Exclusive: Pentagon ramps up planning for possible military ops in Cuba

Pentagon Cuba military ops: US command drafts strike plans on Havana missile sites

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

The Pentagon has ordered combatant commands to update contingency plans for offensive operations against Cuba after intelligence detected Russian-made coastal defense missiles arriving at Havana’s port.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed the directive on Wednesday, two days after spy satellites filmed eight container launchers being unloaded from the Russian merchant ship Sparta III, according to three Defense Department officials with direct knowledge.

The move revives Cold War-era invasion scenarios last reviewed in 1992 and signals growing alarm inside the Trump administration over Moscow’s expanding military footprint 90 miles from Florida.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the shipment was part of “pre-scheduled technical cooperation” and accused Washington of “manufacturing pretexts for aggression.” Hegseth, speaking to reporters outside the Pentagon Thursday evening, said the hardware “crosses a red line we cannot ignore” and added the U.S. military “would have options ready within days, not weeks.”

U.S. Northern Command has already begun dusting off its OPLAN 3100 series, blueprints that cover everything from surgical air strikes on missile sites to a full-scale amphibious assault involving the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, according to a planning slide seen by GlobalBeat. Officials stressed no deployment orders have been issued, but commanders were told to assume presidential authorization could come “with minimal notice.”

The discovery comes seven months after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced a “strategic security partnership” during a Kremlin ceremony that included talk of “military-technical assistance.” At the time, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed the rhetoric as mostly symbolic. That assessment changed after the Sparta III docked on Sunday under escort by two Russian navy frigates that had transited the English Channel flying Cuba’s flag alongside their own.

Satellite imagery from Tuesday shows mobile K-300P Bastion launchers parked inside a hangar at the port of Mariel, west of Havana. Each battery carries P-800 Oniks cruise missiles with a range of 300 km, enough to threaten Key West as well as shipping lanes through the Florida Straits, analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said. Two IL-76 transport planes landed the same night at San Antonio de los Baños airfield, unloading what U.S. officials believe were radar and electronic-warfare components.

Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told GlobalBeat he expects “kinetic options on the president’s desk within 72 hours” and said blocking the missile deployment “is now a matter of homeland defense.” Rubio spoke by phone with Trump Thursday morning and later briefed acting CIA director John Ratcliffe, according to aides.

Democratic lawmakers urged caution. Representative Adam Smith of Washington, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, warned that any U.S. strike “would instantly turn Cuba into a war zone and invite Russian retaliation elsewhere.” Smith said Congress had not been consulted on updated war plans and demanded a classified briefing “before the administration sleepwalks into another conflict.”

Mark Esper, who served as defense secretary under Trump during the president’s first term, called the development “a classic Putin trap” designed to provoke an overreaction. “If we hit Cuba, we validate every anti-American narrative from Caracas to Tehran,” Esper told reporters. He urged instead a naval quarantine similar to the 1962 blockade that forced the Soviet Union to withdraw its missiles without a shot fired.

Inside the Pentagon, planners are modeling a range of scenarios. One option calls for a 48-hour air campaign using B-1 bombers based at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas to crater runways and storage bunkers. A more expansive plan envisions a Marine expeditionary brigade sailing from Jacksonville aboard amphibious assault ships to seize Mariel and neutralize the missiles on the ground. Both options carry risk estimates predicting between 200 and 800 civilian casualties, depending on strike timing, according to briefing documents reviewed by GlobalBeat.

Cuban officials reacted angrily to reports of U.S. planning. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote on X that Havana “will not be intimidated by imperial threats” and said Cuba has “the sovereign right to deepen defense cooperation with any state.” Díaz-Canel convened an emergency session of the National Defense Council late Thursday, state television showed. Dissident groups in Havana reported sporadic arrests of activists overnight as authorities moved to head off protests.

Regional governments stayed mostly quiet. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, issued a statement urging “dialogue and restraint,” while Brazil called for an urgent session of the UN Security Council. Canada’s foreign ministry said it was “closely monitoring” the situation and advised citizens to defer non-essential travel to the island. The European Union warned that “any military action would have grave humanitarian consequences.”

Financial markets flinched. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 603 points, its worst day since March, led by airline and cruise-line stocks that rely on Caribbean routes. Insurance premiums for vessels transiting the Florida Straits jumped 40 percent, ship brokers in London said. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.30 to $75.40 a barrel on fears that tanker traffic could be disrupted.

Background

Cuba has hosted Russian missiles once before, in 1962, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev deployed nuclear warheads capable of striking most of the continental United States. President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine and after 13 tense days Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the weapons in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. The crisis remains the closest the world has come to nuclear war.

Since the Soviet collapse, Moscow has maintained a smaller military presence on the island, focusing on signals intelligence facilities at Lourdes that closed in 2002. Periodic visits by Russian warships resumed in 2008, but no permanent weapons deployments were recorded until this week. U.S. intelligence believes Putin is using Cuba as leverage to deter further American military aid to Ukraine and to project power inside Washington’s traditional sphere of influence.

What’s Next

Hegseth is scheduled to host a principals committee meeting at the White House on Friday morning to present strike options, officials said. Trump will then depart for a campaign rally in Miami where he is expected to address the crisis publicly. Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and its strike group have been redirected from scheduled exercises in the North Atlantic toward the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti, according to the Navy’s 2nd Fleet.

The immediate flashpoint is a second Russian cargo vessel, the Admiral Chabanenko, which left Murmansk on Tuesday and is steaming toward Havana with an expected arrival of April 22. U.S. officials suspect it carries additional missile reloads and possibly a contingent of Russian military advisors. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told allies in a private call that if the ship is allowed to dock “the president views that as a green light to proceed.”

Whether the world sees a repeat of 1962 or a new Caribbean conflict could hinge on negotiations in the next ten days. One thing is clear: after three decades of dormancy, Cuba is again at the center of superpower brinkmanship.