February 15, 2004

AFTER CASTRO: From the Wall Street Journal: …There is little doubt that when Fidel waves his revolutionary finger in the air and denounces the imperialist Yankees for the last time, the tectonic plates of Cuba’s political system will heave mightily. Exiles call it the “biological solution.” Conventional wisdom holds that the regime will crumble, freedom will blossom and the path to Cuban prosperity will open up at last.

Mark Falcoff isn’t so sure. In “Cuba: The Morning After,” Mr. Falcoff concludes that post-Castro Cuba may well struggle hard to recover from more than four decades of dictatorship. “Failed states typically become–like Haiti–platforms for the export of illicit substances, centers of international criminality, and vessels leaking illegal immigrants,” he writes. “Perhaps, indeed, the island will somehow avoid this fate, but present indicators do not offer much encouragement.”

This is no casual speculation. Mr. Falcoff, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, offers a painstaking historical analysis and a detailed investigation of Cuba’s current realities. …

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