AMERICA’S NEW REALITIES

AMERICA’S NEW REALITIES

Why Cuba, Greenland, and the Panama Canal Must Be Secured—Or America Risks Strategic Collapse

By Travis A. Karnes
 
The post-Cold War illusion is dead. Globalization’s polite fiction—that geography no longer matters and that peer adversaries will play by “rules-based” norms—has been shredded by the raw, calculated ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party, an aggressive Russia, and their rogue client in Pyongyang. What remains is the oldest, hardest truth of statecraft: a great power that fails to secure its strategic flanks invites its own extinction.

The combined clarity of hard-headed strategic thinkers leaves no room for euphemism or half-measures. Cuba, Greenland, and the Panama Canal must return to full, uncontested American control. Anything less is strategic suicide in the era of peer competition and proliferating missile threats.

THE PANAMA CANAL: THE CHOKEPOINT WE SURRENDERED—AND THE PROLIFERATION ARTERY

We built the Panama Canal between 1903 and 1914 with American engineering, American capital, and American blood. It was never a gift to the world; it was the central artery of American maritime supremacy. The 1977 Carter-Torrijos treaties—products of post-Vietnam weakness and elite guilt—transferred sovereignty in 1999. Today the canal’s critical terminals at Cristóbal and Balboa are operated under long-term leases by Hutchison Ports, a Hong Kong entity fused into Beijing’s state-capitalist apparatus.

In any major Pacific conflict—most critically a Chinese assault on Taiwan—Beijing does not need formal ownership to weaponize the canal. A single orchestrated “maintenance closure,” a labor action directed from afar, or quiet denial of pilotage and fueling services would force the U.S. Navy to reroute every Atlantic-to-Pacific transit around Cape Horn. That detour adds eight thousand miles and two to three weeks to every deployment. Carrier strike groups, amphibious ready groups, and underway replenishment ships arrive too late to influence the decisive battle. Supply lines to Europe and the Middle East are severed at the hinge.

Historical precedent underscores the danger: in 2013, Panamanian authorities seized a North Korean-flagged ship departing Cuba laden with ballistic missile components and other arms in clear violation of UN sanctions. The episode revealed the canal’s role as a potential conduit for proliferation among America’s adversaries.

Choke points are not neutral commercial features—they are weapons of war. China’s dual-use commercial presence grants de facto veto power over logistics, repair, and reinforcement. Sovereign American control—whether by negotiated reversion, ironclad long-term lease with perpetual U.S. military rights, or outright purchase—is no longer optional. It is the minimum requirement for maintaining interior lines of communication, the ability to surge forces faster than the enemy can concentrate, and denying proliferation pathways through the hemisphere’s central artery.

GREENLAND: THE ARCTIC KEYSTONE—AND AMERICA’S FORWARD SHIELD AGAINST NORTHERN MISSILE THREATS

Greenland sits astride the shortest air and naval routes between North America and Eurasia. Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base), secured under the 1951 U.S.-Danish Defense Agreement, remains our forward sentinel for ballistic-missile early warning, space surveillance, and deep-space domain awareness.

Denmark lacks the military capacity, the political will, and the geographic reach to defend Greenland against determined peer adversaries. Beijing has spent years probing for “scientific” research stations, rare-earth mining concessions, and “Polar Silk Road” access. Moscow has militarized its Arctic coastline with new bases, hypersonic-capable missiles, nuclear submarines, and ice-capable surface action groups.

North Korea’s advancing ICBM program adds a lethal northern dimension. In a coordinated multi-axis attack, the shortest trajectories pass directly through or near the polar region, compressing decision windows to seconds.

Without sovereign American dominance over Greenland, we risk losing this vital sensor node and the ability to project forward defense.

CUBA: THE SOUTHERN DAGGER—AND A PROLIFERATION OUTPOST

Cuba lies ninety miles from Key West, commanding the Florida Straits, the Yucatán Channel, and the Windward Passage. The 1962 Missile Crisis proved how quickly it can threaten the continental United States.

Today, Chinese intelligence collection facilities have expanded; Russian military ties continue. Cuba offers a forward operating base capable of threatening U.S. maritime routes and supporting hybrid operations.

THE STRATEGIC TRIANGLE: INTERLOCKING VULNERABILITIES AND INTEGRATED DEFENSE

These three positions form a single, mutually reinforcing strategic triangle:

• Panama secures rapid east-west fleet reinforcement across the globe’s central artery while denying proliferation routes. 
• Greenland dominates the northern approaches, Arctic sea lanes, and early-warning envelope. 
• Cuba locks down the southern flank and Caribbean chokepoints.

Together they restore the interior lines of communication and forward defense that America enjoyed for most of the 20th century.

THE IMPERATIVE

American control of these strategic positions is not optional. It is the minimum requirement for national survival in the new realities of power competition, gray-zone infiltration, and proliferating missile threats.


A CALL TO ACTION

The time for incrementalism has passed. Policymakers, military planners, and the American people must recognize the strategic map as it truly exists—not as we wish it to be. Reasserting control over these critical nodes will require political courage, economic leverage, and, if necessary, decisive action.

Congress must prioritize hemispheric defense. The executive branch must pursue aggressive diplomatic and strategic options. The American people must demand nothing less than the full restoration of national security in our own hemisphere.

History does not forgive nations that fail to act when the warning signs are clear. The window is narrowing. The decision is ours.

CLOSING REFLECTIONS

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." — Alexander Hamilton

"The American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." — James Monroe
 
Travis A. Karnes is a strategic analyst who was the FMR lead editor of the Peace Through Strength Institute.