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Operation Green Clover

Southern Command coordinates multiple counterdrug operations involving all 19 Latin American countries in its area of operations. As part of the Andean Ridge strategy, SOUTHCOM devised interagency operations to implement the drug interdiction strategy. Green Clover was a military operation which focused on disrupting the Peru/Colombia air bridge. Operation Green Clover, designed to intercept narco-trafficker aircraft carrying cocaine between Peru and Colombia, contributed to reducing drug flights over the Andes from 35 a month in 1994 to five a month in 1996.

Green Clover cooperated DOD activities with Peru and Columbia to provide air surveillance and radar tracking to interdict narco-traffickers. As a result of Green Clover DOD concluded that increasing air surveillance was just forcing the traffic down to the ground. Consequently the follow-on Operation Laser Strike was a much broader operation that involved about half a dozen countries rather than two countries, and it involved air, naval, riverine and ground operations. These operations achieved tactical successes with the US military elements which deployed to support allied police and military forces. The cooperative efforts of the US country teams, the DEA, the U.S. Customs Service, the CIA, and US Coast Guard were fundamental to these gains.

Resources

• DoD News Briefing Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD (PA) Tuesday, June 25, 1996
• MISSIONS IN SUPPORT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT CHAPTER 7 FM 100-19 FMFM 7-10 DOMESTIC SUPPORT OPERATIONS 1 July 1993
• Statement by General Barry R. McCaffrey. Director Office of National Drug Control Policy Executive Office of the President Committee on Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice, U.S. House of Representatives October 1, 1996

Documents

• Counterdrug Strategy - Illusive Victory: From Blast Furnace to Green Sweep William W. Mendel, Colonel, U.S. Army (retired) Military Review December 1992, pp. 74-87
• The Drug Threat: Getting Priorities Straight William W. Mendel and Murl D. Munger, Parameters - The US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, pp. 110-124