Fidel Castro spearheaded Cuba's communist revolution by leading a rebel army to victory in 1959. Relations between Washington and Havana deteriorated rapidly; the United States imposed an embargo on Cuba in October 1960 (which is still in effect today) and broke diplomatic relations in January 1961. Taking advantage of Cuba's fear of U.S. armed aggression against the island, the Soviets persuaded Cuba into adopting closer economic and political ties, including military and defense arrangements; later that year, Castro formally embraced Marxism. Tensions between the United States and Cuba peaked during the October 1962 missile crisis.
Under Castro, Cuba became a highly militarized society. Massive Soviet military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities and expand its military presence abroad, spending millions of dollars in exporting revolutions, most visibly in Angola, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. Cuba's support for these guerrilla movements, its Marxist-Leninist government, and its alignment with the USSR led to its isolation in the hemisphere.
Cuba does not possess nuclear weapons, and there are no credible reports of Cuban efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. In 2002, Havana acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), ratified the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco), and has an Additional Protocol with the IAEA. Cuba is not reported to possess chemical weapons (it acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC] in 1993), nor are there credible reports of Cuban possession of long-range ballistic missiles. Cuba has been suspected of having a program of research on biological warfare (BW) agents, though the existence, scope and focus of this effort remains obscure and controversial. Since the 1990s, U.S. administrations have determined that Cuba possesses the capability to launch a limited offensive biological weapons program and has provided dual-use biotechnology to other nations—suspicions that stem from Cuba's possession of one of the most advanced biomedical industries in Latin America and its large-scale production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines. In 2002, the George W. Bush administration claimed that Cuba was in fact developing BW agents, although no evidence was provided. Cuba, which vehemently denies the American claims, has been a member of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) since 1976.
In 1990, Cuba's Air Force, with about 150 Soviet-supplied fighters, including advanced MiG-23 Floggers and MiG-29 Fulcrums, was probably the best equipped in Latin America. In 1994, Cuba's armed forces were estimated to have 235,000 active duty personnel. Cuban military power has been sharply reduced by the loss of Soviet subsidies. By 1999, the Revolutionary Armed Forces numbered about 60,000 regular troops.
 See Cuba Biological Weapons Profile
 |
| |
Updated October 2007 |
|
|
