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With a POD on or after January 1, 2000, how can there be a war between the U.S. and Fidel Castro's Cuba? I know this is a very high hump to get over, but does anybody have any ideas on how this might happen? It might not be completely impossible. Castro was always kind of a whack. He seriously lobbied the USSR from the Missile Crisis into the 1980s to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S., and invaded Angola without asking the Soviets first. They had to scramble to contain the fallout with the U.S. and to provide logistical support (before that the Cubans were doing the best they could with three ancient planes and some merchant ships). Talk about biting off more than you can chew.

My best effort is that something like this story from @gtrof happens. We see 9/11 as in OTL, but with a Second Korean War. It gets seriously ugly, and the U.S. is bogged all the way down, requiring a larger effort than the Persian Gulf War to win it plus the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike in that story though, Kim Jong-il uses gas on Seoul, leading the U.S. to nuke Pyongyang under its doctrine that any attack with WMD's will meet with a proportionate nuclear response. This kills dozens of Cuban embassy staffers (they maintain a large diplomatic mission there) and Fidelito Castro, his son who was there as part of a surprise"peaceful nuclear program" solidarity meeting with the North Koreans. Fidelito was the head of the country's atomic energy commission and the DPRK and Cuba have strong ties, so it is plausible he could be there. Castro is enraged by the death of his only recognized child and the destruction of his country's embassy and frightened by how the U.S. is invading everything in sight including one of his main allies. He decides to retaliate by resolving the issue of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base through force of arms, and off we go. His beliefs is that this is a golden opportunity because for once the U.S., even if it fights back, won't be able to hurt Cuba too badly because they are too tied down. So even if Cuba loses it won't be existential.

Yeah, I acknowledge it's pretty ASB'y but Castro had a death wish for his entire country up until twenty years before this and it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that ever happened.

What do y'all think? Like it/got any other ideas?
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