A U.S. Navy submarine has pulled into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a show of force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean.

A U.S. Navy submarine has arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a show of force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean.

U.S. Southern Command said the USS Helena, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, pulled into the waters near the U.S. base in Cuba on Thursday, just a day after a Russian frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine, an oil tanker and a rescue tug crossed into Havana Bay after drills in the Atlantic Ocean.

The stop is part of a “routine port visit” as the submarine travels through Southern Command’s region, it said in a social media post.

Other U.S. ships also have been tracking and monitoring the Russian drills, which Pentagon officials say do not represent a threat to the United States.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    5 months ago

    If that even is the thinking. IDK, maybe they are just doing exercises, and there’s no particular intent behind it and the US press is writing a bunch about it just because it is notable that it’s happening.

    It’s brinkmanship. the Russians are trying to invoke the cuban missile crisis. AFAIK, they’re supply ships bringing stuff to Cuba; (but also “recruits” from Cuba.). But a large part of it is definitely meant to up the anty on all the “if you don’t stop supplying weapons I’ll use nukes” rhetoric.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
      7·
      5 months ago

      Trying to do brinksmanship only works if there is believability to the idea of you crossing the brink. Putin who doesn’t want anyone to be allowed to sit near him, constantly asks his friend-countries if they’ve been hanging out with NATO behind his back, and managed to fuck up one war with one tiny country this badly with the whole weight of the biggest nation in the world behind the effort, is very different from Khrushchev overseeing the cold war and the development of the nuclear arsenal and directly challenging the Cuba blockade, banging his shoe on the podium at the UN and screaming “We will bury you!” Putin may view the threat that he will attack the US as believable, but I do not think that anyone in the US or Russian government considers it a strong possibility and like I said I think the “not touching you” game (if that is in fact what he’s doing) just makes him look weaker to both parties TBH.

      (I hadn’t even really considered the death sentence that is attacking the US with nukes as on the table for Russia; the nuclear option I was envisioning was attacking Ukraine and gambling that the rest of the world would be so against starting WW3 that they could get away with it.)

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        5 months ago

        You’re not wrong. At some point Putin is gonna have to grab the other guy and jump off that ledge, just to prove he would.

        Which is the problem with brinksmanship.