armed forces, the Communist Party...