Havana Syndrome: The Invisible Weapon, Upcoming Elections, and the Fragile Republic-Part I

Havana Syndrome: The Invisible Weapon, Upcoming Elections, and the Fragile Republic-Part I

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #775: Saturday, February 14th, 2026.

In 2016, something strange began happening to American personnel stationed in Havana, Cuba.

Career diplomats. Intelligence officers. Families.

They reported sudden dizziness. Piercing headaches. Nausea. Ringing in the ears. Cognitive fog. Balance issues. Some described an intense pressure sensation, as if a beam of energy had passed through their skull. In certain cases, symptoms lingered for months or years.

The government now calls these cases Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs). The public knows them as Havana Syndrome.

Nearly a decade later…the question remains unsettled:

Was this illness, a coincidence…stress…environmental exposure…

Or…was it a weapon?

What We Actually Know

First, the symptoms were real. Many of the affected individuals were career professionals with medical documentation of neurological issues.

Second, the pattern was unusual. Reports often described sudden onset…sometimes in specific rooms or locations…occasionally accompanied by strange auditory sensations.

Third, investigations have produced conflicting conclusions.

A National Academies panel in 2020 found that directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy was the “most plausible” explanation for a subset of cases involving distinctive neurological symptoms. That does not mean proof…but it does mean credible scientists found the mechanism feasible.

In contrast, a 2023 intelligence community assessment concluded it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible overall. Yet that same assessment acknowledged gaps in data and left open continued review.

Then in 2024, a joint investigative report by major media outlets linked some cases to a Russian military intelligence unit known for covert operations.

That reporting did not amount to official attribution. But…it reintroduced the possibility that this was not random.

So here is the uncomfortable truth:

We do not have certainty.

But…we do have plausibility.

And plausibility, in geopolitics…is enough to demand attention.

If It Was a Weapon, Who Would Benefit?

Let’s strip this down to incentives.

Who gains from disabling U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers quietly, without triggering open conflict?

You’re looking for an actor that:

• Has advanced electronic warfare capabilities
• Has a history of covert, deniable operations
• Benefits from weakening U.S. institutional confidence
• Operates in gray zones below the threshold of war

Russia fits that profile. So does China, though less publicly connected to these particular reports. Cuba has been speculated about…but…lacks comparable capability evidence.

Russia, however, has a documented history of election interference, cyber intrusions, targeted poisonings abroad, and hybrid warfare strategies designed to destabilize democratic systems without conventional invasion.

Again…this is about capability and incentive, not courtroom proof.

And in statecraft, capability…plus motive…always matters.

Why This Is Bigger Than Brain Injuries

If Havana Syndrome represents even a limited proof-of-concept for directed-energy harassment…the implications are staggering.

You no longer need bombs.
You no longer need bullets.
You don’t even need fingerprints.

You can quietly disable personnel. Intimidate officials. Create fear. Undermine morale. Erode trust.

And…you can deny it.

That kind of tool doesn’t just threaten individuals. It threatens governance itself.

Now…place that possibility inside the current American political climate.

Elections Under Pressure

We are in a moment where the integrity of U.S. elections is not just debated…it is openly challenged by political leadership.

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed elections are rigged when outcomes disfavor him. He has publicly pressured election officials. He has suggested that constitutional norms can be overridden to address what he calls fraud.

He has expressed admiration for strongman leaders, including Vladimir Putin, while often casting doubt on U.S. intelligence assessments.

Separately, U.S. investigations have established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election through influence operations designed to deepen division and weaken faith in democratic institutions.

These are not partisan talking points. They are documented findings.

Now imagine this scenario:

A foreign adversary develops a deniable, hard-to-trace technology capable of targeting select individuals…diplomats…intelligence officers…election administrators…judges.

At the same time, domestic political rhetoric escalates pressure on election systems and delegitimizes professional civil servants.

You do not need conspiracy.
You do not need coordination.
You do not need a smoking gun.

You only need convergence.

When internal instability meets external opportunism…democracies become fragile.

The Strategic Danger of Uncertainty

Here is what makes Havana Syndrome especially corrosive:

Not knowing becomes the weapon.

If government personnel fear unexplained attacks…
If agencies cannot provide definitive answers…
If intelligence assessments conflict with investigative journalism…
If political leaders publicly dismiss or undermine their own intelligence community…

Trust decays.

And trust…is the oxygen of elections.

An election does not fail only when ballots disappear. It fails when citizens no longer believe the system protects those who administer it.

Foreign actors understand this. Hybrid warfare is not about tanks crossing borders. It is about destabilization…confusion…fatigue…doubt.

