The National Defense College of Cuba (Spanish: Colegio de Defensa Nacional de Cuba, CODEN) is a military institution of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces located in Havana, and a center of higher education within the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR).
[2] Among the functions of the CODEN are to direct and develop the educational process in the specialty of National Security and Defense.
Many of its students come from the Nico Lopez Central School of the Cuban Communist Party.
At the time of its foundation, it was modeled on the Canadian Forces College in Toronto and offers a curriculum similar to that of the American National Defense University at Fort McNair.
[4][5] Among the notable visitors to the college include defense minister Leopoldo Cintra Frías,[6] Chief of the General Staff Álvaro López Miera and Iranian ambassador Kambiz Sheikh Hassani.