As the Donald Trump U.S. administration raises the pressure on Cuba, U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft have recently increased activity off the Cuban coast, according to assessments.
On the 10th (local time), CNN, citing the flight-tracking site Flightradar24, reported that the U.S. Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 reconnaissance flights off the Cuban coast since Feb. 4 to the present.
Most of the flights took place near Havana, Cuba's largest city, and Santiago de Cuba, and some aircraft approached to about 40 miles (about 64 km) off the Cuban coast. The flights included the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as the RC-135V Rivet Joint specialized in signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and the high-altitude unmanned reconnaissance aircraft MQ-4C Triton.
CNN said the flights were conducted at a distance where the United States could sufficiently gather intelligence on Cuba and are notable given that reconnaissance flights in the area were extremely rare before Feb.
In particular, the fact that reconnaissance activity ramped up after President Trump unleashed hard-line remarks on Cuba also draws attention. In Jan., Trump shared on his social media (SNS) Fox News commentator Marc Thiessen's remark that "Trump will visit 'free Havana' before the end of the term," and a few days later announced a measure to completely block oil shipments headed to Cuba.
According to Bloomberg News and others, on the 2nd, at an event in Florida, President Trump said, "Our military can occupy Cuba almost immediately," hinting at the possibility of military intervention for regime change in Cuba.
A similar pattern has repeated in other diplomatic and military strategies of the Trump administration. In early Sept. last year, President Trump announced a mission to sink Venezuelan drug-running vessels in the Caribbean Sea and sharply criticized the Nicolás Maduro regime, and starting a week later, public reconnaissance flights were conducted near Venezuela's coast. U.S. reconnaissance activity continued up until just before the U.S. military's operation to capture Maduro.
A similar trend appeared with Iran as well. Before launching airstrikes on Iran with Israel, the United States concentrated intelligence-gathering aircraft and unmanned drones along Iran's southern coast. The aircraft deployed at the time included the P-8A Poseidon, RC-135V Rivet Joint, and MQ-4C Triton, which have also been spotted recently near Cuba. In Jan., amid anti-government protests that put Iran's leadership in crisis, President Trump warned that "time is running out" and deployed a carrier strike group to nearby waters.
Analysts say the United States is deliberately showcasing the presence of reconnaissance aircraft to adversaries. CNN reported, "Regardless of whether these signals are the explicit intent of the U.S. military or the U.S. government, they are likely to be received by Cuban authorities as a highly unsettling message."