|
Military Doctrine | Revolutionary Armed Forces | Civil Defense | Military Industry | Preparedness for Defense | FAQs about Defense in Cuba |
Home |
The whole military effort is strictly devoted to the defense of the
country's territory. The defensive
character of the military effort and the generalized popular resistance as a way
of confronting foreign military aggression form the nucleus of the concept of
War
of all the People. The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba sets out that the
defense of the socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of
each Cuban.
 |
|
|
Heroes and military figures |
|
Military thought of Fidel and Raúl Castro |
| HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: |
 |
Cuban military art, born and developed in the struggles against Spanish
colonialism for national independence during the 19th century, and developed in
correspondance with the new conditions during the National Liberation War
(1956-1958) has been applied creatively by military leaders who, for more than a
hundred years, have fought against injustice facing enemy forces that were far
superior in weapons and men.
The
Liberation Army in the second half of the 19th century, as well as
the Rebel Army in the Liberation War waged from December 2, 1956 until January
1, 1959, adapted their fighting methods to the topography of the terrain and
they skillfully took advantage of climatic conditions.
Constant harassment, ambushes and surprise were forms of the popular
armed struggle that were put in practice in order to achieve, at a strategic
level, the attrition and confusion of the enemy.
Seizing weapons from the enemy through surprise actions was the most
important source of supply for war material in both wars.
The support of the population was decisive in securing logistical
supplies and for permanent information on the movements and aims of the enemy
forces.
The victory over the mercenary invasion of
Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) in
April 1961, the determination and effectiveness demonstrated during the October
Crisis (Missile Crisis) in 1962, the defeat of the numerous counter-revolutionary
uprisings in the 1960s and the fulfillment of internationalist
missions in
support of peoples attacked by foreign military forces all demonstrated the
validity of the principles of contemporary Cuban military art.
The thought of the legitimate military and political leaders of the Cuban
nation for around 150 years has faithfully followed the axiom whereby it is only
with the force of the people that battles can be waged and won in favor of a
just cause but, in order to win, the whole population needs to be prepared,
instructed and trained to fight efficiently.
| HEROES
AND MILITARY FIGURES: |
|
Biographical synthesis of some important military figures of the
struggles for independence and national liberation.
We are pleased to help you find out more about the heroes and military
figures throughout Cuba's history.
 |
Máximo Gómez Báez (1836-1905) |  |
Antonio Maceo Grajales (1845-1896) |
|
Major General of the Liberation Army of Cuba |
Major General of the Liberation Army of Cuba |
||
 |
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (1819-1874) |  |
Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz (1841-1873) |
| First President of the Republic of Cuba in Arms |
Major General of the Liberation Army of Cuba | ||
 |
Calixto García Iñiguez (1839-1898) |
| Major General of the Liberation Army of Cuba | |
 |
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna (1928-1967) |  |
Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán (1932-1959) |
| Major of the Rebel Army |
Major of the Rebel Army | ||
| MILITARY THOUGHT OF FIDEL AND RAUL CASTRO: |
|
| Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz: |
 |
Weapons and justice
"Wars are not won by those who have more weapons and more soldiers
but by those who fight for justice."
October 24, 1958
Identifying soldiers with the people
"The tyranny kept soldiers and civilians isolated. An unarmed
civilian, without combat means and with no military knowledge of any kind, was
at the mercy of any gang that took power. The soldier, in fact, tends to obey
orders and we must identify soldiers with the people. These differences are over.
This is the only thing that is going to bring a spirit of peace and not
contempt for one other."
January 3, 1959.
People, moral, dignity and idealism decide a war
"We know that we have what we need to fight here: We have a people
to fight with, which is what decides a great war! We have the morale to fight,
which is what decides a war, and we have dignity and idealism to fight with,
which is what decides a war!"
July 2, 1959.
