August 17, 2026

Good morning! Today is Monday, August 17th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Chris McCallion and Daniel DePetris warn that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for military action against Cuba, arguing the island is a collapsing state ninety miles from Florida rather than a genuine threat—and that invasion would trigger refugee flows and a Haiti-style descent into armed chaos. With the Iran war in its 170th day, Trump has ordered the USS George Washington to replace the troubled USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, leaving the western Pacific without a single U.S. aircraft carrier as China's naval buildup continues. Peter Van Buren argues that America's health care crisis is not only about insurance but access, with nearly 11 percent of insured adults unable to get an appointment and a 1997 cap on Medicare-funded residency slots still throttling the supply of new doctors. and now for the details. We begin this morning with signs that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for military action in Cuba, even as the Iran war grinds on. The Pentagon has reportedly been weighing military options for the island, and the State Department recently issued a report alleging that Havana is behind a decades-long campaign of subversion against the United States. This comes on top of a sanctions regime designed to starve Cuba of fuel, cripple its tourism industry, and shut down its medical missions abroad. President Trump has spoken vaguely about, in his words, "taking Cuba," and has pointed to January's special operation that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro as a possible precedent. Writing for The American Conservative, Chris McCallion and Daniel DePetris argue that Cuba poses no real danger to the United States. They describe the island as a quasi-failed state ninety miles from Florida, with an economy hollowed out by a 64-year embargo, an electrical grid that barely functions, and armed forces shrunk to a negligible size. The biggest threat, they contend, is not Cuban aggression but Cuban collapse. McCallion and DePetris warn that an invasion would risk large refugee flows, an explosion of armed groups, and a Haiti-style trajectory into regional drug trafficking. They urge Trump instead to reopen relations and ease sanctions in exchange for Cuba cutting security ties with Russia and China—a diplomatic win, they argue, that would beat what they call a gambler's approach to foreign policy. Turning to the Iran war, now in its 170th day. President Trump has ordered the USS George Washington to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, a move that will leave the western Pacific without a single U.S. aircraft carrier. The swap follows reports of serious mental health and supply problems aboard the Lincoln, which had been at sea for more than 200 days without a port call. Several service members reportedly attempted to jump overboard. Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper visited the ship Saturday, praising the crew as a "strong team of high-achieving Americans." As Luke Nicastro reports for The American Conservative, Washington and Tehran now appear set to blow past the timeline for a comprehensive agreement laid out in the June memorandum of understanding—Monday marks sixty days since that document was signed. Meanwhile, the Houthis say they struck Yemen's military with ballistic missiles and drones in the Red Sea. The pulling of America's last Pacific carrier to sustain a Middle Eastern war raises hard questions about strategic priorities at a moment when China's naval buildup continues apace. To the home front now, and a look at what may be the quieter half of the American health care crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 11 percent of insured U.S. adults could not get a medical appointment when they needed one in the past year—a problem unrelated to cost or coverage. Roughly 4 percent could not find a physician who would accept their insurance, and another 2 percent said providers were simply too far away, an especially acute issue in rural America. Peter Van Buren, writing for The American Conservative, describes helping a friend with a severe case of shingles who cycled through three emergency rooms and could not find a primary care physician willing to see her in under six weeks. Van Buren notes that Canada, often held up as a model, has its own access crisis, with a median wait of 30 weeks from referral to treatment and 17 percent of adults lacking a family doctor. He points instead to Denmark, which pairs universal coverage with voluntary private insurance and assigns nearly every citizen a primary care physician. Van Buren also flags a structural American bottleneck: the 1997 Balanced Budget Act froze Medicare-funded residency slots at 1996 levels, throttling the training of new doctors even as the population ages. His conclusion is blunt—coverage under any system is not the same as access. Those are toda