T&T stands to benefit as US expands anti-cartel operations with new command

Gail Alexan­der

The US South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) has es­tab­lished an Au­tonomous War­fare Com­mand (SAWC) to sup­port US na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and de­fence strat­e­gy pri­or­i­ties and work more close­ly with US al­lies and part­ners in the re­gion in ad­vanc­ing shared goals, in­clud­ing dis­rupt­ing nar­co car­tels and re­spond­ing to crises caused by large-scale nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

This coun­try, in March, joined the US’s Amer­i­c­as Counter Car­tel Coali­tion along with 10 Latin states and Guyana. TT has been a strong al­ly of the US in its an­ti-car­tel mis­sion launched in the re­gion last Au­gust.

The an­nounce­ment of SOUTH­COM’s Au­tonomous War­fare Com­mand (SAWC) came on Tues­day.

SOUTH­COM is one of the US’s six ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly fo­cused uni­fied com­mands. The com­mand is re­spon­si­ble for US de­fence and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with part­ner na­tions in the Caribbean, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and South Amer­i­ca, as well as US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the re­gion.

SOUTH­COM’s an­nounce­ment fol­lowed the US’s April 19 re­lease that the "Mis­sion con­tin­ues" with a lethal ki­net­ic strike on a ves­sel op­er­at­ed by a Des­ig­nat­ed Ter­ror­ist Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

The US stat­ed that in­tel­li­gence con­firmed the ves­sel was tran­sit­ing along known nar­co-traf­fick­ing routes in the Caribbean and was en­gaged in nar­co-traf­fick­ing op­er­a­tions. The US stat­ed three male nar­co-ter­ror­ists were killed. There was no word if the ves­sel was in TT’s vicin­i­ty.

That strike was tak­en at the di­rec­tion of the Com­man­der of US South­ern Com­mand, Ma­rine Gen Fran­cis L Dono­van. It was car­ried out by the Joint Task Force South­ern Spear.

In Tues­day’s an­nounce­ment on the SAWC for­ma­tion, SOUTH­COM stat­ed that its com­man­der, Dono­van, di­rect­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of the Au­tonomous War­fare Com­mand "to sup­port the U.S. Pres­i­dent’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy pri­or­i­ties, U.S. Sec­re­tary of War’s Na­tion­al De­fense Strat­e­gy lines of ef­fort, SOUTH­COM im­per­a­tives, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion, and op­er­a­tional dom­i­nance."

“From the seafloor to space and across the cy­ber do­main, we ful­ly in­tend to lever­age the clear su­pe­ri­or­i­ty of the Amer­i­can de­fence ecosys­tem by de­ploy­ing cut­ting-edge in­no­va­tion and work­ing ever clos­er with our en­dur­ing part­ners in the re­gion to out­match those who threat­en our col­lec­tive peace and se­cu­ri­ty,” Dono­van said.

Once ful­ly es­tab­lished, Dono­van stat­ed that the new com­mand will be ded­i­cat­ed to em­ploy­ing au­tonomous, se­mi-au­tonomous, and un­manned plat­forms and sys­tems to counter threats and chal­lenges across do­mains, link­ing tac­ti­cal mis­sions to long-term strate­gic ef­fects.

"The com­mand will al­so col­lab­o­rate close­ly with al­lies and part­ners in the re­gion to ad­vance shared goals, such as dis­rupt­ing and de­grad­ing nar­coter­ror­ist and car­tel net­works, and re­spond­ing to life-threat­en­ing crises caused by large-scale nat­ur­al dis­as­ters."

The state­ment added, "In the lead-up to SAWC’s es­tab­lish­ment, SOUTH­COM will work with the mil­i­tary ser­vices and the U.S. De­part­ment of War’s De­fense Au­tonomous War­fare Group (DAWG) to iden­ti­fy avail­able ex­per­tise and ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­quired for the new com­mand to com­mence op­er­a­tions and ful­ly in­te­grate in­to SOUTH­COM’s mis­sion."

“Our ge­o­graph­ic area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has a wide range of con­di­tions, var­ied ter­rain, and di­verse op­er­a­tional en­vi­ron­ments that make it an ide­al set­ting in which to in­no­vate. It is al­so a re­gion with very ca­pa­ble and com­mit­ted se­cu­ri­ty part­ners who lean for­ward, em­brace tech­nolo­gies and are very ea­ger to work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with us to sup­port re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty in new and ef­fec­tive ways,” Dono­van added.

Ear­li­er this year, Dono­van, in a writ­ten state­ment to the US Con­gress, sig­nalled in­ter­est in lever­ag­ing emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and his in­ten­tion “to cap­i­tal­ize on next-gen­er­a­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties like un­manned plat­forms, AI in­te­gra­tion, and com­mer­cial tools to bet­ter en­able us and our part­ners to counter threats to­geth­er.”

Dono­van has said he aimed to de­vel­op and field cost-ef­fec­tive and mod­ernised forces, tai­lored for SOUTH­COM’s mis­sion, in­clud­ing au­tonomous sys­tems and hu­man-ma­chine team­ing, “to great­ly in­crease lethal­i­ty, all-do­main aware­ness, and da­ta shar­ing for U.S. and part­ner forces.”

The state­ment was ac­com­pa­nied by vi­su­als of a com­pi­la­tion of the un­manned and au­tonomous sys­tems sup­port­ing SAWC’s mis­sion.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia's calls and queries on the SAWC de­vel­op­ment. Oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said the SOUTH­COM ini­tia­tive will "ob­vi­ous­ly as­sist T&T where halt­ing nar­co traf­fick­ing cul­prits' op­er­a­tions are con­cerned. It's come at a very good time since se­cu­ri­ty is a key is­sue in T&T now. Clos­er work with the US's cut­ting-edge sys­tems will al­ways be wel­come."

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials al­so wel­comed word that the SAWC would re­spond to life-threat­en­ing crises caused by large-scale nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. They added, "It's well known that the Caribbean is prone to nat­ur­al dis­as­ter fall­out from hur­ri­canes and oth­er is­sues. Ja­maica was re­cent­ly the vic­tim of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa and re­gion­al part­ners as­sist­ed that coun­try. Hur­ri­cane Sea­son 2026 ap­proach­es from Ju­ly and all as­sis­tance would be help­ful if crises oc­cur."