Cuba's creepy future: Beijing meets Dubai meets Coachella

Don't expect a happy ending

Cuba
(Image credit: (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images))

Forging ahead with the so-called "normalization" of relations with Cuba, the Obama administration has duly removed the former rogue regime from Uncle Sam's official list of state sponsors of terrorism. Soon to come: a mutual reopening of embassies, first-time Cuban participation in the Summit of the Americas, and other certain delights.

To ponder the Cuba of the future is to stoke our deepest fantasies about the future of the human race. It's not every day that prospects for sweeping, benign change look quite so robust and fresh. Most places on Earth are either "mature" democracies or "hopeless" cases. In our newly rejuvenated imagination, Cuba is neither.

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James Poulos

James Poulos is a contributing editor at National Affairs and the author of The Art of Being Free, out January 17 from St. Martin's Press. He has written on freedom and the politics of the future for publications ranging from The Federalist to Foreign Policy and from Good to Vice. He fronts the band Night Years in Los Angeles, where he lives with his son.