AH Challenge: make Cuba a Superpower

Cuba declares independence in the mid-1700s from Spain and grows to have the role of the USA in the Americas?

I don't think there has ever really been a suitable chance for this to happen. It was always isolated until European technology was introduced, and after that it was always dominated by Spain.

Maybe if the trade embargo were never enacted and Cuba had a fair shot at making strong alliances with the rest of the Americas, Cuba might have the strength to be a superpower once the USSR falls.
 
Cuba on its own it can't support enough population to really be a superpower (that is, capable of projecting force such that it is able to threaten Great Powers on their home territory). Unless you're talking about some sort of Cuba-East Florida-West Florida-Louisiana Union centered in Santiago, and with Nuevo Orleans as a secondary capitol, this ain't happenin'.
 
If you are going to keep posting these challenges, please try to keep in mind that to be a "superpower" requires a nation to have a certain global weight and influence, which it _cannot_ have without a large enough population. Gross National Product = GNP/capita*population, and the GNP gap between any two first-world nations is generally no more than two to one.

Cuba would have scarcely more people than France even if it had as high a population density as Taiwan. Not enough. If you want a wanked small country, then you must accept that at best the small country will be the location of the capital of a larger empire. [1] In the TL where the Carthaginians fled west across the Atlantic, the New Carthaginian Empire (ruling all the Caribbean, the lower Mississipi, Florida, large parts of what in OTL are Venezuela and Colombia, etc.) is indeed a major power and does indeed have it's capital in Cuba. But it's not a _Cuban_ superpower: Cuba is simply where it's politicians congregate.

Now, if we are working with _Cuba_, the island within the greater Spanish Empire, and we keep these provisos in mind, there are certain possibilities. Given an earlier and rather different breakup of the Spanish empire, pre-US revolution, perhaps we get the Kingdom of Cuba, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Later the kingdom joins in a dynastic union with the Grand Principality of Nova Granada, which fears aggression from French Mexico. In the 19th century, the Kingdom becomes an energetic participant in the colonial expansion into Africa...

...and I'm outta ideas, for now. It just seems too many improbabilities piled onto eachother, and I'll have to try something else. After all, 18th century or earlier Cuba simply didn't have the resources or manpower to stand a chance in hell of avoiding being snapped up by the French or British if Spanish protection collapsed. Would a in-exile branch of the Habsburgs/whatever have provided enough "legitimacy" to avoid this? :confused:

Bruce



[1] And in some cases, not even that. Any Scottish conquerors of England would move to London as fast as they could shake the Haggis from their boots...
 
Top