Cuban Armed Forces

Revolutionary Armed Forces
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces emblem
Founded	1960
Current form	1960
Service branches	Army Air and Air Defense Force Navy paramilitary units Civil Defense National Reserves
Headquarters	Havana
Leadership
Commander-in-Chief	Pres. Raúl Castro
Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces	Corps Gen. Leopoldo Cintra Frías
Manpower
Conscription	2 years
Available for military service	Men: 3,134,622 Women: 3,022,063, age 15–49
Fit for military service	Men: 1,929,370 Women: 1,888,498, age 15–49
Active personnel	90,000 (2015 est.)
Reserve personnel	1,500,000
Expenditures
Percent of GDP	3.8% (2006)
Industry
Domestic suppliers	Union de Industrias Militares
Foreign suppliers	Russia  China  North Korea  Kazakhstan  Mongolia  Spain Former:  Soviet Union
Related articles
History	Military history of Cuba
Ranks	Ranks of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR) consist of ground forces, naval forces, air and air defence forces, and other paramilitary bodies including the Territorial Troops Militia (Milicias de Tropas Territoriales – MTT), Youth Labor Army (Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo – EJT), and the Defense and Production Brigades (Brigadas de Producción y Defensa – BPD), plus the Civil Defense Organization (Defensa Civil de Cuba – DCC) and the National Reserves Institution (Instituto Nacional de las Reservas Estatales – INRE).

The armed forces has long been the most powerful institution in Cuba and high-ranking generals are believed to play crucial roles in all conceivable succession scenarios. The military controls 60 percent of the economy through the management of hundreds of enterprises in key economic sectors. The military is also Raúl Castro's base. In numerous speeches, Raúl Castro has emphasized the military's role as a people's partner.

From 1966 until the late 1980s, Soviet Government military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities to number one in Latin America and project power abroad. The first Cuban military mission in Africa was established in Ghana in 1961. Cuba's military forces appeared in Algeria, in 1963, when a military medical brigade came over from Havana to support the regime. Since the 1960s, Cuba sent military forces to African and Arab countries – Syria in 1973, Ethiopia in 1978, the Cuban intervention in Angola from 1975 to 1989, and Nicaragua and El Salvador during the 1980s.

The Soviet Union gave both military and financial aid to the Cubans. The tonnage of Soviet military deliveries to Cuba throughout most of the 1980s exceeded deliveries in any year since the military build-up during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1989 the government instituted a cleanup of the armed forces and the Ministry of Interior, convicting army Major General and Hero of The Republic of Cuba Arnaldo Ochoa, Ministry of Interior Colonel Antonio de la Guardia (Tony la Guardia), and Ministry of Interior Brigadier General Patricio de la Guardia on charges of corruption and drug trafficking. This judgment is known in Cuba as "Causa 1" (Cause 1). Ochoa and Antonio de la Guardia were executed. Following the executions, the Army was drastically downsized, the Ministry of Interior was moved under the informal control of Revolutionary Armed Forces chief General Raúl Castro (Fidel Castro's brother), and large numbers of army officers were moved into the Ministry of Interior.