Latin America mentions in new US defense strategy

President Obama visited the Pentagon yesterday to unveil a new National Defense Strategy. The big story was the planned reduction of military spending and a "rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region" following a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, for this blog, the interest is in any mentions of this hemisphere. The Miami Herald writes:

The new military strategy focuses on Asia, the Middle East and Europe and makes no specific reference to any single nation in Latin America or the Caribbean. Nor does it mention Southcom. 

Defense Secretary Panneta added during the press conference:

"In Latin America, Africa, elsewhere in the world, we will use innovative methods to sustain U.S. presence, maintaining key military-to-military relations and pursuing new security partnerships as needed," he said.

Here's the entire paragraph mentioning Latin America from the document:

Building partnership capacity elsewhere in the world also remains important for sharing the costs and responsibilities of global leadership.  Across the globe we will seek to be the security partner of choice, pursuing new partnerships with a growing number of nations a including those in Africa and Latin America a whose interests and viewpoints are merging into a common vision of freedom, stability, and prosperity.  Whenever possible, we will develop innovative, low-cost, and  small-footprint approaches  to achieve our security objectives, relying on exercises, rotational presence, and advisory capabilities.   

To be fair, it's a short document (8 pages) that is not meant to dive into too much discussion about each region of the world. Europe and China each get a paragraph. India gets a single mention as does the Korean Peninsula. The UK, Canada, Germany and Japan get no mentions.

So don't read too much into the fact that Latin America only gets a very short paragraph that it shares with Africa and that no specific countries are mentioned. The goal of the document is to present a very broad strategic framework to help shape the future of the US military, not a detailed operational plan for the world.

One interesting point, however, is to contrast the missions listed in this strategy with Southcom's priorities. General Fraser has consistently said throughout his time as commander that organized crime and illicit trafficking are the key security threats to the hemisphere. However, the national strategy does not include countering transnational organized crime or illicit trafficking as key missions for the military. That omission, perhaps, is a bigger issue for analysts watching the hemisphere than the narrow mentions of Latin America in the document.