Not thinking about the number of enemies
"The revolutionary combatant must never stop to think about the
number. The revolutionary combatant
must fight the enemy even if there are twice or three times as many, or if they
are thirty times stronger. Because the first soldiers of this revolutionary army
were once less than fifteen armed men and, for each one of them --for each one
of them!-- the dictatorship had four thousand soldiers. Because the number
doesn't matter at all. What matters
is the quality."
July 30, 1959.
People's army
"We know what reaction wants --that we don't arm the peasants; that
we don't train the people; that we have an army that gets corrupted little by
little; for us to have a professional army so that when they can confuse an
officer or some officers, they will have the republic like before, at the mercy
of a group of armed men opposite an unarmed people. We have always wanted a real
army of the people and with the people".
We will not attack another country
"We will defend ourselves in our territory against any aggression,
but we will not assault the territory of another country.
We will not attack the territory of another country.
We will defend ourselves with whatever we have, with the weapons that we
have. We will defend our land!"
A people that fights cannot be defeated
"What determines the fact that our enemy does not have victory over
us is our decision to never surrender, and a people that fights cannot be
defeated, because a people that resists cannot be defeated".
Armed forces made up of the people
"What was the basic and indispensable fact for the development of
the Revolution? The break-up of the military elite, of an elite army at the
service of exploitation and privilege, and its substitution by armed forces made
up of the people and inseparably united to the people."
This people can never be defeated
"We know this people, the moral and revolutionary forces that
inspire it, and we know that this people can be invaded, even occupied, but
never vanquished, never defeated."
War begins with the occupation of the country
"War begins, it could be said, when the enemy has occupied the whole
country. That's when the real war
begins, the terrible war for them."
A people cannot depend on individuals
"We should be prepared not only for waging front combat, but for
clandestine struggle and irregular combat. Imagine if the imperialists invaded
us and, by force of their numbers and at a very high price, succeeded in
occupying the territory. Would the
struggle end there? No! One phase of the struggle would end and another one
would begin-- in the cities, in the fields and everywhere.
When would that struggle end? Never! Who would lead it? The Party! That
would be the only, irreplaceable way, because individual men fall.
Individuals die in the struggle and a fighting people must never depend
on individual men but on institutions, on organizations."
Let's be
soldiers!
"If the reality of being so close to such a powerful and criminal
neighbor has forced us all to be soldiers, "Let's be soldiers, just as we
must be workers and students!"
Combat means, training, consciousness and courage
"Never before as today have our people felt so safe and well
defended, since it is a capable people and prepared to defend itself. In war,
combat means are necessary, training is necessary and, above all, the
consciousness and the courage of the combatants are necessary."
Courage depends on the motivation of men
"There are neither cowardly men nor brave men.
There are neither cowardly by peoples nor brave peoples.
There are neither cowardly soldiers nor brave soldiers. Courage depends
on the motivation that a man has, that a soldier has. When a soldier defends his
country, when he defends a just cause, he is very brave. When a soldier finds
himself forced to defend an evil cause, to commit a crime or an act of
aggression, he becomes demoralized in the long run.
He can’t be brave."
Territorial Troops Militia
"We conceived the
Territorial Troops Militia as another force,
made up in a voluntary and selective way, comprised of men and women, workers
and peasants, students, of everyone who is capable of fighting and is not
enrolled in the reserve of the regular
troops or in the Civil Defense.
With the establishment of this force, we fulfilled the principle whereby the
defense of the homeland is a right and a duty of all Cubans, men and women, a
principle that we have now succeeded in realizing in an organized manner."
January 20, 1981
We do not want war
"We do not want war. We
do not provoke conflicts and we do not want to provoke conflicts.
But beware of provoking us! Beware
of leading us into a war! Beware of
leading us into a conflict! If a
conflict is imposed on us, if a war is imposed on us, they will see what a
people determined to fight to the end is."
Defending peace
"Defense is not only developed to face aggression.
It is also developed to avoid aggression.
And it is not only tested during a war but in peace and preserving peace
is always a victory. So, defense is
developed not only for war but to prevent war, to avoid it, to defend peace.
