Sea Control - Sea Control 525 - Maritime Security in Latin America Wilder Alejandro Sanchez (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Links 1. CIMSEC author page of Wilder Alejandro Sanchez.2. Second Floor Strategies.3. “Hospital Ships: A Vital Asset for SOUTHCOM and South American Navies,” by Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, CIMSEC, January 24, 2023.4. “TIAR 21: Maritime Security, the TIAR, and IUU Fishing in the Western Hemisphere,” by Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, CIMSEC, October 16, 2020. 5. Twitter: @W_Alex_Sanchez.

Hey folks, it's Jared. This is part one of a two-part episode featuring Walker Mills' interview with longtime SimSec contributor Wilder Alejandro Sanchez. This episode was edited and produced by Andrew Frame. Here at SimSec, we aim to further international maritime security through an exchange of ideas and the rigor of critical thought and writing. If you haven't already, please check out SimSec.org for new articles on the most important maritime topics. If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, check out the Write for SimSec tab to learn how you can submit articles for publication. And now, Kimber's Men.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Welcome aboard the Sea Control Podcast from the Center for International Maritime Security. I'm Walker Mills, and my guest today is Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, an analyst and researcher of Latin American security. He's been featured in a wide range of publications, including Jane's, Breaking Defense, and Shepard Media. He writes the SimSec column, Southern Tide, focused on maritime security in the Caribbean and Latin America. And he is the president and founder of Second Floor Strategies and a non-resident senior associate at the America's Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Today, we're going to discuss maritime

security in Latin America and some of his recent writing. Alejandro, welcome aboard. Thanks for joining us. Can you start by telling the listeners a bit more about yourself and your background? Sure. Thank you so much for having me, Walker. And let's see, I am an analyst, like you say. I cover defense, security, and geopolitical issues across Latin America. I've been doing that for the past almost two decades at this point. And I write for a variety of outlets, Like you said, Jen, Shepard Media, Breaking Defense, I've been writing for SimSec for almost a decade also, since the center almost began.

I was one of the few writers there and proud to continue producing articles and really excited to be part of this podcast. And yeah, when it comes to Latin American defense issues and Korean defense issues, there's so much to talk about. And I covered everything from submarines to satellites, so we can definitely jump between topics quite easily. I'm excited to have you on. And obviously, having spent some time myself in Colombia and Latin America, Latin American

maritime security issues are particularly dear to me, and I've been reading your work for several years. As a reminder to listeners, all the opinions presented here are solely our own and not reflective of any of the institutions which we are associated with. Kicking us off, Alejandro, as you know, we've been inundated with news about stuff going on in the South China Sea with China and the Philippines, the Red Sea, Black Sea, and I think the Caribbean and waters surrounding South America are sometimes overlooked. Can you start us off by just telling us why these issues are important and why they're worth paying attention

to? That's a great question. Let's start with the basics. The United States government should pay more attention to the Western Hemisphere issues. First of all, because the United States is in the Western Hemisphere, the southern states of like Florida and the border of the Caribbean, so when we talk about the Caribbean in Latin America, it's not some kind of distant land. These are the United States' neighbors. So just that fact, the geographical connection that links the United States with the rest of the hemisphere, that should be reasonable enough. Also, let's put it another way. The Western Hemisphere has 35 countries, from Canada to Argentina and the Caribbean.

If you take out the United States and Canada out of the equation, Latin America and the Caribbean have 33 countries. The vast majority have cordial relations with the United States or want to have cordial defense relations with the United States, whose exceptions are well known. Of course, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Bolivia. Now, what happens in maritime security in the Caribbean, Eastern Pacific, or South Atlantic also affects the United States. The most obvious example is the trafficking of narcotics via maritime corridors through the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, which occur either via go-fast boats or in famous narco-sops. In the Caribbean, these platforms leave Venezuela, Colombia, and North North via island-hopping strategies,

and the United States and Europe are the final destinations. That was because you have other crimes, like IOU fishing, which are carried out by local actors, for sure, but also by the famous distant water fishing fleets, which operate in the South Atlantic and the South Pacific. Most of these vessels, as you know, come from China, though they also come from other contexts around the world. So China is the main culprit, but not the sole culprit, if we have to be honest here. In late March, the Minister of Defense of Argentina, Luis Petri, flew aboard a Hercules aircraft around the border between the Argentina's EEC and international waters to monitor first-hand a large fishing fleet operating in the South Atlantic.

The Argentine Navy has also deployed a corvette and an offshore patrol vessel to monitor this fishing fleet. And we know that the fleet will eventually budge south, cross the Magellan Strait, go up Chile, go pass through Peru, and eventually stop around the Calabasas Islands, you know, around Ecuador, and operate there for a few months, for a few weeks, months,

and then they budge down south again. Moreover, the names of countries that Washington is at odds with, or has tense relations with, to describe the situation madly, also appear in Latin America and the Caribbean. For example, just last year, or in February if I'm not mistaken, two Iranian warships, the Maklan and the Dena, controversially docked in Brazil. Last July, the Russian training ship Perekhov docked in Cuba and Venezuela. Moreover, and if you notice, in early April, the Russian news agency TASS reported that, according to a source close to the Russian Navy, their words not mine, a detachment of ships of the Pacific Fleet consisting of the cruiser Baryak and the frigate Marshal Shaponishkov would make a transatlantic voyage crossing and visiting ports of friendly countries in Latin America. So, obviously, we know the tensions between Washington with Moscow, with China, with Beijing, with Tehran. So having someone including some of their warships enter Latin America and the Caribbean should be a concern to Washington. Sadly, there's a border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Ezequiel region.

