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Naval Forces Southern Command Promotes Theater Security Cooperation

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS060306-12
Release Date: 3/6/2006 6:30:00 PM

From U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command Public Affairs

MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO) continued its theater security cooperation efforts with a visit by the Brazilian Naval Attaché to receive command briefs and tour USS DeWert (FFG 45).

Brazilian Rear Adm. José Geraldo Fernándes Nunes, the country’s naval representative in Washington, D.C., was in Mayport Feb. 21, to visit NAVSO before heading to Miami to call on U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) headquarters in Miami, and Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South (JIATF-S) in Key West, Fla.

NAVSO is the naval component command for SOUTHCOM. Its mission is to direct U.S. naval forces operating in the region and interact with Caribbean, Central and South American civil forces and navies to shape the maritime environment.

“The focus of our efforts is operating at the intersection of SOUTHCOM, U.S. Navy, and partner nation maritime objectives," said Cmdr. Davey Jones, NAVSO’s flag secretary. "At the heart of this intersection is the collective goal of denying extremist use of the maritime environment.”

NAVSO Commander Rear Adm. James W. Stevenson Jr. said Jones’ observation comes at a particularly appropriate time.

“The secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff released in February the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism," said Stevenson. "In it we find senior leadership guidance to ‘expand foreign partnerships and partnership capacity,’ and that is exactly what we do at NAVSO. We emphasize interoperability so our naval forces are comfortable working together to preserve the maritime environment for safe and free passage of commerce. You can boil what we do down to a single word, relationships.”

Stevenson explained that enhancing long-standing relationships, and fostering new ones, is what will help us achieve goals in theater security cooperation (TSC). A top priority for SOUTHCOM, TSC encompasses a wide array of distinct efforts, such as military-to-military contacts, humanitarian assistance, combined training and education, combined exercises, operations, intelligence sharing, and security assistance to ensure the efforts in the entire region are aligned to meet common goals.

As another example of military-to-military contacts, Cmdr. Lowell McClintock, the NAVSO officer primarily responsible for TSC described Operational Naval Committee (ONC) meetings, which facilitate planning and successful execution of combined maritime operations in the region. The most recent ONC was with the Colombian navy in which representatives from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard met to discuss subject matter expert exchanges, mobile training teams, and ways to optimize resources.

In coordinating U.S. naval forces in the SOUTHCOM region, NAVSO works to maintain a near continuous presence of surface ships and aircraft. Currently deployed under NAVSO’s operational control are USS Gettysburg (CG 64), USS DeWert (FFG 45), both homported in Mayport, and USS Ford (FFG 54) homeported in Everett, Wash. These ships, along with their attached LAMPS MK III Seahawk helicopter detachments (AIRDET) and U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement detachments (LEDET), randomly patrol areas of the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, frequently assisting the LEDETs in seizing illegal drugs destined for the U.S. shoreline. This mission is referred to as counter narco-trafficking (CNT).

For 2005, the various ships, aircraft and LEDETs deployed for NAVSO and JIATF-S seized an estimated 250 metric tons of cocaine, 4 metric tons of marijuana, and nearly 6 kilograms of heroin, for a combined street value of as much as $5 billion.

NAVSO also maintains operational control of a variety of naval aircraft that deploy to the region. These aircraft, including P-3C, S-3B and E-2C, provide valuable indications and warning to maintain maritime domain awareness, and provide essential cueing for CNT operations.

“We are eager to have a more robust presence, including increased ship deployments to the region," Stevenson said. "This will provide opportunities to continue improving relationships by working alongside our partner nations. Our collective efforts might further reduce the illegal flow of narcotics to the U.S. and beyond.”

Another key area NAVSO is responsible for is coordinating a variety of maritime exercises throughout the region. Dating back to 1960, UNITAS has been the pre-eminent maritime exercise among South American navies, taking interoperability to new levels each year. A relatively recent addition to top-tier maritime exercises in Latin America is PANAMAX, which brings more than twenty European, Caribbean, Central and South American civil and military forces together to train in a multi-national environment for defense of the Panama Canal.

“Partner nation navies and other organizations have demonstrated a commitment to our shared values and are visibly aligned with the United States," Stevenon said in his vision statement for 2006. "As our environment changes, we must look for new circumstances that will benefit our objectives and those of our committed partners.”

Explaining further, Stevenson said, “Do not think of NAVSO as the provider, but more as the catalyst, bringing together the right groups, establishing the criteria and endstate and allowing them to execute.”