Peace will be preserved against an aggressive and deceitful enemy like Yankee
imperialism to the extent that it knows that any aggression can cost it dearly."
Defense Zone
"The
Defense Zone will be the impregnable bastion where our
people will demonstrate its preparedness, not only to fight heroically against
the enemy's air and naval landings and to defend each inch of our native soil
down to the last stone and the last man or woman but much more --to fight even
under the conditions of an invaded and occupied country, for which the Defense
Zones will have to adopt an adaptable and flexible structure so that, under any
circumstances in that situation, they can continue production and ensure
subsistence, taking advantage of resources and adopting different methods of
struggle, until they make the enemy desist from its attempts or annihilate it
totally."
Our invincible force
"With their soldiers mixed among us, the nuclear weapons, the tens
of divisions, the thousands of planes and tanks and the hundreds of warships
that imperialism might have will be worth nothing. Our people, their patriotism, their fighting spirit and their
combat morale, --that is our invincible force, superior to any weapon or
military technology that may exist."
Production and defense
"Production and defense are our fundamental slogans for today. They
do not contradict each other in the least and one complements another. The more
militant a people are, the more conscious and prepared to fight for their
homeland, the more they will work, the more they will devote themselves to the
work of the revolution and the development of the country.
The more that production and services are developed, the more that we
strive for the welfare, the future and the happiness of our comrades, the more
decisively and heroically will our people defend the homeland and the Revolution."
An unconquerable country
"Cuba's defense cannot be based on commitments or agreements between
other countries. The defense of our country is the task of our people above all
and of the capacity of our people to defend themselves, to fight to the end
(...) In the military field, the country has been threatened constantly. However,
we are grateful for this --I'm serious. Why?
Because this compelled us to carry out two revolutions: one in the field
of defense. For four years, in the
face of threats from the United States, we have totally changed our conceptions
of defense. We have multiplied our strength many times to the extreme that we
have actually become an unconquerable, invulnerable country that cannot be
occupied. We have organized the
whole people as never before and we have developed our ideas in the field of
defense in such a way that any military adventure against Cuba is condemned to
failure."
January 30, 1985.
Conditions for resistance and struggle
"We have prepared the country and we have made our plans, against a
total blockade or against a war of attrition or against an invasion or even the
occupation of our territory. We
have created every conditions for energetically maintaining resistance and the
struggle. So, it would be
tremendously costly for the United States and, in the end, they would have to
withdraw because they would need millions of soldiers to keep our country
occupied."
It’s going to get its teeth smashed
We prefer to be respected
"There might be a madman. Any
government can become deranged. Therefore, we can't rely on logic.
Logic indicates that that can't be done.
We have no fear, because we feel very safe.
We have an organized and armed people and we're a bone that's impossible
to swallow. So, in that sense,
we're calm. But we're always going
to be alert, always prepared and always with enough capacity for resistance so
that they respect us. We prefer to
be respected. We don't want
conflict. On the contrary, we want
wise, peaceful, intelligent people, who don't do crazy things."
War of all the People
"The
War of all the People means that, to conquer our territory
and occupy our soil, the imperial forces must fight against millions of people
and they must pay hundreds of thousands and even million of lives for their
attempt to conquer our land, to crush our freedom, our independence and our
Revolution, without ever achieving their goal."
"However powerful the empire might be, however sophisticated its
technology and weapons might be, it is not in a condition to pay the price that
such an adventure would entail. It
will probably never be prepared to pay such a price. But we do know the price that corresponds to the sacred
principle of defending our homeland and our Revolution.
However high it might be, we will always be prepared to pay it!"
"This is what the concept of War of all the People means.
This is the meaning of the principle whereby our people can never make
the mistake of lowering their guard. From
this, we deduce the need to continue investing sweat and resources and to
continue making sacrifices to strengthen our defense."
We do not provoke wars
"Wars should not be provoked, in the first place.
In the second place, wars, after they are unleashed, must be waged well.
