Basic

The lights have gone out in Cuba. For the past week, schools on the Caribbean island have been shut and nonessential workers sent home as the nation suffers from an unprecedented collapse of its national grid. No power means no refrigeration for food or medicine and lengthy blackouts – adding to the hardships already endured by Cuba’s high-poverty population.

So how did the nation get here? Well, as Nicolas Forsans, co-director of the University of Essex’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, explains, the roots of the current crisis go back decades. A lengthy and ongoing U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, coupled with a failure by the island’s Communist leaders to diversify the nation’s economy, have had a disastrous impact. Meanwhile, since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Cuba has become more and more reliant on oil from Venezuela to meet its energy needs. But with Venezuela oil exports to Cuba cut in half this year, Havana has had to seek out other, more expensive options – and it simply doesn’t have the money to do so.

The impact of this energy and economic crisis could be profound. Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said he will not tolerate protests, but the situation will nonetheless test “the strength and the legitimacy of [his government’s] hold on power,” writes Forsans.

Elsewhere this week, we have been looking at the role civilians play in propping up military coups and asking whether American voters are ready to elect a woman president.