List of wars involving Cuba

This is a list of wars involving the Republic of Cuba.

  Cuba defeat
  Cuba victory
  Another result (e.g. a treaty or peace without a clear result, status quo ante bellum, result of civil or internal conflict, result unknown or indecisive)

List

Conflict Combatant 1 Combatant 2 Result President Prime Minister
López's Expeditions (1850-1851) Filibusters Captaincy General of Cuba Defeat
  • Filibuster leaders executed
None
None
Ten Years' War
(1868–1878)
Spanish Empire Defeat
Little War
(1879–1880)
Cuban Rebels Spain Defeat
  • Rebel defeat
Cuban War of Independence
(1895–1898)
Republic of Cuba in Arms
Spanish Empire Victory
Cuban Pacification
(1906)
Conservatives Liberals Liberal victory
  • Subsequent US occupation of Cuba
The Twelve
(1912)
Cuba
United States
Cuban Partido Independiente de Color Government victory
World War I
(1917–1918)
Allied Powers:
 and Empire:

and others ...

Central Powers:

and others ...

Victory
Sugar Intervention
(1917–1922)
Conservatives
United States
Liberals Conservative victory
  • Uprising quelled, US occupation of Cuba
World War II
(1941–1945)

Allies
United States
Soviet Union
United Kingdom
China
France
Poland
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
 India
 South Africa
 Yugoslavia
 Greece
Denmark
Norway
Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg
 Czechoslovakia
Brazil
Mexico
Panama
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Dominican Republic
Cuba

Axis
 Germany
 Japan
 Italy
 Hungary
 Romania
 Bulgaria
Croatia
Slovakia
 Finland
 Thailand
 Manchukuo
 Mengjiang

Victory[2]
Cuban Revolution
(1953–1959)
 Cuba Revolutionary victory
Escambray Rebellion
(1959–1965)
Government of Cuba
Supported by:
Soviet Union
Insurgents:

Supported by:
CIA (1959–1961)
 Dominican Republic (1960)[3]
Partido Auténtico[4]

Cuban government victory
  • Elimination of all insurgents
Invasion of Panama
(1959)
Cuba Panama Defeat
  • Expedition fails[5]
Invasion of the Dominican Republic
(1959)
Cuba Dominican Republic Defeat
  • Expedition fails[6]
Bay of Pigs Invasion
(1961)
Cuba United States
Cuban DRF
Victory
Sand War
(1963–1964)
[7]
Cuba[8]
Morocco
Minor involvement:
France[9]
Military stalemate[10]
Congo Crisis
(1963-1965)
Kwilu and Simba rebels
Supported by:
Supported by:
Defeat
  • Cuban withdrawal from the Congo
  • The Congo established as an independent unitary state under the authoritarian presidency of Mobutu Sese Seko.
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
(1963–1974)
PAIGC
Guinea (1970 only)
Cuba
Portugal Stalemate (political victory)[10]
Bolivian Campaign
(1966–1967)
ELN
Cuba
Bolivia
United States
Defeat
Invasion of Machurucuto
(1967)
Cuba Venezuela Defeat
Yemenite War of 1972
(1972)
South Yemen
Cuba
North Yemen Indecisive
  • No territorial changes
Yom Kippur War
(1973)
Israel Defeat
  • At the final ceasefire:
    • Egyptian forces held 1,200 km2 (460 sq mi) on the eastern bank of the canal.[19]
    • Israeli forces held 1,600 km2 (620 sq mi) on the western bank of the canal.[20]
    • Israeli forces held 500 km2 (193 sq mi) of the Syrian Bashan region of the Golan Heights.
Operation Independence
(1975-1977)
ERP
Montoneros
Cuba[21][22][23]
Argentina Defeat
None
Cuban Intervention in Angolan Civil War
(1975–1991)
MPLA
SWAPO
SWANU
Cuba
MK
UNITA
FNLA
FLEC
South Africa
Zaire
Stalemate
Ethio-Somali War
(1977–1978)
Ethiopia
Cuba
South Yemen
Soviet Union
Somalia
WSLF
Victory
  • Somali withdrawal from the Ethio-Somali War
Eritrean War of Independence
(1977–1991)
Ethiopia
Cuba
South Yemen
Soviet Union
ELF
EPLF
Defeat
  • Eritrean independence from Ethiopia
Ethiopian Civil War
(1977–1991)
Ethiopia
Cuba
EPRP
TPLF
MEISON
ANDM
EDUP
Defeat
  • Fall of the Communist Mengistu government, installation of TPLF-led transitional government
Nicaraguan Revolution

(1961-1990)

Sandinista National Liberation Front

MAP-ML (1978–1979)

MILPAS

Panama (1978–1979)[24][25][26]

Cuba

Somoza regime (1961–1979)

Contras (1981–1990)


Supported by:

United States

Victory
Invasion of Grenada
(1983)
Grenada
Cuba
United States
Grenadian Opposition
Barbados
Jamaica
Antigua and Barbuda
Dominica
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Defeat
  • American occupation of Grenada
None
United States intervention in Venezuela

(2026)

Venezuela
Cuba
United States Defeat Miguel Díaz-Canel Manuel Marrero Cruz

Notes

  1. ^ The Russian Empire during 1914–1917, the Russian Republic during 1917. The Bolshevik government signed a separate peace with the Central Powers shortly after their armed seizure of power, resulting in a Central Powers victory on the Eastern Front of the war, and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic's defeat. However, this peace treaty was nullified by an Allied Powers victory on the Western Front, and the end of the war.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Clodfelter 2017, p. 306.
  2. ^ Cuba declared war on the Axis powers in December 1941, being one of the first Latin American countries to do so. On 15 May 1943, the Cuban patrol boat CS-13 sank the German submarine U-176.
  3. ^ Clodfelter 2017, p. 637.
  4. ^ Brown (2017), Paragraph 6.
  5. ^ "Rubén Miró y la invasión de cubanos a Panamá" (in Spanish). Panama City: La Estrella de Panamá. April 22, 2010. Archived from the original on July 18, 2019. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  6. ^ Lora, J. Armando. "Invasión" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on March 4, 2008. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  7. ^ Ottaway 1970, p. 166.
  8. ^ Latell (2012), p. 164.
  9. ^ Nicole Grimaud (1 January 1984). La politique extérieure de l'Algérie (1962-1978). KARTHALA Editions. p. 198. ISBN 978-2-86537-111-2. L'armée française était en 1963 présente en Algérie et au Maroc. Le gouvernement français, officiellement neutre, comme le rappelle le Conseil des ministres du 25 octobre 1963, n'a pas pu empêcher que la coopération très étroite entre l'armée française et l'armée marocaine n'ait eu quelques répercussions sur le terrain. == The French Army was in 1963 present in Algeria and Morocco. The French government, officially neutral, as recalled by the Council of Ministers on October 25, 1963, could not prevent the very close cooperation between the French army and the Moroccan army from having some repercussions on the ground.
  10. ^ a b A Guerra - Colonial - do Ultramar - da Libertação, 2nd Season (Portugal 2007, director Joaquim Furtado, RTP)
  11. ^ "Cómo fue el "desembarco de Machurucuto", el intento de intervención militar en Venezuela ideado en Cuba por Fidel Castro". BBC News Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-02-07.
  12. ^ Flores, Victor (September 28, 2013). ""Los cubanos son los artífices del fraude electoral en Venezuela"". El País (in Spanish). Madrid: Ediciones El País. Retrieved September 14, 2018.
  13. ^ O'Ballance (1978), pp. 201.
  14. ^ Shazly (2003), p. 278.
  15. ^ Rabinovich (2004), pp. 464–465.
  16. ^ Mahjoub Tobji (2006). Les officiers de Sa Majesté: Les dérives des généraux marocains 1956–2006 (in French). Fayard. p. 107. ISBN 978-2-213-63015-1.
  17. ^ Shazly (2003), pp. 83–84.
  18. ^ Cenciotti, David. "Israeli F-4s Actually Fought North Korean MiGs During the Yom Kippur War". Business Insider.
  19. ^ Rabinovich (2004), p. 467.
  20. ^ Morris (2001), p. 437.
  21. ^ Araujo, Enrique Díaz (2008). La guerrilla en sus libros (in Spanish). El Autor. p. 98. ISBN 978-987-05-4794-5.
  22. ^ Carrá, Juan (24 September 2006). "Gorriarán Merlo cuenta su versión". El País – via Página/12.
  23. ^ ""Intentamos exportar la revolución a Latinoamérica", reconoció Fidel". Página/12. 4 July 1998.
  24. ^ Brown, Jonathan C. (2022). "Omar Torrijos and the Sandinista Revolution". The Latin Americanist. 66: 25–45. doi:10.1353/tla.2022.0003. S2CID 247623108.
  25. ^ Sánchez Nateras, Gerardo (2018). "The Sandinista Revolution and the Limits of the Cold War in Latin America: The Dilemma of Nonintervention During the Nicaraguan Crisis, 1977–78" (PDF). Cold War History. 18 (2): 111–129. doi:10.1080/14682745.2017.1369046. S2CID 218576606.
  26. ^ Dinges (1990), pp. 100–103.
  27. ^ Shultz, Richard H. (1988). The Soviet Union and Revolutionary Warfare: Principles, Practices, and Regional Comparisons. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University. ISBN 978-0-8179-8713-8.
  28. ^ Pitazo, Redacción El (2026-01-06). "55 muertos identificados en ataques de EE. UU.: 21 militares venezolanos, 2 mujeres civiles y 32 cubanos entre las víctimas". El Pitazo (in Spanish). Retrieved 2026-02-07.

Bibliography

See also