Minot B-52 sortie confirms regional commitment during Colombia mission

7/13/2015 - OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb.  -- A B-52 Stratofortress assigned to the 5th Bomb Wing, Minot Air Force Base, N.D., embarked July 9 on a 16-hour, non-stop mission to Colombia.

During the mission to the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility, which was closely coordinated with the Colombian Ministry of National Defense, the aircraft conducted a flyover demonstration at the Feria Aeronautica Internacional Rionegro (F-AIR) Colombia 2015 International Air Show.

"USSTRATCOM aircraft regularly conduct training with and in support of the Geographic Combatant Commands, our Allies and regional partners around the world," said Adm. Cecil D. Haney, U.S. Strategic Command commander.  "The aircraft's participation in this airshow and the training conducted alongside our Colombian partners allow our strategic aircrews to maintain a high state of readiness and crew proficiency."

According to Gen. John F. Kelly, USSOUTHCOM commander, the flight also demonstrates the U.S. commitment to regional security and the recognition of Colombia as a key regional partner.

"Our support to Colombia is based on more than just a shared history; it is based on Colombia's enduring importance to our national security. Training missions such as these ensure effective cooperation between our countries," said Kelly.

This is not the first time a B-52 has flown to or conducted partnered training in the Central American, South American or Caribbean regions. A B-52 participated in USSOUTHCOM's annual Exercise PANAMAX in August 2014. The U.S. also participated at the F-AIR Colombia International Air Show twice in the past decade, with participation of a B-52 in 2006 and a B-1B Lancer in 2008.

Southcom Exercise Program Promotes Stability, Security

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

MIAMI, June 20, 2012 – Several military exercises that just wrapped up or are under way exemplify U.S. Southern Command’s robust exercise program, one that officials consider integral to regional stability and U.S. national security.

Exercise Tradewinds 2012, which kicked off in Barbados June 15 and continues through the upcoming weekend, is focused on what Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, the Southcom commander, calls the most pressing regional challenge: transnational organized crime.

U.S. Marine Forces South is leading the exercise, which has brought together defense and law enforcement from the United States, Canada and 15 Caribbean countries for the 28th year to enhance their ability to work together against a common threat.

Speaking during opening ceremonies in Bridgetown, Barbados, Marine Corps Col. Michael Ramos, MARFOR-South chief of staff, emphasized the benefit of Exercise Tradewinds to participating nations. “We recognize the value of working together to confront these common security challenges,” he said. “We are truly united through our collaboration and collective efforts to fight terrorism, illicit trafficking and transnational criminality in all forms and in being prepared to effectively respond to natural disasters.”

Another exercise that concluded last week in Colombia, Fuerzas Comando 2012, brought together special operators from 21 regional countries for a grueling counterterrorism and special operations skills competition. That event, sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command South, was designed to promote military-to-military relationships, increase interoperability and improve regional security.

“This is the one forum that we have annually where we can come together as a region and talk about ideas, [about how to] increase our effect, collectively, against these dangerous non-state-actor threats we face,” Navy Rear Adm. Thomas L. Brown II, commander of Special Operations Command South, told American Forces Press Service.

These are just two examples of a broad Southcom exercise program that last year alone included hundreds of training and educational events, 12 major multinational exercises with regional partners and 56 medical readiness training exercises in 13 countries, according to Army Maj. Gen. Gerald W. Ketchum, the command’s director of theater engagement.

“You don’t want to show up on game day for the big game, when you have never practiced together,” Ketchum told American Forces Press Service at the Southcom headquarters here. “And that is really what the exercise program is all about.”

Toward that end, the exercise program centers on four basic pillars: security and illegal migration and illicit trafficking, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The annual Peacekeeping Operations-Americas exercise that wrapped up last month brought together the United States and 15 partner nations to train in skills needed to serve as peacekeepers in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

U.S. Army South sponsored the four-phase exercise, conducted over the course of three months in Chile and the Dominican Republic in support of the State Department’s Global Peace Operations Initiative.

U.S. Ambassador to Chile Alejandro Daniel Wolff emphasized the importance of building the skills and interoperability needed for militaries to conduct vital peacekeeping roles. “Exercises like this offer the opportunity to learn from each other and to become more capable in our tasks to create a safer future for everybody,” Wolff said during the May 11 closing ceremony in Santiago.

Other Southcom exercises focus primarily on humanitarian assistance. These efforts, Ketchum explained, give military members an opportunity to use their skills while leaving behind tangible improvements in host nations. Sometimes it’s a new or renovated school, a newly dug well or new building to serve as an emergency operations center in the event of a natural disaster. Other exercises provide training for host-national medical staffs or desperately needed care in local communities.