And, in the third place, wars cannot end except in victory or death.
"Our reality can be deduced perfectly from this.
In the first place, we do not provoke wars.
We haven't done so in more than thirty years of revolution. In other
words, if there is a war, it will not be provoked by us. If there is a war here,
it is because it has been imposed on us. That
much is clear. In the second place,
if war is imposed on us, we will know how to wage the war well.
That much is clear. In the third place, if a war is imposed on us, that
war will not end except in victory or death.
I have outlined general principles. Now here is our specific principle: It will end with our victory, whatever it might cost!"
The greatest internationalist duty: to defend the Revolution
"Now internationalism lies in defending and preserving the Cuban
Revolution. That is our greatest
internationalist duty, because when a banner such as this, which represents such
just ideas as these, is still standing, to defend this trench, this bastion of
socialism, is the greatest service we can render humanity."
July 26, 1991
The army, the homeland and the Revolution in every man
"Under any circumstances, we will always be prepared for the
War
of all the People and to defend our country down to the last corner as long as
there is one revolutionary and one weapon to defend it.
Every man, every revolutionary must say:
I am the army; I am the homeland; I am the Revolution."
There is no possible rift
"If there is no war, this will be due, fundamentally, to the spirit
of our people and to the respect that they are capable of inspiring in their
main enemy to the extent that it knows that there is no possible rift and that
there is no possible victory against our people."
Smarter than weapons
"It is impossible to annihilate a people even with those
sophisticated smart weapons because men will always be smarter than weapons.
Patriots will always be more smarter than weapons. Revolutionaries will
always be smarter than weapons."
Ready to fight without limits
"Our enemies should know that we are prepared to defend our ideas
and our cause at any price --at any price!-- that we are prepared to fight
without limits. Nobody will rule this country in a hundred years.
Neither imperialism nor reaction can resist a hundred years of struggle
by this people, ready to fight in any situation, as we've said at other times,
even under total occupation by the enemy. They can't even imagine what kind of
people they will have to face!"
We do not neglect defense
"We do not neglect defense for even an instant. Our problems are not
only about fuel, spare parts and raw materials. Our problem is also to be strong and to guarantee imperialism
that there will be an impossible price to pay if it attacks us, if it invades us.
Imperialism would not miss the least opportunity, the smallest chance.
It would use the smallest pretext to attack us if it imagined that we
were easy prey. But we haven't
stopped for a minute from building fortifications, preparing the terrain for
defense, digging tunnels, training the population for struggle and organizing it
better and better."
December 18, 1991
Smart weapons are worthless
"These smart weapons are worth nothing against us, because they
would have to manufacture millions of weapons smart enough to track down, one by
one, every man and woman there is here with a gun or a grenade or a mine.
No amount of smart weapons would suffice.
The smart thing would be for them to forget about that."
Trenches of ideas and of stone
"The important thing is not men.
The important thing is the ideas. Just
as it is very important in war to have weapons --weapons are indispensable--, in
a revolution, in the defense of the homeland, of the Revolution, of socialism,
ideas are even more important than weapons. It was not in vain that
Martí said that trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of
stone. And we have both kinds of
trenches --those of ideas and those of stone."
With the people, it is different
"Of course, the Yankees have more divisions than us.
And, if you have 10 divisions and you take them there, let's suppose that
you destroy 10 divisions and they destroy 5 of yours then, later on, you destroy
another ten and they destroy another 5 of yours, they can then send another 10
divisions and you are left with no divisions.
On the basis of a simple arithmetical calculation, it's all over.
"With the people, it's not the same. With the War of all the People, it's different.
The war never ends. In those
conditions, well, one or two divisions might be destroyed and the equivalent of
tens and tens of divisions remain. They
could occupy the whole country. On
the day that they occupy the whole country, they will be worse off than when
they landed, because, on that day, they will have to fight with millions of
people, even against adolescents, mixed among us.
