[BrianR]

I personally don't see anything happening until Fidel dies. Then I see Raul taking over for good, paying lip service to denouncing the US in public while making up in private. We will create relations again to make him look good, hotels will go back, casinos MAY return (Bautista is still a bitter memory) and the tourist industry will enrich Cuba. Soon after, the US will establish another embassy and Cuba will slowly become a territory. I don't see statehood in the future, latin machismo will not allow that. Instead, all their ex-pats will go home, and things will go back to where they were.

As far as China and Russia, I don't see it...the Cubans remember the Soviets and what happened when THEY tried to make Cuba a protectorate. Communism is dead there, I think.