Under U.S. leadership, Ecuador brings together regional militaries to discuss defense and cybersecurity

Ecuador is hosting the 2022 South American Defense Conference, an event that will bring together the continent’s armed forces to address “global, transnational threats.”

The plan for the U.S.-sponsored event includes an agreement on “cyberspace and the information domain.

The head of U.S. Southern Command (Southcom), Laura Richardson, is visiting South America in 2021 for the sixth time since taking office to participate in the so-called South American Defense Conference (Southdec), where U.S. forces aim to coordinate their positions with South American forces.

The conference, which has been held in other South American countries on a rotating basis in recent years, will be organized by Ecuador in 2022.

According to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Quito, the goal of the meeting is “to promote dialogue among the region’s defense chiefs to share ideas, experiences, and perspectives to build consensus on security and defense issues and to promote the strengthening of cooperation among the armed forces.”

The region’s military leaders will meet in Ecuador to discuss “counter global, transnational threats that undermine the security of citizens using regional cooperation as the primary tool” and how to “shape future cooperation among security forces in support of common goals,” according to organizers.

While it does not appear among the event’s objectives in U.S. communications, some public posts from the invited South American governments suggest that one of the conference’s highlights will be military cooperation in “cyberspace.”

Peruvian Ministerial Decision No. 611 of 2022, which authorizes the participation of military commanders in the conference, states that the meeting will “enable the renewal and strengthening of cooperation between high-level commanders of the Americas” in a scenario of “global response to border threats.”

Another public document, this time an official letter 2022-3-3-29 from the Office of the Secretary of State of the Presidency of Uruguay, confirms another fact about the event.

Although Ecuador organizes it, the participation of two generals of the Uruguayan Air Force in the conference “does not entail any cost for the State, since the expenses will be covered by the Defense Cooperation Office of the Embassy of the United States of America.”

The U.S. invitation was in line with one of Richardson’s goals when she took office as head of Southern Command in October 2021.

On that occasion, she emphasized the “strategic importance” of Latin America and the Caribbean “to U.S. vital interests”.

She reiterated her willingness to “strengthen security cooperation by working across command structures to close the gaps our competitors exploit.”

Richardson’s first trip to the region from SOUTHCOM headquarters in Miami was to Argentina in April 2021, where he met with National Defense Minister Jorge Taiana, as did his predecessor, Gen. Craig Faller.

Since taking office, Richardson has visited Colombia twice, as well as Chile and Ecuador, in June 2022, where he met with President Guillermo Lasso to “discuss issues related to citizen security,” according to the Ecuadorian government.

“We must act quickly to pick up the pieces left by the pandemic and transform our relationships to meet the security challenges of the 21st century,” Richardson said in her first U.S. Senate hearing as the first woman to head Southern Command.

“Winning with our allies and partners is simply important,” she concluded.

With information from Sputnik

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