×
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION. David Wescott, a columnist for Business Lexington, wrote an article last Friday on the Patterson School's latest policy simulation:
Fidel Castro suffers a stroke and dies a day later. Pro-democracy demonstrators immediately organize outside of Havana. Brother Raul Castro assumes the presidency, and fearing infiltration of "invading forces from the north," places the army on high alert. Communications from Cuba grow spotty as "counter-revolutionary agitators" are rounded up, the government tightens its grip on the media and blogs in Cuba go silent. Buses stop running. Shops close. Rumors fly through the city that ministers have been sacked. Gunfire is heard in the distance.This scenario isn't from a Tom Clancy novel. It's this year's international crisis simulation from the University of Kentucky's Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce -- and it's not far-fetched.We'll see about the last. The scenario we laid out (I work at Patterson and worked on the simulation) wasn't implausible, but it was certainly telescoped and dramatized for effect. Unfortunately, I suspect that the absurd Cuba policy that the United States has committed itself to over the last forty-six years has precluded any realistic planning for Castro's wake.
--Robert Farley