The moment when they are mixed together with us is when they'll be worst
off. And a division can be
annihilated, but a people that fights can't be annihilated.
That has been demonstrated in all the wars throughout history."
A greater danger than ever
"The strengthening of defense is one of the priority programs of the
special period. There is a real danger that is greater than ever when the United
States feels that it's the master of the world, the owner of the world, and is
wrapped up in triumphant euphoria with a fanatical faith in its sophisticated
weapons and in its capacity to impose its will on any people."
The strength of defense grows
"We are investing fewer resources, as is logical, in defense in
these circumstances. Here too,
quality is an essential question --the quality of concepts, the quality of
preparation, the quality of the means of protection, the quality of the
conservation of the weapons. Our
armed forces have made really important changes, restructuring, reductions.
"They have made as many reductions as can be made and, at the same
time, the strength of our defense is growing.
It is growing because the men and women of our people are more conscious.
It is growing because they are more conscious and the revolutionaries are
more determined to defend the Revolution."
Genuinely Cuban
"The basic ideas that guide our country today in defense matters
were the ideas that began to be developed in 1868, when our first independence
war began, becoming, with the experience of many years, the ideas that now
inspire the doctrine of the War of all the People, which is genuinely Cuban.
Although, despite all that, we haven't wasted or neglected any international
experiences-- that of the Vietnamese, for example, the Saharans, or any country
that has fought in the world. That
always has something to contribute and something to teach."
Tanks and guerrilla warfare
"Even tanks can be used in a guerrilla war.
They can be adapted to the terrain, adapted to the enemy, to their
weapons and all those advantages that they have can be canceled out.
Because they should know --and we should guarantee-- that any invasion of
our country would mean very large, unbearable losses for them.
We must guarantee that. It
would be impossible for then to win victory under those conditions."
To continue innovating
"We must continue innovating and we must do whatever is necessary so
that those weapons, which are for the War of all the People, continue to
increase, continue developing --special troops, with special training for any
mission."
Revolutionary Armed Forces
"When speaking of the efforts made in these years, it is only fair
to give special mention to the Revolutionary Armed Forces, for the contribution
that they have made with their example and their activities in this special
period in the extraordinary saving of human resources; in the development of
the country's defense capacity without supplies of new weapons, only with those
that we already had; in the maintenance of technology of all kinds, so that
millions of weapons are perfectly suitable for use; in training the people for
defense; in strengthening the conscience of our citizens; in the contributions
that they have made in the administration of resources, factories, agricultural
enterprises, etc.; in demonstrating how much can be achieved with a little. It
is one of the institutions that has adapted most to these special circumstances
that we are living through, in the methods contributed, in the education that it
has meant for many cadres."
We know how to defend ourselves
"We are not a great power. Neither
are we a nuclear or naval or air power. We only know how we should defend
ourselves under any circumstances against the overwhelming technology of our
main adversary."
| Army General Raúl Castro Ruz |
 |
Man --a decisive component
"The most valuable and decisive component of the
Revolutionary Armed
Forces is the men and women that make up the forces, soldiers with solid combat
training and political preparation, with a high patriotic and internationalist
spirit, above all, the officers, the backbone of our army."
Avoiding war is equivalent to winning it
"All the colossal effort that we are making in the field of defense
has one supreme objective: to avoid
the war, which, for us, is equivalent to winning it and, for this, we are
continuing to strengthen ourselves as long as the danger of aggression exists.
And I can assure you that we will continue to be the most powerful armed
forces in Latin America, but also one of the least expensive."
Battles made up of thousands of small strikes
"Even if they were to take the capital --something that they could
only achieve through very costly actions-- they would not solve the problem.
On the contrary, new problems would begin for them --a scheme that would
be repeated for them in each town or city throughout the whole island.
Our defense in those conditions would be simply unbeatable, which means
unconquerable. I'm not talking, about big battles, of large classic
confrontations but of battles made up of thousands of small annihilating strikes
at every hour, by day and by night, and in all places that might be favorable to
us, with every kind of weapon, light or heavy."
