Cuban drone crisis: Iranian technology may pose security threat in Miami’s backyard | Opinion
In October 1962, Americans learned a sobering lesson about geography and national security. The Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba brought a strategic threat to within 90 miles of American shores. For thirteen days, the world confronted the significant possibility of nuclear catastrophe. The Cuban Missile Crisis remains one of the Cold War’s defining moments because it proved that geography is decisive — even for a country often assumed to be shielded by two oceans.
Today, Cuba could once again serve as a platform for a similar strategic threat: this time not in the form of missiles, but Iranian drones. Such systems could surveil American military installations, monitor maritime activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits, test U.S. defenses and provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with an intelligence-gathering presence just off the coast of the United States.
The defining weapon of the Cold War was the atomic bomb. Today, the ubiquitous weapon of mass terror and indiscriminate destruction is Iran’s Shahed-136 drone — and Tehran has made it a central tool of its military strategy over the past four years. Iran has not only deployed it itself, but supplied it to partners, proxy militias and fellow adversaries of the U.S. around the world.
It has been used to strike cities, energy infrastructure, ports, ships and civilian targets. From the January 2024 Tower 22 attack in Jordan to the recent strike in Kuwait, Shahed-type one-way attack drones have emerged as the deadliest Iranian weapon against U.S. forces, responsible for more American fatalities than any other Iranian weapon system. What began as a regional Iranian capability has evolved into a global security threat. The prospect of Iranian drone technology moving from the Strait of Hormuz to the Florida Straits should therefore command serious attention from American policymakers.
Efforts by the administration to strengthen homeland defense — including initiatives such as Golden Dome and expanded counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) capabilities — are welcome. But no defensive system is perfect, particularly against large numbers of cheap, one-way attack drones that can be made and deployed, especially in synchronized swarm attacks.
Recent assessments indicate that Cuba has acquired over 300 military drones from other countries, including Iran, since 2023. Reports point to Iranian technical involvement and advisory presence in Havana as part of broader defense and industrial engagement. Havana denies it and the full scope of this cooperation is not publicly known — but clearly Cuba is building a stockpile of the same weapon that Iran has exported across multiple conflict zones.
Parallel to this security dimension is a growing economic relationship between Tehran and Havana. Over the past year, the Iranian and Cuban regimes have expanded efforts to strengthen commercial cooperation through formal trade delegations, chamber-of-commerce agreements and government-to-government engagement. Discussions at the Havana International Fair and subsequent meetings have focused on expanding bilateral trade and investment across multiple sectors, including infrastructure, transportation, construction, mining, energy development, petrochemicals, industrial manufacturing and logistics.
This is notable because strategic relationships are rarely built overnight. They begin with business deals, infrastructure projects and institutional ties that steadily draw countries closer together. By the time Soviet missiles appeared in Cuba in 1962, the political and logistical groundwork for that alliance had already been established.
If Iran succeeds in building a meaningful drone and intelligence presence in Cuba, the strategic map of the Caribbean would look very different. And Cuba would again pose a strategic threat to America, this time by drones instead of missiles.
For Florida in particular, this prospect is no abstract concern. No state is more directly connected to Cuba. What happens in Havana has immediate implications for Miami and the broader region.
The lesson of 1962 was not only that proximity matters. It was that strategic threats often develop before they are fully recognized. The emerging Iran-Cuba relationship raises a straightforward question: are we paying attention early enough?
Soon, Floridians will have an opportunity to see one of these weapons for themselves. On July 8, at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) will display a Shahed-136 drone recovered from a battlefield operation among U.S. allies. The exhibit will underscore a simple point: The systems Iran uses to project power across multiple theaters are neither abstract nor distant. They are real and central to Tehran’s military strategy — and may soon be central to Havana’s, too. Understanding the danger from drones is essential to recognizing the emerging security threat in our own backyard.
Jeb Bush was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. He is chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). Mark D. Wallace is CEO of UANI and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. for Management and Reform.