For example, Army engineers and medical professionals currently deployed to Honduras and Guatemala for Beyond the Horizon 2012 are providing medical, dental and engineering support. Participants in another joint humanitarian exercise, New Horizons 2012, are providing training, free medical care and critical infrastructure in poor areas of Peru.

Officials said the efforts help address critical needs while showing U.S. support and commitment to the region. For many of the participants, the reward is getting to make a visible difference in others’ lives.

"My favorite part of this exercise is seeing the work getting done," said Army 1st Lt. Johnny Robey, commander of the Missouri National Guard’s 1140th Engineer Battalion, supporting Beyond the Horizon 2012 in Honduras. "I enjoy going to the sites and seeing the immediate impact of what we're here to do.”

Among Southcom’s array of multinational security exercises, PANAMAX remains the largest. The annual exercise focuses on supporting the Panamanian government in defense of the strategic Panama Canal.

Eighteen nations participated in last year’s exercise, working to improve the interoperability of their military and civil forces to guarantee safe passage through the canal and ensure its neutrality.

“This is a theme that is embraced by virtually everyone in the region: free and open access to the canal and flow of goods through the Panama Canal,” Ketchum said. “Everyone recognizes that it is clearly something of great value to the entire hemisphere to ensure that.”

Ketchum cited the growing success of the exercise as partners in the region step up to assume major leadership roles. Colombia took on the land component commander role last year, and will retain it during this year’s PANAMAX, in August. “They have embraced this role, and done a wonderful job,” Ketchum said. “Ultimately, that’s good for all of us, because we need interoperability and we need to be able to communicate with each other.”

Meanwhile, Brazil is preparing to assume leadership of the maritime component role during the upcoming PANAMAX, Fraser told Congress earlier this year. Fraser called the move “an important step in strengthening the expanding partnerships in the hemisphere.”

With expansion efforts under way at the Panama Canal that will increase the seaborne traffic it handles, close, regional cooperation will be more critical than ever, Fraser told the Senate Armed Service Committee in March. “I don’t see a direct change to the threat or to the concerns as we look into the future, but our PANAMAX exercise will remain critical to that effort,” he said.

Ketchum said the capabilities built and relationships strengthened through the exercise program have a direct impact on regional stability and U.S. national security.

“We truly believe that it takes an international approach to address the challenges we face in the region, and that these engagements are supporting that effort, he said. “We want to be the security partner of choice, and we look forward to continuing to work with our partner nations in the region.”

(Army Sgt. Sarah E. Lupescu, from the Missouri National Guard; Army Sgt. Alysia Jarmon, from the 65th Public Affairs Operations Center; and Robert Ramon from U.S. Army South contributed to this article.)

Commando Competition Promotes Special Ops Skills, Collaboration

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – As elite commandos from across the Western Hemisphere compete this week in a grueling counterterrorism and special operations skills competition, the commander of Special Operations Command South said they’re building the relationships required to confront transnational organized crime gripping much of the region.

Fuerzas Comando 2012 kicked off this week at the Colombian National Training Center in Tolemaida, Colombia.

Competitors from 21 nations across the Americas and the Caribbean are taking part in the ninth annual event, sponsored by U.S. Southern Command and designed to promote military-to-military relationships, increased interoperability and improved regional security, Navy Rear Adm. Thomas L. Brown, II, told American Forces Press Service.

The participants in this year’s Fuerzas Comando hail from The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States and Uruguay.

The eight-day competition consists of sniper, assault, aquatic, physical fitness, strength and endurance events that challenge commandos psychologically, as well as physically. It will wrap up with a multinational airborne operation and wing exchange June 13, with a closing ceremony the next day.

The event has sparked healthy competition among participants, Brown said, but added that they also get to learn a lot about other regional forces and how they operate. “The practical side is that we gain a better understanding of each other’s equipment, capabilities and skills,” he said.

Along with better understanding, he said competitors develop the kind of mutual trust they need to work together.

“Special operations is a very human-centric business. It’s not as much dependent on platforms and technical capabilities. It is really about people,” Brown said. “Relationships are critical… to confront the threats that we face in the hemisphere together.”

Transnational organized criminals, violent extremist groups and dangerous non-state actors present a particular challenge because they operate without respect for national boundaries and sovereignty, he noted.

Nations working to confront them don’t have that advantage. “We must respect them, so we have to overcome that advantage through increased cooperation and increased information flow wherever we can,” Brown said. “In a nutshell, that’s the science behind why we have to work hard at this.”

