General Francis L. Donovan, commander of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), oversaw a live-fire and maneuver exercise conducted by Marines of the Task Force Secure on November 12 at the Guantanamo Naval Station, Cuba, in a display of military strength that SOUTHCOM officially shared this Saturday through its account on the social network X.
The published images show Donovan instructing the Marines in open field, and two soldiers operating a .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine gun on a tripod, lying in the sand in a combat position.
The official statement from SOUTHCOM indicates that Task Force Secure is conducting this type of training to "maintain operational readiness and support mission requirements at Guantanamo Bay."
The publication also tagged the Department of War—secondary designation adopted by the Pentagon since September 2025 by executive order of Donald Trump—as a sign of institutional coordination at the highest level.
Exercise is not an isolated event. The Secure Task Force, a unit of more than 140 Marines integrated into the Joint Task Force–Southern Guard, has intensified its training pace throughout 2026: nighttime air operations with UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters in July, a joint shooting exercise with M4 rifles in May, and just days before the exercise supervised by Donovan, drone maneuvers under the slogan "No Fly Zone" on November 3.
In addition, SOUTHCOM announced in October that Guantanamo will house the first regional center of the new SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC), established by order of Donovan himself in April 2026 to integrate drones and autonomous systems into the base's operations.
The live-fire exercise took place at a time of maximum military tension between both countries. From November 4 to 6, the Cuban regime conducted the Moncada 2026 exercise, its largest defensive mobilization of the year, involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces, MININT, militias, and reservists under the doctrine of "war of the whole people."
During those maneuvers, General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, Chief of the General Staff of the FAR, warned that Cuba would defend “house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood”.
On the same November 12th that Donovan was observing live fire exercises, Raúl Castro sent a message to the Border Brigade —the unit that guards the perimeter of the Guantánamo base— on the occasion of its 65th anniversary.
The confrontational tone is not new. In June, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the facility and warned that any Cuban acquisition of weapons capable of reaching the base or U.S. mainland would provoke a confrontation that Cuba "could not withstand."
Donovan, an infantry and special operations officer with nearly four decades of service in the Marine Corps, took command of SOUTHCOM on February 5, 2026, and since then has transformed Guantanamo into the center of a modernization and operational reinforcement agenda that, in light of this Wednesday's exercise, shows no signs of slowing down.
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