The principal threat is, frankly, collapse.
As Cuba's economy continues its slow unraveling, former CIA Director Robert Gates has offered a quiet but urgent reframing of the threat the island poses to the United States: not missiles or soldiers, but the human tide that follows a collapsing state. His warning arrived on the same day the current CIA director sat down with Cuban leadership in Havana, a rare and telling convergence of historical memory and present-tense diplomacy. The ghost of the 1980 Mariel boatlift—125,000 people crossing the Straits of Florida in six months—haunts a moment when more than 850,000 Cubans have already fled since 2022, and Washington is trying to decide whether pressure or negotiation, or both, can hold the dam.
- Gates is sounding an alarm not about Cuban aggression, but about Cuban disintegration—warning that regime collapse could trigger a migration wave that dwarfs anything the US has seen from the island since Mariel.
- Over 850,000 Cubans have already left since 2022, and asylum requests in Brazil alone surged 88% in 2025, signaling that the exodus is accelerating well before any formal collapse.
- CIA Director Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for what officials called a historic meeting with Cuban leadership, delivering a conditional offer: economic cooperation in exchange for fundamental changes and an end to sheltering US adversaries.
- The Trump administration is running an unusual dual track—maximum pressure on the regime while simultaneously opening direct CIA-level negotiations—a combination analysts are calling unprecedented in US-Cuban history.
- Gates and the current administration appear to share the same core fear: not that Cuba will strike, but that it will break, leaving the United States to manage the consequences of a state coming apart at its seams.
Robert Gates, who once led the CIA, told CBS on Friday that the danger Cuba poses to the United States is not military—it is the possibility of collapse. If the Cuban government falls, he warned, the result could be another Mariel: tens of thousands of desperate people crossing the Straits of Florida, just as more than 125,000 did in the span of six months back in 1980. "The greatest risk," he told interviewer Margaret Brennan, "is that we end up with another Mariel-type evacuation."
The timing of his remarks was striking. On the same day Gates spoke, current CIA Director John Ratcliffe was in Havana meeting with Cuban leadership—including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of former leader Raúl Castro, and the head of Cuban intelligence. The Cuban government confirmed the visit in an official statement. Ratcliffe's message was conditional: the US would consider economic and security cooperation, but only if Cuba made fundamental changes and stopped harboring American adversaries in the region.
Gates acknowledged Cuba's long history of regional entanglement—most visibly, the Cuban security forces that served as Nicolás Maduro's personal protection in Venezuela, a man who did not trust his own people to guard him. But Gates was clear: that is not the threat that concerns him most. The threat is collapse itself.
The numbers give his warning weight. Since 2022, more than 850,000 Cubans have left the island—the largest migration cycle in recent Cuban history. In Brazil alone, Cuban asylum requests jumped 88 percent in 2025. The island is losing people at a pace that suggests the pressure inside is already immense.
What has emerged is an unusual alignment: a former intelligence chief and a sitting administration, working through different channels, focused on the same fear. The Trump strategy—maximum pressure paired with direct CIA negotiation—is being called unprecedented by analysts. Whether it leads anywhere depends on whether the regime holds, and whether the talks in Havana amount to more than a historic footnote.
Robert Gates, who once ran the CIA, sat down with CBS on Friday to discuss what he sees as the real danger Cuba poses to the United States. It is not, he said, a military threat. It is the possibility that the Cuban government will collapse, and when it does, hundreds of thousands of desperate people will try to reach American shores—a repeat of 1980, when more than 125,000 Cubans fled across the Straits of Florida in the span of six months.
"The greatest risk," Gates said to interviewer Margaret Brennan, "is that we end up with another Mariel-type evacuation from Cuba, with tens of thousands of Cubans heading to the United States out of desperation." The timing of his warning was notable. On the same day Gates made his case on national television, the current CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was in Havana conducting what officials described as a historic meeting with Cuban leadership. He sat with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of former leader Raúl Castro, as well as Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas and Ramón Romero Curbelo, who heads the intelligence directorate. The Cuban government confirmed the visit in an official Communist Party statement, acknowledging that Washington had requested it and Havana had approved.
Ratcliffe carried a conditional message: the United States would be willing to negotiate on economic and security matters, but only if Cuba made what he called "fundamental changes"—and stopped being a safe harbor for American adversaries in the Western Hemisphere. Gates acknowledged that Cuba has long played a role in regional security, most visibly through the security forces it deployed to Venezuela, where they formed the personal protection detail for Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelan president, Gates explained, did not trust his own people enough to rely on them for his safety. But Gates stopped short of calling Cuba an immediate military threat. Yes, he said, the island "has been involved in ways that have impacted our national security and our interests through its participation in other countries for a long time." But that is not the danger that keeps him awake. "Are they an imminent threat to the United States?" he asked rhetorically. "Except in these peripheral ways, I think the principal threat is, frankly, collapse."
The historical shadow looming over this conversation is the Mariel boatlift. In 1980, after Fidel Castro opened the port, more than 125,000 people left Cuba in a matter of months. Gates is invoking that precedent at a moment when the numbers tell a stark story. Since 2022, more than 850,000 Cubans have left the island—the largest migration wave in the country's recent history. In Brazil alone, Cuban asylum requests jumped 88 percent in 2025, reaching more than 41,900 applications and making Cubans the largest nationality seeking asylum there. The island is hemorrhaging people, and Gates is warning that if the government falls, the hemorrhage could become a flood.
The Trump administration is pursuing an unusual strategy: maximum pressure on the regime combined with direct negotiation through the CIA. Brennan noted that the administration says it is trying to prevent exactly the kind of collapse Gates is warning about. Gates did not challenge that approach. What emerges from this moment is a rare alignment: a former intelligence chief and a sitting president, working through different channels, both focused on the same fear—not that Cuba will attack, but that Cuba will break, and when it does, America will have to absorb the consequences. Analysts are watching this combination of pressure and negotiation closely, calling it unprecedented in the history of U.S.-Cuban relations. What happens next depends on whether the regime can hold, and whether these talks in Havana lead anywhere at all.
Notable Quotes
The greatest risk is that we end up with another Mariel-type evacuation from Cuba, with tens of thousands of Cubans heading to the United States out of desperation.— Robert Gates, former CIA director
The principal threat is, frankly, collapse.— Robert Gates
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Gates think collapse is more dangerous than military confrontation?
Because a military threat is contained—you can deter it, defend against it. But if the government falls and 850,000 people are already leaving, what happens when the floodgates open? You can't deter desperation.
But hasn't the U.S. dealt with Cuban migration before?
Yes, in 1980. But that was 125,000 people over six months. The island has lost nearly a million since 2022. The baseline has shifted. The pressure is already immense.
So why is Ratcliffe in Havana negotiating if collapse is the real fear?
Because preventing collapse is the goal. If you can stabilize the regime, give it some economic breathing room in exchange for it stopping support for adversaries, you buy time. You reduce the desperation.
Is that realistic? Can you negotiate with a government that's already losing its people?
That's the gamble. Gates seems to think it's worth trying. The alternative—waiting for it to fall—is worse.
What does "fundamental changes" actually mean in this context?
Stopping the security deployments to Venezuela, probably. Ending support for hostile actors in the hemisphere. Basically: stop being a regional player, and we'll help you survive.
And if they refuse?
Then you're back to watching the clock, waiting for the collapse Gates is warning about.