Humanitarian assistance has long been a cornerstone mission of SOUTHCOM. Can you talk a little about the current program of humanitarian assistance – hospital ship visits, Medical Civic Action Projects (MEDCAPs), and such that are going out this year? And is this mission set suffering as a result of sequestration?

Well, the hospital ship we were supposed to have down here in April, May, and June was abruptly canceled in its entirety because of sequestration. That’s probably – I’m told by the old-timers down here, the people that have been here the longest – the No. 1 engagement tool in the region. Because even though a lot of times the ship would not stop [in a particular] country, it was wildly covered in the press down here. That was, as I said, abruptly canceled.

On the larger humanitarian stuff, with the exception, I think, of Haiti, most of these countries can do pretty well on their own. As I said, we certainly offer, and they do take us up on certain offers. But most of them have, certainly, capacity and capability enough to pretty much take care of their own unless it’s a real catastrophe.

We are emphasizing more on MEDCAPs, that kind of thing – small groups going down and doing great work. It’s a nice thing to know that when a lot of people see the U.S. military, and the American flag on the shoulders of the U.S. military, what they’re seeing is doctors and veterinarians, not people down there to fight a war. So that’s all good. On the larger humanitarian stuff, with the exception, I think, of Haiti, most of these countries can do pretty well on their own. As I said, we certainly offer, and they do take us up on certain offers. But most of them have, certainly, capacity and capability enough to pretty much take care of their own unless it’s a real catastrophe.

 

The possibility of SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM being realigned or possibly absorbed by other combatant commands has been suggested. What are your thoughts on this, and how do you explain the value of SOUTHCOM to the nation?

I think the value of any of the COCOMs, whether they have an active conflict or not in their region, is certainly military-to-military engagement, which is very, very, very different than, say, State Department engagement.

The second issue is there’s an awful lot of military-to-political engagement as well. A lot of the leaders of countries, whether it’s in SOUTHCOM or CENTCOM or PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command], they value the relationship with the military as much as they do with the State Department. The COCOMs bring a different regional view to a region than the State Department does, or for that matter, the Justice Department.

I think SOUTHCOM is kind of the rallying force for the FBI, the DEA, and NSA [National Security Agency] – everybody. And my access [there] is nearly absolute. I will oftentimes talk on an issue to the ambassador in one country and then [another] in a neighboring country, [then] our ambassador in one country to a neighboring country, and tell [them all] what’s going on, and ask them for their assistance, or bring them into a conference. They don’t get that except by going to Washington, D.C., and coming back, if you know what I mean. So, we drive the regional approach, certainly in the military-to-military [realm], humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief types of operations.

I think you could meld together NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM as one, and do away with AFRICOM or meld it back, if you will, into European Command. You could do that for sure. You wouldn’t save much, because there’s not a lot of [manpower] that you’d save, and certainly not a lot of money. But you have to also consider the message you’re sending to the region.

 

Wouldn’t that send a message to everybody south of the equator that is not terribly positive?

Their perception is that the United States is disengaging, and no longer has a military that is all things to all people, if you will. It may or may not be able to do more than one thing.

Right. I think we in the U.S. military and U.S. government are adjusting our own thinking to what it means to be a fundamentally different military in the future than what we have been since 1945 – that we won’t be, as [former Secretary of Defense] Leon Panetta said, “A quick add-to organization,” but rather an organization that will take time to deploy.

You know, after the Cold War, we were saying that we needed 11, 12, 13 carrier battle groups. Now we’re talking about eight. We will fundamentally be different than we have been in the past. The Army and the Marine Corps will be getting smaller – fewer transport aircraft and amphibious ships [for example]. That makes you a lot slower to respond to things. So we in the military are responding to that, and I know the rest of the world is also making their mental adjustments.

Their perception is that the United States is disengaging, and no longer has a military that is all things to all people, if you will. It may or may not be able to do more than one thing. If you have a Korean Peninsula problem, whether it’s a war or you’re trying to stare “this guy” down, and get him back in his box, or you’re trying to deter a war in the Persian Gulf, we can probably do one of those in the future, but probably not two of them. And you may not be able to do other things that are smaller, like anti-piracy ops in the Gulf of Aden, or large-scale humanitarian operations in Latin America.

So as we, the U.S. military, are adjusting to being smaller, less agile, and slower, countries are looking at us and saying, “OK, the United States is pivoting to the Pacific.” If you are in Latin America, or you’re a “think tanker” outside of the U.S., and you see the United States is pivoting to the Pacific, [they probably] don’t really know what that means. But I do know that it means that Africa is not being pivoted to, so that’s less important [to the United States]. I know that Latin America is not being pivoted to, so that’s less important. I know that we’re not pivoting to Europe, so that must be less important. America is wrapped up in the Afghan war and whatnot, but they seem to be trying to get out of that as fast as they can. So you would naturally draw the impression that we are withdrawing, to some degree at least. And I think a lot of countries and their leadership are adjusting to that themselves. Is America not going to be the dominant power, but going to be engaged in some parts of the world? I think the leaders [of those countries] would say that we clearly are not going to be engaged, that we’re not that engaged now.

So, if you were to say, “OK, we’re going to combine NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM,” I think the next thing you’d have to do is make a decision: What will be the priority of that organization? Will it be geographic engagement with our friends and partners in the region south of the United States, and for that matter, Canada? Or is it going to be more of a focus on homeland defense? I don’t think you can do both, because one of the two will suffer. You might have to – if you were to meld the two headquarters together – you might have to divest some of the responsibilities that SOUTHCOM does now, or some of the responsibilities that NORTHCOM does now. I say “divest,” not “eliminate,” but maybe find other folks in the U.S. government that can do them, or in the U.S. military structure that can do them. But I think that the message would be – I know that the message would be – if you were to meld NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM and then de-emphasize the geographical engagement piece, you would, at that point, convince people that we were seriously disengaging. That might be the plan. That might be OK. I don’t know. And the same thing, I think, in the Africa realm as well.

This article first appeared in A Half-Century of Service: SOUTHCOM.