As special operators test their tactical skills this week, their senior military and government leaders are coming together in Bogota to explore ways to promote those efforts. Each participating nation has sent senior special operations commandos and ministerial-level policymakers associated with the country’s terrorism policies, procedures and strategies to the seminar.

“This is the one forum that we have annually where we can come together as a region and talk about ideas, [about how to] increase our effect, collectively, against these dangerous non-state-actor threats we face,” Brown said.

Representatives of Southcom, U.S. Special Operations Command and the U.S. interagency will participate in panel discussions and speaker engagements designed to stimulate dialogue about transnational organized crime and ways to address it. They’ll share best practices and lessons learned by U.S. special operators and tips about tools they’ve found valuable, particularly low-cost ones with a high return. “You just can’t have enough communication on that,” Brown said said.

While acknowledging a temptation to overload participants with as much information as possible, Brown said he’s committed to providing “a little less PowerPoint and more time for an exchange of ideas” that better promotes relationship-building.

Brown said he’s particularly pleased that Mexico, Canada and the Bahamas – countries that fall under U.S. Northern Command’s area of responsibility – have joined this year’s event.

“Many of the challenges we face are hemispheric challenges, and they don’t follow a dividing line of our national security system,” he said. “We have to draw [organizational command] lines somewhere, and that is fine,” he continued. “But we are working hard to break down those stovepipes and ensure that Northcom and Southcom are working together as a team. And I think this exercise is an example of how we are doing that.”

Brown called Fuerzas Comando 2012 and its associated senior-leader seminar examples of a concerted effort to promote regional cooperation and engagement across the special operations community.

He noted another recent example, the International Special Operations Forces Conference that Navy Adm. William H. McRaven, the Socom commander, hosted last month in Tampa. Delegates from 96 countries gathered to exchange ideas, along with their different tactics, techniques and procedures and explored ways to establish a global special operations partnership.

“I watch the region’s special operations leaders making connections and increasing the level and value of the cooperation between them,” Brown said. “And I see that as a direct outshoot of exercises and forums where we develop these relationships between special operations forces across national and regional boundaries.”

Brown is working with Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, the Southcom commander, to explore ways to expand these partnership-building initiatives into new areas. In doing so, he said he’s tapping capabilities from throughout the Defense Department, including Socom, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Defense Analysis, the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies and Joint Special Operations University, as well as civilian academic institutions.

“We are increasingly working on the cognitive side, sharing ideas,” and encouraging more countries to work together, multinationally, he said. “So we are increasingly trying to connect the dots across the region.”

As they connect the dots, Brown said he’s pleased by the media attention Fuerzas Comando is receiving. It’s helping to educate to the public across the hemisphere about how the United States is cooperating and sharing ideas and facilitating cooperation in support of regional security, he said.

But Brown said it’s also drawing attention to the special operators from across the region who have stood up to provide that security.

“The quality and dedication of the troops from these partner nations, the pride they show, and the important role they play in security in the region is having a direct effect on people’s quality of life,” he said. “And I think that’s a good message to get out there.”

Secretary: U.S., Latin America Face Common Challenges

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, April 23, 2012 – Latin America figures prominently in the Pentagon’s new defense strategy as an increasingly capable region that shares common challenges with the United States, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said today.

Panetta is on his first trip to South America as defense secretary with visits planned in Colombia, Brazil and Chile. He has visited the region before as CIA director, as a member of Congress and as chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton.

One goal of the defense strategy, Panetta said, is to build innovative partnerships and alliances that will strengthen relationships in places like Europe, Africa and Latin America.

“The purpose of this trip is to engage in consultations with a number of our partners in this part of the world, trying to promote innovative security partnerships in the region,” he told reporters traveling with him.

Latin America is a key region, the secretary added. Its countries are neighbors in this hemisphere “and we face some common challenges,” he said.

Among those challenges are narcotics trafficking and its spread to Africa, terrorism, cyber security, and the ability to provide humanitarian assistance, he said.

“One of the things these countries are doing is developing their own regional security [as well as] doing outreach with their security development,” Panetta said. “So that’s something we want to review and try to help them with.”

Partnerships in the region will include joint training, exercises, technology sharing and other kinds of assistance.

On this trip, the secretary said, the focus will be on old and new partners.

“I will be in Colombia where we have worked for a long period of time, even since I was in the Congress, trying to provide assistance to them, particularly with regard to narcotrafficking,” Panetta said, going after the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, called the FARC.

“Colombia, to its credit, has done a tremendous job in going after the FARC,” he added, which at one point numbered 20,000, but now has about 8,000 members.

