Did Castro defeat the United States?

You've got to remember that the only reason Castro survived was that President Kennedy, about to piss his pants over some Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, agreed to PUBLICLY pledge that the U.S. would never take action to invade Cuba.

Had the Cuban Missile Crisis not occurred, Castro would've been gone decades ago.

Seems to me you are making the argument that Cuba did exactly the right thing by allying themselves with the Soviet Union.

Exactly my point. Castro played the U.S. like a fiddle.