Havana Syndrome, whether a weapon…a cluster of unrelated medical events…or something in between, has already demonstrated how easily uncertainty spreads.

And uncertainty, once seeded…multiplies.

The Trump–Putin Factor

It is important to be precise.

There is no public evidence that Trump directed or coordinated any activity related to Havana Syndrome.

However, there is a documented pattern of:

• Trump rejecting intelligence community conclusions
• Trump expressing personal affinity for Vladimir Putin
• Russia pursuing active measures against U.S. democratic institutions

When a political leader routinely casts suspicion on intelligence agencies…while adversarial powers conduct influence operations…you create a structural vulnerability.

Even absent coordination, that dynamic benefits the adversary.

That is the core concern.

Not secret meetings.
Not spy thrillers.
But alignment of incentives.

If an adversary seeks to weaken U.S. elections, and domestic rhetoric already undermines faith in those elections…the adversary’s work becomes easier.

Add to that the possibility, even theoretical…of deniable technological harassment… and you are looking at a national resilience problem, not a medical anomaly.

Why This Moment Is Different

In previous decades, unexplained injuries among diplomats…

…would have triggered unified alarm.

Today, everything fractures along partisan lines.

Some dismiss Havana Syndrome as hysteria.
Others see it as covert warfare.

Some dismiss election interference concerns.
Others see creeping authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, adversaries study our divisions.

The real danger is not simply whether Havana Syndrome was a weapon.

The real danger is that we have become so polarized…that we cannot respond coherently even if it was.

The Bottom Line

Havana Syndrome may ultimately be explained as a combination of medical, environmental, and psychological factors.

Or…it may represent the early chapter of a new class of gray-zone weaponry.

We do not yet know.

But here is what we do know:

Democracies fail gradually before they fail dramatically.

They fail when institutions lose credibility.
When professionals are intimidated.
When leaders erode trust in the system.
When external adversaries exploit internal fractures.

Whether Havana Syndrome proves to be a weapon or a warning…it sits at the crossroads of those vulnerabilities.

And…in an era where elections themselves are being treated as battlegrounds…even the possibility of invisible coercion should not be shrugged off.

Not because panic is useful.

But because complacency is lethal.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. Tomorrow, I’m publishing Part II.

It will lay out, in plain terms, what our government should be doing right now to prepare for gray-zone threats against our elections…not just cyberattacks on machines, but pressure campaigns against people.

I’ll walk through the concrete steps: treating election workers like national-security personnel, hardening the last mile in small counties, restoring real-time threat sharing, building a permanent cross-agency election defense cell, running nationwide stress-tests before Election Day.

We should be normalizing audits as armor against disinformation, and preparing for the uncomfortable possibility of human-targeting scenarios…without drifting into paranoia.

And…I’ll examine why much of that is very likely not happening…including the pullback of key election-security programs, funding freezes, staffing pauses, and the broader political posture that treats election protection as suspect rather than sacred.

Most importantly, I’ll include case studies of people inside our government who have been directly impacted…professionals who’ve faced intimidation, institutional retreat, or unexplained health incidents, and what their experiences reveal about the vulnerabilities in our system.

If Part I was about the warning signs, Part II is about readiness…and what happens when readiness erodes.

Read it in full. Share it carefully. We’re going to need clarity…where others are manufacturing confusion.

Sources / Further Reading

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies (2020)
https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2020/12/an-assessment-of-illness-in-us-government-employees-and-their-families-at-overseas-embassies

Office of the Director of National Intelligence — Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents (March 2023)
https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIC-Unclassified-ICA-Updated-Assessment-AHI-March2023.pdf

Office of the Director of National Intelligence — Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents (December 2024)
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIC-Unclassified-ICA-Updated-Assessment-AHI-December2024.pdf

U.S. Congress — HAVANA Act of 2021 (Compensation for qualifying brain injuries linked to hostile acts)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1828

60 Minutes (CBS News) — Havana Syndrome investigation linking incidents to Russian intelligence unit (2024)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-russia-evidence-60-minutes/

U.S. Department of Justice — Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election(Mueller Report, Vol. I)
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — Report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/reports

Brennan Center for Justice — Timeline of Efforts to Undermine U.S. Elections
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/timeline-trump-administrations-efforts-undermine-elections

Election Assistance Commission — Election Security Preparedness Resources
https://www.eac.gov/election-officials/election-security-preparedness

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — Cybersecurity Toolkit and Resources to Protect Elections
https://www.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-toolkit-and-resources-protect-elections

CISA — Security Resources for the Election Infrastructure Subsector
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-02/Security%20Resources%20for%20the%20Election%20Infrastructure%20Subsector_508%20%281%29.pdf