Many countries in the region look to Colombia for lessons learned over a decade, he said.

In the emerging power of Brazil, Panetta said, “I want to build on the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperative Dialog” that President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff agreed this month to commence.

There, he said, “We’ll be looking at defense trade, scientific research, technology sharing, logistics cooperation and cyber security.”

The secretary then will visit Chile, which Panetta said is “doing a great job in developing regional security. We’ll get a chance to see some of their exercises up close and their developing capabilities.”

During this trip, Panetta added, “we’ll really try to develop a key part of our new defense strategy, which is to … reinforce some very innovative partnerships in a very important region of the world that represents a key security interest for the United States.”

Panetta Visit to Expand South American Defense Ties

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2012 – During his first visit to South America as defense secretary, which starts today, Leon E. Panetta will meet over the next week with military officials in Brazil, Colombia and Chile, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said.

The secretary “is looking to expand defense and security cooperation with three important countries in the region and, increasingly, in the world,” Little added.

Panetta will travel to Brasilia and Rio de Janiero in Brazil, Bogota in Colombia, and Santiago in Chile.

This trip follows a late-March visit by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Fla., and then to Brazil and Colombia.

In Brazil Dempsey met with Defense Minister Antonio Celoso Amorim and top-ranking military official Gen. Jose Carlos de Nardi in Brasilia, and in Bogota with Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon Bueno and Gen. Alejandro Navas, commander of the Colombian Armed Forces.

For Panetta, one set of discussions in South America will focus on partnering with Brazil, Chile and Colombia to help build capacity for the military to assist civil authorities in such Central American nations as Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize, a senior defense official told reporters in a background briefing on Friday.

“The challenges these countries face are towering compared to their own capacity to deal with them,” he said, adding that Brazil, Chile and Colombia already are significant contributors to building partner capacity.

Colombia, for example, offers capacity-building assistance in 16 countries inside and outside the region, including Africa.

Colombian service members have trained more than two dozen Mexican helicopter pilots and now train police in Honduras and Guatemala. The nation also provides assistance in nondefense areas like justice reform, the official said.

Also in the region, in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake and tsunami in Haiti, thousands of U.S. and Brazilian military personnel worked together to provide life-saving relief to the Haitian people. It was the largest combined operation of U.S. and Brazilian military forces since they fought together as allies in World War II.

“We could have done better in Haiti if we had glued together the system in advance to provide for more effective defense support to civil authorities,” the official said.

“By collaborating with [all three countries],” he added, “the United States can get down to specifics about which country will be conducting specific initiatives and what kinds of initiatives, so together we can ensure the investment we’re making … is as efficient and effective as possible.”

During an April 9 meeting in Washington, President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff established the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperation Dialogue and announced that Panetta and Amorim would hold the first meeting this week in Brazil.

The DCD will help bolster cooperation between DOD and Brazil’s Ministry of National Defense, and between the nations’ militaries, the White House said in a statement.

Beyond the Western Hemisphere, the Defense Department is looking to Colombia and Brazil, both of which already have deep ties to Africa and now provide assistance there, to help U.S. Africa Command with peacekeeping and other efforts there.

“Africa typifies the situation we’re in, where the United States has limited capacity to help build partner capabilities,” the defense official said.

“Brazil and Colombia … are stepping up to the plate. Let’s collaborate with them, establish a dialogue between their militaries and Africom so we’re working in mutual support in an informed, cooperative way,” he added.

Panetta will also seek to expand the range of defense collaborations, including traditional military efforts such as training, exchanges and joint exercises.

“Clearly we still have plenty to talk about in continuing to support the Colombians in their efforts against [the narcoterrorist group FARC, for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]to talk about counternarcotics,” the official said.

Panetta also will discuss new challenges like cyber security and defense support to civil authorities that offer opportunities for collaboration.

In 2014 Brazil will host the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, World Cup tournament in Rio de Janeiro, and two years later that city will host the 2016 Olympic Games.

“We know in the United States how to provide defense support to civil authorities, to law enforcement or to help prepare for the kinds of challenges these world-class sporting events can attract,” he said, “so we’re going to share expertise [and] talk about the kind of dialogue that will help nations get prepared.”

He added, “In the context of limited resources of the United States for defense … we have an opportunity to partner together with other nations so they become security exporters.”

Panetta, Little said, sees Brazil, Chile and Colombia “as increasingly important players on the regional stage and also in terms of their leadership roles internationally.”

All have made progress in terms of their economies, their militaries and their political situations over the last several years, he added.

“These three countries are on the upswing in many areas and it’s time for us to enhance our already strong cooperation with all three,” Little said.