By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Jan. 22, 2013 – With a U.S.
defense strategy focused heavily on the Asia-Pacific region and the
Middle East, officials at U.S. Northern Command here are
enthusiastically advancing engagement to the United States’ immediate
southern border.
Army
Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., commander of North American Aerospace
Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, and Mexican Navy Secretary
Adm. Mariano Saynez pause briefly at the NORAD and Northcom Sept. 11
Memorial during Saynez’s visit to the commands Nov. 26, 2012. During the
visit, Jacoby praised Saynez, who since has left his position, for his
efforts toward closer bilateral military cooperation between Mexico and
the United States. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Thomas J. Doscher
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. |
|
Mexico, which has long focused its military internally, is
increasingly receptive to building a closer bilateral relationship with
the U.S. military, Army Maj. Gen. Francis G. Mahon, Northcom’s director
for strategy, plans and policy, told American Forces Press Service.
“During the past two to three years, as the Mexican army and Mexican
navy have taken on a larger role beyond internal security issues, our
relationship with them has really grown and expanded through security
cooperation,” Mahon said. “They have opened up to us and said, ‘Let’s
start working closer and closer together.’”
That’s good news for
the United States, he said, because the United States and Mexico share a
2,000-mile border and are intertwined culturally as well as
economically. What happens in Mexico matters to the United States -- in
terms of trade, immigration and, of particular concern here at Northcom,
U.S. national security, he said.
Closer military-to-military
cooperation will enable the U.S. and Mexican militaries to share best
practices as they collaborate in tackling common challenges, Mahon said.
They will be able to deal more effectively with threats such as
transnational organized crime, while increasing their ability to provide
humanitarian assistance and disaster response throughout the region.
Mexico’s constitution explicitly prohibits foreign forces from
operating on Mexican soil. But as SEDENA and SEMAR, Mexico’s army and
navy, respectively, shed their internal focus, they are becoming
increasingly open to combined training and subject matter expert
exchanges, Mahon said.
The Merida Initiative opened the door to
increased engagement in 2007, with the United States providing funding
and equipment to help Mexican law enforcement fight drug cartels and
related criminal elements.
Five years later, the United States
expanded the mission to include other efforts that contribute to
security. Today, the Merida framework includes disrupting organized
crime, training state and local police, supporting judicial reforms,
promoting legal cross-border commerce while stopping illicit shipments
and building strong communities that discourage criminal activity.
The bottom line -- for the Merida Initiative and for all other theater
security cooperation -- is about building partnership capacity, Mahon
said.
“The end state for Mexico, from our perspective, is that we
are their strategic partner of choice in the region, and they are a
regional partner who can then assist other nations in the region or
respond to other crises in the region, for example through humanitarian
assistance or disaster relief,” he said.
The Mexicans, for
example, are modernizing their aviation platforms. Northcom worked with
them, through the State Department, to help upgrade their RC-26 aircraft
and acquire UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters for SEMAR, he said. The United
States also is helping Mexico buy C-130J Hercules aircraft through the
foreign military sales program, along with the logistics capabilities
required to maintain these latest-generation cargo aircraft, Mahon said.
But Mexico’s interest in bilateral cooperation extends beyond equipment.
As Mexican military leaders evaluate their current missions and plan
for the future, they are looking to the U.S. military for ideas and
techniques that would be useful to them. Members of Marine Forces North,
Northcom’s Marine Corps component, are conducting junior
noncommissioned officer training for SEMAR at Camp Pendleton, Calif., a
step toward helping Mexico to establish its own NCO academy, Mahon said.
Mahon hopes to establish a similar relationship between the U.S. and
Mexican armies. To promote that effort, members of the 4th Infantry
Division at Fort Carson, Colo., demonstrated various military techniques
while hosting senior SEDENA leaders last year.
Last spring,
Northcom sponsored a group of Mexican military doctors to observe their
American counterparts medically evacuating wounded warriors from
Afghanistan. The Mexican group traveled from Afghanistan to Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center in Germany to Walter Reed National Military
Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and ultimately, to Brooke Army Medical
Center in San Antonio. From this experience, the Mexicans may draw ideas
on how to improve their field medicine capacity, Mahon said.
“I
believe their objective, in the long run, is to change their medical
process,” he said. “Their hope is to institutionalize something better
than what they have now, which is basically soldier first aid, without
the benefits of combat lifesavers or intermediate evacuation care
capability.”
Meanwhile, as the Mexican government transforms its
judicial system into an adversarial framework like that used in the
United States, U.S. judge advocate general staff are working with
Mexican lawyers to integrate this new construct into the Mexican
military legal system.
“The scope and breadth of things we are
doing with our Mexican partners is very wide. It’s everything from
techniques to planning skills to support for disaster operations,” Mahon
said.
The next big step -- one that Mahon said he hopes Northcom
will be able to take with Mexico in 2013 -- will be the start of
bilateral exercises.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief
has been a good starting place, Mahon said, noting that Mexico is
earthquake-prone and also provided relief after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.
Mexican military leaders participated in several tabletop exercises
last year through the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the
National Defense University in Washington, D.C. The scenarios, which
centered on earthquakes and pandemic outbreaks, incorporated not only
the U.S. and Mexican militaries, but also their interagency partners,
Mahon said.
Mexico also sent observers last spring to Northcom’s
Ardent Sentry, a major exercise that tests the command’s processes for
supporting civil authorities in the event of a natural disaster or
pandemic. “We hope to integrate that into future exercises that can
benefit not only both countries, but also others in the region,” Mahon
said.
This month, U.S. and Mexican military officials will chart
new ground as they begin planning their first bilateral air defense
exercise, expected to take place later this year, he said. As
envisioned, the exercise’s scenario will involve a rogue aircraft that
flies from the United States into Mexico. U.S. interceptor aircraft
scrambled by North American Aerospace Defense Command will shadow the
aircraft until it enters Mexican airspace, then will transfer the
mission to the Mexican air force.
The scenario, similar to the
Amalgam Eagle exercise conducted last year with Russia, will help both
militaries exercise the procedures they would need to follow during a
real-life situation, Mahon said.
“From a command and control
aspect, it will address how we coordinate between the U.S. and Mexican
air forces as an aircraft that we have concerns about crosses the
border,” he said. “It also will help address their ability to generate
plans, find the aircraft and intercept.”
With two Mexican
officers assigned to the Northcom headquarters to help coordinate these
initiatives and increasing receptiveness from Mexico, Mahon said, he
sees plenty of opportunity for more exchanges and combined training.
“It’s all about getting comfortable with each other and hopefully,
advancing in the relationship,” he said. “It would be wonderful,
someday, to take a Mexican company to the National Training Center to
train with an American battalion or brigade.
“That sounds
visionary, but we regularly conduct combined training with other allies
and partners. There is no reason we can’t get it going with our Mexican
partners,” he said. “I think our vision, working with Mexico, is that
they become more of a regional strategic partner and more of an
outward-looking military. I think they’re moving in that direction.”
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