Which is very hard to do when you're threatening them with force projection.

"Hearts and minds" isn't a thing totalitarian governments understand. You're either in agreement with them, or you're wrong.

The conundrum is, if you don't have the force projection, then you have the possibility that the wise and correct Party isn't all-powerful and all-knowing, because they couldn't convince a relatively tiny island - one closer than Cuba is to the US - to join the mainland.

If wise and correct Party isn't all-powerful and all-knowing, well, then power and knowledge might reside elsewhere that could need consultation every once in a while, and the wise and correct Party isn't wise and correct.

That's inherently fatal to totalitarian systems of government.