States and Soldiers in Central American Revolutions: Comparing Military Responsiveness in the Cuban and Nicaraguan Revolutions
Political upheavals by overthrowing military governments had become a major feature in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, especially by the end of 1970s. Governments aimed to create peace and to form a mechanism for distributing resources equally amongst their people, as the region became increasingly turbulent during the Cold War. The competition between capitalism and communism had found itself in the region, especially in two Central American countries, which are Cuba and Nicaragua. Both countries were facing communist revolutions in the 1953–1959 and 1961–1990 periods respectively, but the active use of military forces in order to quash the revolutionary movement became a unique feature. Throughout these periods, the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Nicaraguan Armed Forces fought many battles, requiring a high level of readiness so as to operate and become deployable. This essay compares the responsiveness of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Sandinista Popular Army during the revolution period.
A prior understanding of military responsiveness is required before comparing the Cuban and Nicaraguan military groups. A main attribute of military effectiveness, military responsiveness indicates an ability to conduct military activities based on the state’s resources, the military environment, and the strengths and shortcomings of its adversaries in an armed conflict (Brooks & Stanley, 2007, p.11). Military groups must respond effectively to every form of threat in order to fulfil the function of defense: not to interfere with the existence and interests of their countries. Hence, improving their responsiveness is possible by exploiting the strengths and weaknesses in a conflict, or reforming the military if the first option fails. Military responsiveness is measured utilising three criteria, which are (1) the tactics designed to attack the weak points of enemy troops, (2) the force structure modification to align better with the current and emerging threats, and (3) the internal evaluation process to assess the successes or failures of military tactics (Brooks & Stanley, 2007, p.15). The three criteria affected the flexibility and versatility against anti-communist movements.
First, the tactics that the Cuban and Nicaraguan military groups had utilised in the revolutionary era were vital to ensure that their enemies were disarmed and their enemies’ soldiers were demoralised. The Cuban Revolution, which started with attempts to overthrow military dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1953 until the installment of the Fidel Castro government in 1959, became a battleground between the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Castro-led armed guerillas. There were numerous battles and attacks in the revolution period, but the initial attacks — also called the 1953 Attack on the Moncada Barracks — included ambush by the guerillas. In the attack, the military had outnumbered guerilla troops, with 400 men deployed by the Batista government and around 135 guerilla fighters sneaking in with a sixteen-automobile caravan (Ramonet, 2007, p.121–124). The military deployed a strategy of intimidation — both through the number of troops and through the disruption in the enemy’s chain of command, the latter apparent in the assassination of Castro’s second-in-command Abel Santamaría (Ramonet, 2007, p.672). Therefore, the military amassed the force advantage so as to gain tactical victory against the Castros in the Moncada Barracks.
Similar to its Cuban counterpart, the tactics of Sandinista Popular Army during the Nicaraguan Revolution also included strategies of intimidation, yet the group had aimed for annihilation instead of attrition. The predecessor of the Nicaraguan Armed Forces today, the Sandinista Popular Army toppled the Somoza authoritarian rule during the Sandinista Guerilla Movement in 1961–1979 — in which the army stayed on the defensive against the Somoza’s National Guard until they seized the Nicaraguan National Palace in August 1978 (Merrill, 1993, pp.197–198). The seizure was done by a total of 2.000 to 3.000 Sandinista guerilla fighters alongside foreign supporters and untrained popular militias, and the group orchestrated riots and mass kidnappings in the capital city Managua (Merrill, 1993, p.197–198). As the Somoza resigned and fled the country, the government lost support from its constituencies, and National Guard as an institution also fell apart — hence paving the way for the Sandinistas to power. In other words, the Sandinista Popular Army had preferred a strategy to crack down on the combat power of the National Government and spread terror to the government, resulting in a strategic victory: gaining control over Nicaragua and its military.
Second, the force structure outlines how military troops and their weapons are organised for military operations in Cuba and Nicaragua. Taking into account abilities and interactions between officers, force structuring may provide better support in the ever-changing nature of combat. In this process, assessing the characteristics of the guerilla troops and their strategies might provide an idea of how the military should be modernised. The outcome of the Cuban revolution is the victory of rebel armies, with Fidel Castro becoming the president, that was possible due to its nature as a peasant army, its inclusive composition, as well as the successful application of revolutionary warfare by Che Guevara (Vellinga, 1976, p.246). Meanwhile, Cuban Revolutionary Forces had exhibited tactical advantages, from the number of men and the weapon possessed, yet eventually these became Cuba’s weakness; the manpower in Cuban Revolutionary Forces amounted to 37.000 men initially compared to the 200 men in the guerilla, yet the military lost its tactical advantage due to an arms embargo as the ideological doctrines in guerilla became stronger (Park City Daily News, 1959). The doctrines were strengthened via Guevara and Raúl Castro’s efforts in building trust within the rebel groups and in routinely punishing traitors, making the guerilla fighters keep fighting and winning against the lack of operational weapons in the Cuban Forces.
While the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces failed to modernise its structure against the strengthened ideology of guerilla fighters, the case of the Sandinista Popular Army exposes how emerging threat perceptions may interfere with force structure. In the early 1980s, the Sandinista government faced a new opposition: the pro-Somoza Contrarrevolución or Contras. Maintaining power through its repressive military, the Sandinistas were slowly losing grip of their legitimacy, facing opposition from the ethnic minority groups and responding to such oppositions via forced relocations and usage of force (Wilson, 2014). As the opposition was growing rapidly, coupled with Contra receiving aid from the United States with the Cold War in the backdrop, Nicaragua increased its defense budget to more than half of its annual budget and established a system for young men to mandatory military service (Booth, 1986). In spite of the reforms, these strategies were proven to be counterproductive, as newly-recruited members lacked both skills and experience to adapt to the warfare. Consequently, the US-backed Contra gained upper hand to destabilise the Sandinista government. While the Cuban case proved force structure should be modernised swiftly to ensure victory, the Nicaraguan story outlined force structure is frequently influenced by a shortage of qualified officers, relevant experience, or necessary weapons.
As the third criterion, the internal evaluation processes became a key to ensuring victory against the opposition of the Cuban and Nicaraguan governments. Providing evaluation of strategies employed and their successes — or failures — it is important to assess how the military could be modernised further to secure victory. Different from the previous two criteria, there was a similarity between the Cuban and Nicaraguan military groups, which is a reliance on a foreign power — in this case, the United States. As both revolutions happened during the Cold War, there was a power play between the U.S. and the USSR, both gathering support by providing economic and technical assistance to governments in other countries. This led to two policy choices for the military: receiving foreign support so as to increase effectiveness amidst their national economic limitations, or declining such support with the risk of deterioration in the long run. As the U.S. provided technical support to the Contras in Nicaragua and the guerilla fighters in Cuba, both the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Sandinista Popular Army had difficulty fighting the American-backed opposition (Gleijese, 2002). As a result, the military groups could not defend their national security, enabling the communist governments to be installed in both Central American countries.
References
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Merrill, T. L. (1993). Nicaragua: A Country Study: End of the Anastasio Somoza Debayle Era, The Sandinista Revolution, and The Sandinista Years, 1979–90.
Ramonet, I., & Castro, F. (2008). Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography. Simon and Schuster.
Vellinga, M. L. (1976). The Military and the Dynamics of the Cuban Revolutionary Process. Comparative Politics, 8(2), 245–271. https://doi.org/10.2307/421328
Wilson, J. P. (2014). Forced Relocation: Catalyst for Indigenous Resistance on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, 1980–1990. Studia Historica Gedanensia, 2014(2014)), 154–174.
