A major goal of the skills challenge is to forge a better understanding of other nations’ tactics and responses while fine-tuning Americans’ own SOF tactics, techniques, and procedures. It is no secret that one of the benefits of all the SOF training and support directly provided to Colombia in the last decade was that it provided the necessary skills and knowledge that helped break the back of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) in several legendary operations. Overall the Fuerzas Comando exercise helps promote military-to-military relationships, enhance trust and confidence, increase interoperability, and improve regional security. And these activities are key in implementing the stated goals of McRaven and Obama to build a gobal SOF network to provide a common standard of special operations capability and capacity worldwide.
Members of a Jamaican special operations team row their raft across Lake Pastrana, Colombia, to get to the next station of the Fuerzas Comando aquatics event, July 27, 2014. Photo by Staff Sgt. Angel D. Martinez
A look at the past winners of Fuerzas Comando says a great deal about the rise of regional SOF units and their capabilities in Latin America. Colombia has won the exercise six times in the last 10 competitions, and continues to look like a winner in 2015. The Fuerzas Comando competition in 2012 was especially significant: It was the first time Canada had ever participated, and it was the first time that a female SOF operator from Mexico competed.
The CTFP takes place simultaneously with the special operations skills competition of Fuerzas Comando. CTFP is designed to bring together senior military and government leadership throughout the Western Hemisphere to discuss regional, transnational issues such as fighting organized crime, weapons control, the smuggling of drugs, humans, and intellectual property, and combating the drug cartels. Like its military counterpart, it is designed to hone skills on a senior leadership level. Likewise, participants promote political engagement on an international level. The 2015 edition of the Fuerzas Comando CTFP will take place on the island of Aruba in the Caribbean, which is being specially secured to protect the numerous high-ranking officials and SOF professionals planning to attend.
Fuerzas Comando – 2014
For all the great things represented by Fuerzas Comando, what happened in 2014 is an object lesson about the realities of the 21st century. Fuerzas Comando 2014 was originally planned as an international SOF tour-de-force, and was to be hosted by SOUTHCOM/SOCSOUTH at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. It was to have been the largest gathering of nations for Fuerzas Comando since the “SOF rodeo” concept was first thought of back at the turn of the 21st century. Unfortunately, fiscal reality in the United States reared its ugly head in the form of the Budget Control Act (BCA). Also known as “sequestration,” the BCA is a federal budget control measure designed to hold the budget deficit down, with mandatory and automatic fiscal limits imposed upon the various federal departments and agencies. And this is where Fuerzas Comando 2014 began to get into trouble.
At the end of every Fuerzas Comando competition is an event deeply enjoyed by all the participants: an international parachute jump for all who wish to participate.
When SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. John Kelly began to consider his options to meet his BCA-mandated cuts, his “best bad options” all centered upon his planned fiscal year 2014 joint and international exercises and engagements in Latin America. Some, like the annual Panama Canal defense exercise called PANAMAX, were downsized and turned into tabletop command post exercises. But others, like the annual deployment of a U.S. Navy hospital ship to visit sites throughout the region, had to be canceled outright. One of these engagements was the planned hosting of Fuerzas Comando at Fort Sam Houston. As soon as the SOUTHCOM/SOCSOUTH staff became aware of this fiscal reality, they rapidly dialed back their plans and began to consider an alternative partner country to host Fuerzas Comando 2014.