The earth would burn under their feet
"The struggle would be without a front or rearguard, in every corner
of the country. For this, in
addition to the regular troops, we
have the Territorial Troops Militia
and the Production and Defense Brigades,
organized in every province and their 169 municipalities.
Combat would take place in the more than 1,400 Defense Zones if the
enemy was capable of reaching them all-- an impossible assumption, since they
would need millions of soldiers and, even then, they would be extremely weak
since they could tread on a mine anywhere, be eliminated by a bullet or a
grenade and ambushes would be their nightmare.
The earth would burn under their feet, from the entrails of the earth,
after the air strikes. the soldiers
would spring up to settle accounts with them on the sacred soil of the homeland,
which does not admit invading boots."
A war lost for the aggressor
"In protracted war, if, out of every two or three snipers --and we
have tens of thousands-- one of them wipes out a Yankee, preferably an officer,
could the invader assume so many losses and persist in the aggression? This is
equally valid with respect to our special troops. If only 20 per cent of our millions of armed and organized
compatriots was to fight --and we are sure that the percentage of brave
compatriots is infinitely superior-- the war would be lost for the aggressor."
Ground troops: a decisive
force
"In our doctrine, ground troops are the decisive forces, since the
combat, once the enemy had landed, would be waged on our soil, one man against
another, within gunshot. And, in
those conditions, the moral superiority of the men defending their homeland is
infinitely superior to that of the hated invader.
An intolerable wasps' nest
"Knowledge of the terrain, which we have studied and prepared inch
by inch, also gives us a great advantage. We
have millions of trained and armed men and women.
In the face of this wasps' nest, could the enemy overcome us numerically?
The efficiency of aviation is partly canceled out when their soldiers and
ours can’t be told apart in the battlefield."
Having everything necessary
"We took a range of measures that allowed us to increase to the
maximum our military reserves of every kind --an objective that we achieved--,
in addition to beginning the establishment of state reserves, to modernizing and
completing our military industry, to improving qualitatively the weaponry
and the combat means of our regular
troops and to modernizing those already existing, as well as acquiring the
weaponry and other necessary means to supply one hundred per cent the personnel
of all the units of the Territorial
Troops Militia, in such a way as to have everything necessary to wage,
without aid from abroad, the War of all the People, the hundred years war,
if necessary."
Saving without affecting combat readiness
"Taking into account the real possibilities of the national economy,
in accordance with a plan previously set out in detail, we are continuing at
this time to reduce to the indispensable minimum those units and institutions
that are not carrying out combat missions and to increase to the maximum
efficiency in the use of the resources that the country earmarks for defense. We
are achieving that purpose by saving every kind of resource, fundamentally fuel,
and lubricants; the reduction of the exploitation of weaponry and technology.
At the same time as we are increasing their vitality, we are modernizing
them and preserving them to the utmost possible. All this without affecting
combat readiness, thanks to the organizational measures adopted in sufficient
time and to the inventiveness and initiative of our specialists and of all the
personnel. Such results have been
possible thanks also to the use of a modern material base for studies and more
effective forms of training."
August 6, 1993
"Today, the missions assigned to the
Youth Working Army acquire
a more complex character. We have
decided to increase its numbers in a gradual and substantial way, in
correspondence with the supplies available.
This will also strengthen our defense, since we will have a considerable
increase in forces on permanent combat readiness and with sufficient training to
fulfill, military missions in the territory where they are located."
Respected by everybody
"We know what it cost to win independence, freedom and sovereignty.
We also know how expensive it is to keep them with such a powerful enemy
so close. But a dignified people
such as ours is capable of paying the price that is necessary.
That is why Cuba is and will continue to be respected by everybody, both
friends and enemies."
|
Foundations of national defense | Military Doctrine | Revolutionary Armed Forces | Civil Defense | Military Industry | Preparedness for Defense | FAQS about Defense in Cuba |
Home |