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Blue Advance

Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH) participates in a variety of other exercises designed to enhance U.S. joint interoperability, such as Blue Advance, Unified Endeavor, and Fuertes Defensas.

BLUE ADVANCE 97 was a command post exercise conducted in February 1997. Using regional scenarios, this exercise developed and tested SOUTHCOM's ability to command and control within their expanded AOR, and provided training on how to establish a Joint Task Force. Cuba ratcheted up tensions by complaining about "threatening" U.S. military maneuvers in the Caribbean and western Atlantic, code named Blue Advance 97 and involving some 30 ships and 100 aircraft. US Southern Command said the exercise was essentially a table-top computer simulation, using few ships and troops, to test Southcom's ability to take over control of Caribbean operations on 01 June 1997 from Atlantic Command.

Army and Navy units participated in a Joint Logistics Over The Shore (JLOTS) exercise conducted off the coast of Puerto Rico July 26-30, 1999. Performing JLOTS is necessary when deep water ports are not available or sufficiently equipped to offload equipment in port. The JLOTS exercise consisted of the movement of 115 heavy trucks and Humvees from the shore to SS Equality State (ACS 8), and back ashore. Equality State, a Navy Military Sealift Command auxiliary crane ship, is a civilian manned ship capable of offloading containers and other outsized cargo either from non-self-sustaining cargo ships offshore or from shore. The exercise was held as part of "Blue Advance." This JLOTS exercise also supported the deployment phase of Operation "Caribbean Thunder '99," an Army Reserve Command combat support and combat service support exercise already underway in the region. In the exercise, 115 heavy trucks and high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicles were moved from the shore to the ship and back ashore. Planners from the 832d Transportation Battalion, a Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC) unit stationed at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, used the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) to draw a diagram of each level of the ship and compute exactly where to stow each piece of equipment.

The US Southern Command Exercise BLUE ADVANCE 00 was a three-phase exercise focused on honing the skills of the Southern Command staff, particularly the Operational Planning Group, in Military Oper a tions Other Than War crisis action planning. Additionally, Southern Command used this as an opportunity to validate and refine applicable Concept Plans and Functional Plans, to operationalize the requirements of Presidential Decision Directive-56, and to exercise Information Operations.

Phase I was conducted by the Joint Warfighting Center to update the Southern Command staff on joint operating procedures. In Phase II, 1-5 May 2000, the scenario included an expand ing Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation in a selected Latin American nation. This operation evolved into a requirement to plan for support of a multi-national peacekeep ing operation. In Phase III, 8-10 May 2000, a Multi-Agency Support Team, formed by National Defense University faculty along with mid-level inter agency representation, cooperated with Southern Com mand in drafting a political-military plan.