Military & Defense

Dissident dies, tanks roll

January 20, 2012

Orlando Luis Pardo tweeted there was movement of tanks via rail from Via Blanca (Paso Superior) on the outskirts of Havana. Is this movement in response to yesterday’s death of dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza after his hunger strike? The same occurred when dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo death was announced in 2010.

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Defense cooperation between South Africa and Cuba

January 14, 2012

South Africa and Cuba signed a memorandum Jan. 10 to put a stamp on the cooperation between the two country’s armies. Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu signed the memorandum of understanding with [Division General] Ulises Rosales del Toro, the vice-president of Cuba’s council of ministers. The two countries have already worked together in the past, but [...]

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Cuba & Venezuela will jointly build coastal patrol boats

January 11, 2012

An agreement has been signed between the Venezuelan Defense Ministry and Cuban Transportation Ministry to jointly build patrol boats for the Venezuelan Navy in Puerto Cabello (Carabobo), announced Admiral Diego Alfredo Molero Bellavia (Commander General, Venezuela Navy). The project has been under development for six years. These Págalo class patrol boats (built by the Dutch [...]

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Postcommunist armed forces

December 19, 2011

Postcommunist armed forces are key actors in the process of democratic consolidation. The successful transition of post communist military institutions is essential to protecting the democratic gains achieved by society overall, and for ensuring that coercive force is not used to reverse them. —Marybeth Peterson Ulrich, Professor of Government at the U.S. Army War College in Democratizing [...]

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Profession of Arms

December 6, 2011

H/T: SWJ

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New Cuban political elite

December 4, 2011

Eusebio Mujal-León, professor and former chair of the Department of Government at Georgetown University and the director of the Cuba XXI Project, has written an excellent article (published in the Journal of International Affairs’ Fall/Winter ’11 issue on the authoritarian state) analyzing the new Cuban political elite and exploring how power is distributed between the country’s military [...]

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