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Speaker 1: Welcome back everybody. Today we're gonna be talking about the

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Vispas Negatis, the Black Wasps, which is Cuba's elite special Operations,

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and a lot of people haven't never heard of them yet.

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They have real combat experience to operate one of the

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toughest logistical environments on the planet, and just a few

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months ago found themselves in a direct confrontation with US

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Special Operations. They're not a large, well funded formation like

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some of the units we usually discussed. Cuba has been

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under a US embargo for over sixty years. After the

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Soviet Union collapsed, the island went through the special period

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of extreme shortages. Yet this unit continues to select trained

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deploye operators who have fought in Africa and more recently

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provide a close protection to a head of state under

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direct threat. So today we're going to break them down.

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The Black Wasps were officially stood up on December one,

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nineteen eighty six, about almost forty years ago, but their

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lineage goes back further. In nineteen seventy four, the Cubans

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created a Landing and assaw for great under the Ministry

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of the Interior. That unit cut its teeth in Angola

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in nineteen seventy five during the Battle of Kinfogundo. By

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nineteen seventy seven, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces

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society it needed its own dedicated special ob capability. The result,

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after years of refinement, became the BMTE the Black Wasps.

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What stands out immediately is the scale and the experience.

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Cuba deployed hundreds of thousands of troops do on goal

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over more than a decade. The Black Wasps and their

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preda Predator serve units operated in that environment jungle Savannah

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against South African conventional forces that is not simulated training,

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that is, a sustained combat deployment. Operators who survived those

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years brought back hard won lessons in small unit tactics.

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Those veterans became the cadre that built the modern unit.

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The unit works in five person subgroups. Both men and

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women serve in the teams. Five operators give them a

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very small, agile footprint, easier to insert, easier to sustain,

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harder for an adversary to detain, similar to the Delta

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forces in the US. The structure suits rapid response and recommissions,

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which appear to be core tasks. Graduation exercises, include extended

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survival problems in the Sienaga, the Sapata swamps around the

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southern coast of Ida de Lahovan Dude, the Island of Youth.

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The goal is to produce operators with what Cuban sources

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have called Volontu dijedro iron will. Instructors have included Vietnamese

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Special Forces, North Korea Special Forces, Chinese and even the

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Russian Spetsnets. You're looking at a blend of Soviet doctrine

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in Southeast Asian jungle warfare and Spetznatz style direct action.

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That combination is interesting because it forces a unit to

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synthesize the different approaches rather than copy one model. What

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about equipment, Well, again, remember their resource constrained. The Black

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Wasps don't have the latest Western or even Russian next

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generation systems. Their inventory is a mix of modernized Soviet weapons,

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Cuban national production, and whatever they can maintain or adapt.

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You'll see modified aks fitted with Cuban made Vilma reflex

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sites and suppressors. They have used the FSS VENTUREZ suppressed

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right sniper rifle SVD dragonovs and Cuban designed systems like

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the Mambi fourteen point five millimeter bullpup anti material rifle,

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also the Alejandro Bolt action sniper. The key point is adaptation.

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Cuban armors and technicians have kept these systems running and

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in some cases improved them locally. You cannot import freely,

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you become a very good at maintenance cannibalization. That is

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a different skill set from the one developed by forces

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that can call from new production runs or foreign military

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sales on a regular basis. The Black Wasps have had

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to master both combat and sustainment under constraint. Their mobility

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assets are similarly pragmatic UAZ vehicles, BRDM scout cards and

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whatever car whatever can be kept running. Nothing flashy, but

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reliable enough for the missions they are given and resource

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constrained environment. Reliability and the ability to repair in the

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field matters more than peak performance operationally. The unit's most

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significant historical experience remains on Gola. Cuban forces as a

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whole performed incredibly, performed credibly in several engagements against better

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equipped opponents. The Special troops learned to operate in small groups,

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use terrain, and make the most of limited fire support.

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Those lessons appeared to have been institutionalized more recently in January,

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Elements of the Black Wasps were reportedly serving as part

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of the close protection detail from Maduro. During the US

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operation that resulted in Maduro's capture. Cuban operators engaged US

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special forces in close corridors fighting inside the fort at

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the Duenna Complex. Cuban authorities later repatriated the remains of

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thirty two personnel, many of them from this unit. Regardless

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of the broader political context, the fact that these operators

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were placed in the innermost ring of protection and stood

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their ground against a Delta Force led element tells you

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something about the level of trust place in them. What

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I find most instructive for our audience is how this

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unit illustrates the difference between resources and capability. Every military

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wants the newest night vision, the best radios. The Black

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Wasp have had to do without many of these advantages,

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yet to maintain a selection process that produces operators will

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into fight and small teams farm from home, A training

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pipeline informed by multiple foreign special operation traditions. Operating in

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a resource constrain environment forces prioritization. Cuba cannot afford to

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waste effort on marginal units, and the Black Wasps are

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clearly a priority formation. That focus, combined with real combat

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heritage from Africa and continuous training under difficult conditions, appears

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to have produce a unit that punches above its weight,

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as the budget would suggest for Western special operations. There

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are useful parallels here. We trained hard and we have

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excellent equipment, but we should never assume that an adversary

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would that our resources are automatically less capable. History is

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full of examples of forces are compensated from material shortages

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through superior training, cohesion, and tactical abservations adaptation, and the

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Black Wasps are just one of those examples, still operating today.

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They're not a mythical super unit though, and they're not

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ten feet tall. They're professional soldiers who've been asked to

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do difficult things what their country could provide. In many ways,

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that makes their continued existence more noteworthy than have had

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unlimited funding in the newest gear. The Black Wasps are

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worth studying. Their story is not widely told in English

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language sources, which is why we spend time pulling the

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history together for this episode