The littoral combat ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) of the United States Navy made a new port visit to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuban territory, as announced by the naval station itself on its social media with the welcome message "welcome to gtmo."
The Guantánamo Naval Station described the arrival as a "brief port visit" and referred to the LCS-21 as "a highly maneuverable, lethal, and adaptable platform designed for mine countermeasures, antisubmarine warfare, and surface warfare missions."
The LCS-21 is the eleventh ship of the Freedom variant of the U.S. Navy's littoral combat ships, commissioned in 2022 and based at Naval Station Mayport, Florida.
According to the fleet tracking by USNI News on November 2, the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul was operating in the central Caribbean days before this stop in Guantanamo.
It is not the first time that the ship has docked at the Cuban base: its first documented visit to Guantánamo occurred on August 31, after departing from Mayport on the 27th of that month, and in September it participated in UNITAS 2026, the multinational naval exercise with 24 nations held off the coast of Lima, Peru.
The arrival of the LCS-21 comes at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Havana. Guantanamo has gained military prominence throughout 2026 with a series of unprecedented recent movements: visits from the head of Southern Command, General Francis L. Donovan; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; and the designation of the base as the site of a regional center for the new Autonomous Warfare Command of SOUTHCOM in October.
Last Tuesday, the Guantanamo Naval Station also conducted anti-drone exercises under the motto "No Fly Zone," with participation from Southern Command, the Fourth Fleet, and JIATF-401.
The Cuban regime responded to this pressure environment with the Moncada Strategic Exercise 2026, mobilizing the Revolutionary Armed Forces, MININT, militias, reservists, and civilian structures under the doctrine of the "War of All the People" between Wednesday and Thursday.
On Thursday, General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, Chief of the General Staff of the FAR, stated that Cuba was prepared to defend the country "house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood" in the event of a U.S. intervention.
This Friday marks the National Defense Day, concluding Cuba's military exercise, during a day when the presence of the USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul in the waters of Guantánamo adds a new indication of the sustained military pressure that Washington exerts on the island.
During his visit to Guantánamo in June, Defense Secretary Hegseth warned that it would be unwise for the Cuban regime to acquire weaponry capable of reaching the base or the continental United States, and he summed up Washington's stance with a straightforward phrase: "The future of Cuba is in the hands of its leadership."
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