US-Colombia Joint Exercise Tests Jungle Warfare, IED Skills Amid Western Hemisphere Pivot
The timing — one week into an active Iran blockade and carrier deployments to CENTCOM (per recent signals) — underscores the Pentagon's willingness to sustain Western Hemisphere training tempo even as the Middle East consumes three carrier strike groups. This suggests either confidence in current CENTCOM posture or a deliberate bet that Latin America competition requires permanent, not surge, investment.
Colombia's dual role in counter-narcotics and now explicit China-containment training creates a proxy-competition dynamic: the US frames drug trafficking networks as a security threat while simultaneously using counter-narcotics infrastructure to position forces for geopolitical competition.
US Army Western Hemisphere Command, established late 2025, is now operationalizing doctrine and force structure around a stated goal — Gen.
Joseph Ryan's framing of "economic supremacy" — that treats regional control as a national security problem rather than a diplomatic one. The exercise cadence (annual, 41 iterations) and curriculum (jungle warfare, maritime interdiction, cyber) signal sustained commitment to Colombia as a forward training platform and a hedge against PLA inroads into Latin America.
Watch whether the reestablished Panama jungle school and Colombia's participation in the Counter Cartel Coalition expand to include explicit Chinese economic competition framing in official readout language.
Has the Pentagon formally designated Chinese economic activity in the Western Hemisphere as a direct military planning assumption, or is Gen. Ryan's 'economic supremacy' language still unofficial strategic guidance?
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