The 12-day mil­i­tary train­ing pro­gramme known as Tradewinds mil­i­tary ex­er­cis­es end­ed yes­ter­day with US Ad­mi­ral Alvin Hosley, Com­man­der of the US South­ern Com­mand, in­still­ing the im­por­tance of such ex­er­cis­es. 

Tradewinds is a se­ries of mil­i­tary train­ing op­er­a­tions spon­sored by the US South Com­mand (US South Com), which seeks to pro­mote greater col­lab­o­ra­tion while en­hanc­ing the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ties of re­gion­al mil­i­taries. This year’s ex­er­cise ran from April 26 to May 8 and is the 40th edi­tion of the ex­er­cise. 

Ad­dress­ing the par­tic­i­pants at Tetron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas yes­ter­day, Hosley said it is col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts such as these that un­der­mine or­gan­ised crime. 

“To­day, we face com­mon ad­ver­saries that are us­ing all avail­able re­sources across all do­mains to ex­pand their ma­lign in­flu­ence and pres­ence, but we will not be de­terred. At every turn, we will meet pres­ence with pres­ence. As al­lies and part­ners, we must stand shoul­der to shoul­der, ready, will­ing, and able to de­ter, con­front, and over­come threats posed by ma­lign state ac­tors, transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions, vi­o­lent ex­trem­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions, cy­ber-crim­i­nals, and any­one else seek­ing to bring chaos where there is peace. To be clear, part­ner­ships are our best de­ter­rent to shared se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns across the re­gion, but we must be ready.” 

Hosley said with plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion, the 24 na­tions, which in­clud­ed re­gion­al mil­i­tary as well as Mex­i­co, France and Cana­da, there is a re­newed com­mit­ment to re­gion­al and glob­al se­cu­ri­ty. This is done through joint com­bined in­ter­a­gency train­ing, hon­ing the skills re­quired to con­duct uni­fied op­er­a­tions. 

“We in­creased our in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty to con­duct mar­itime in­ter­dic­tion, ground se­cu­ri­ty, de­fen­sive, cy­ber op­er­a­tions, spe­cial op­er­a­tions on land and sea, in­for­ma­tion shar­ing, and in­ter­a­gency co­or­di­na­tion to de­ter and de­feat threats in any form. The se­cu­ri­ty threats we face re­quire in­creased do­main aware­ness and the skill to ex­tend our op­er­a­tional reach.” 

In his maid­en speech as De­fence Min­is­ter, Wayne Sturge thanked the par­tic­i­pat­ing na­tions for their con­tin­ued sup­port in bet­ter­ing each oth­er in the fight against or­gan­ised crime. 

“Over the past two weeks, we've seen a vivid demon­stra­tion of what it means to train to­geth­er, re­spond to­geth­er, and stand to­geth­er. More than 1,100 mil­i­tary and civil­ian pro­fes­sion­als from across the re­gion and be­yond came to­geth­er un­der the theme of strength­en­ing re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and re­silience, uni­fied and pre­pared for the fu­ture. And to­day, as we close this chap­ter, we do so know­ing that our shared pre­pared­ness has nev­er been stronger.” 

He added that the end of the train­ing should be a re­minder that the re­gion is ready and pre­pared to an­swer the call should the need arise to ad­dress any at­tack.