Military of Cuba
Castro's Cuba had a high degree of militarization and devoted a large share of its national resources to support its military establishment and activities. Castro built up the second largest armed forces in Latin America; only Brazil's were larger. Cuba is secretive about its military spending.
Geography
Cuba is an archipelago of islands located in the northern Caribbean Sea at the confluence with the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is the principal island, surrounded by four smaller groups of islands: the Colorados Archipelago on the northwestern coast, the Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago on the north-central Atlantic coast, the Jardines de la Reina on the south-central coast and the Canarreos Archipelago on the southwestern coast.
The main island is 766 km long, constituting most of the nation's land area and is the sixteenth-largest island in the world by land area. The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains apart from the Sierra Maestra mountains in the southeast, whose highest point is Pico Turquino. The second largest island is Isla de la Juventud in the Canarreos archipelago, with an area of 3,056 km2. Cuba has a total land area of 110,860 km2. …
