U.S. Military Exercises in Latin America: July and August Share This /

This post was compiled by WOLA intern Elizabeth Lincoln.

• For the six-week Southern Partnership Station 2014 exercise, the U.S. Navy’s Coastal Riverine Squadron (CORIVRON) 2 trained the Belize Small Boat Unit (SBU) in “riverine operations, insertion and extraction missions, river patrols and interdictions.” This exercise included trainers who had participated in its 2013 version, and concluded on July 17.
• Fuerzas Comando, a grueling, week-long annual skills competition between Western Hemisphere Special Operations military and police forces, took place at the end of July in Fort Tolemaida, Colombia. Seventeen nations’ Special Operations teams competed for the title. The Colombian team won for the second year in a row, with the United States placing second and El Salvador in third. Army Brig. General Sean P. Mulholland praised the participants: “You are all winners.” The 2015 Fuerzas Comando will take place in Guatemala.
• RIMPAC 2014, the “world’s largest international maritime exercise,” concluded on August 1. Taking place in Hawaii and southern California, it included 22 nations, 49 surface ships, six submarines, over 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel. The Pacific Fleet-hosted program “is designed to enhance cooperation of the combined forces and improve individual war fighting competencies.” This was the first year that a delegation from Colombia was present at RIMPAC. Chile, Mexico, and Peru also sent contingents. The ability demonstrated by partners to meet changing global challenges was reflected in the theme of this year’s program of “capable, adaptive partners.
• Six U.S. Air Force personnel spent the week of August 4 in Guatemala exchanging ideas with the Guatemalan Air Force regarding “preventative health, individual readiness and aerospace medicine,” with the goal of securing equipment to perform health exams for pilots.
• PANAMAX 2014 is an annual exercise focused on defense of the Panama Canal and Central America. It was driven by requests by the Colombian and Panamanian governments to guarantee the canal’s safety and neutrality. PANAMAX 2014 officially began August 8 in San Antonio, Texas, where the United States and sixteen partner nations completed a seven-day exercise in protecting the canal from “violent extremism, natural disasters, and pandemic outbreaks.” On August 12, as part of the PANAMAX training, airmen from Air Force Global Strike Command flew a B-52 Stratofortress bomber to the SOUTHCOM area of operations. According to the aircrew, this was an “invaluable” opportunity to work in an unfamiliar environment and improve long-range reconnaissance capabilities, as well as demonstrate to SOUTHCOM the capabilities of the B-52 for future use.
• UNITAS-Partnership of the Americas, an annual multinational exercise, took place in Valparaiso, Chile August 11-22. Mexican sailors and U.S. Marines, along with seven other nations, teamed up for a “training opportunity for interoperability and rapid response, whenever human assistance is required, in any part of our planet,” according to Commander Luis Damar Roy Priego, the ship commander for ARM Usumacinta. The exercise simulated an earthquake rated 8.8 on the Richter scale followed by a tsunami, practicing the armed forces’ provision of humanitarian assistance.
• Chilean marine special operators trained in Corpus Christi, Texas on August 23 with the Texas Army National Guard in an parachute operation known as a “water jump”. The training was “but one of many demonstrations of trust and confidence between the two nations.”
• The USS America, a new U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship, completed its maiden transit voyage “America visits the Americas” in Callao, Peru on August 31. Other stops on the “America visits the Americas” voyage included Cartagena, Colombia; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Valparaiso, Chile. The ship’s commanding officer, Captain Robert A. Hall, Jr., remarked, “Everyone on this journey has contributed to something much greater than the ship. They have contributed to the strong bond that exists between the U.S. Navy and navies throughout South America." The ship is now headed to its home port of San Diego.