The dispute is not new, but the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, has made several belligerent and aggressive remarks about the disputed territory which Guyana controls. And last December, there was a controversial referendum between Venezuela over the Ezequiel, which somehow was used to justify any type of aggressive military operation by the national forces in Ezequiel, which is controlled by Guyana in the future. While I do not believe that Caracas wants to award Guyana, this is not a reason why Washington should focus more on geopolitical and maritime security in the Western Hemisphere, as Guyana is an ally of the United States. I just saw President Ari Yifan Ali. He came to Washington only a couple of weeks ago in early April. He gave a speech at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He gave a speech about Guyana's natural wealth. So he's very eager to come to Washington to strengthen relations with the United States, with Washington. And this is another reason why Washington should pay more attention to the two issues that are happening across the Western Hemisphere. Well, Andrew, all that makes total sense. I mean, we've got, like you mentioned, transnational and transregional threats. We've got great power competition coming into the region. And then I think, like you mentioned first, above it all, the proximity and shared value and shared interest that the United States has with other countries in the region should make it more of a focus. And I think actually, recently, the SELFCOM Commander General Laura Richardson was doing a tour of some of the countries in the region. I couldn't say how much that is enable versus other types of cooperation. Alejandro, you made a career out of watching Latin American security and specifically maritime security and security in the Western Hemisphere. You already mentioned some kind of concerns

that we could be watching, but what are some of the events and trends you're paying special attention to now and things that you're starting to see, potentially good trends or worrisome trends that you're forecasting out into the future? Alejandro I will start by saying this. Latin American geopolitics are evolving. The last war in the region was in 1995 between Peru and Ecuador.

This was primarily fought on land and in air. The last war with a maritime field of operations was 42 years ago, the 1982 war between Argentina and the United Kingdom

over the Falklands Malvinas. So, yes, there are interstate tensions, but the likelihood of war, the hypothesis de guerra, as we say in Spanish, is quite low, Venezuela notwithstanding.

And since the core geopolitics and defense and security issues in the Western Hemisphere the evolving geopolitical situation obviously affects militaries including navies also I will add that as part of the work that I do I also monitor

arms sales anything from submarines to satellites so anytime armed service buys or domestically produces a new submarine or satellite or warship or rifles or uniforms I cover it

because by figuring out, by tracking by monitoring what a military service, what a ministry of defense is buying, gives you an idea what the priorities are for the future, what they see as the real and present dangers for today and for tomorrow. A very interesting following and something I follow on a daily basis is the rise of regional defense industries. Yes, Latin American militaries will continue to procure technology from the United States, Europe, Israel, South Korea, some countries will get it from obtaining from Iran, China, and Russia, but not many. But I will argue that if we talk about maritime security and natives,

that South American shipyards in particular are going through a golden age. At the end of March, the domestically manufactured submarine in Brazil, the Tonelero, was launched at the Itaewae Naval Complex in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is building four submarines and one nuclear-powered submarine, which has been the dream of the Navy since the 1970s. But there are other developments to keep in mind as well. For example, in late March, Peru's state-run shipyard CIMA announced a partnership with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, HHI, to build one offshore patrol vessel, one multi-role vessel, and two auxiliary transport vessels. The Peruvian Navy wants to modernize its fleet, and it's relying heavily on its domestic shipyards.

And it's not just a trend of Peru, but also of other South American countries, and we can talk about that later. Also, I am monitoring the role of Latin American and Caribbean navies to combat environmental crimes like IUU fishing. I am curious, that's always a huge problem for the entire region. I'm also looking into the future. I am curious about the role of unmanned systems and how they're going to be utilized by South American navies, like, for example, UAVs or USVs. Navies around the world are already deploying drones aboard ships, but that capability hasn't really reached Latin America yet. As far as I know, I have not heard of one South American or Latin American Navy that has drones or UDVs that they have launched successfully from a ship. From land, of course, but not from a ship.

But there is an interesting development also. A recent reporter wrote an article for Shepard about two Brazilian companies. One is called Engepron, and the other one is a startup called Tidewise. They have sent a partnership to domestically manufacture a USD, an unmanned surface vessel. What they're telling me is that this is the first USB for defense purposes built either only in Brazil, but across all of Latin America. As if I could monitor weapons transfers and construction of defense systems, I think they're correct. I have no idea of any other country or company in Latin America that's building a military USB. The USB suppressor, there are going to be two variants.

One, a USB suppressor 7, as in 7 meters, and a USB suppressor 11, as in 11 meters. I think they will have a range of around 400 nautical miles. They can be used for ISR, anti-submarine warfare, to patrol ports and naval bases. So that's another issue that I'm monitoring in the cost of maritime security, not just ships and submarines and warplanes or warplanes or MPAs, but also the potential present and future role of unmanned systems like USBs and drones. I am also monitoring military exercises. Of course, we have coming up every year, we have trade winds in the Caribbean, which is pretty huge. UNITAS, France is going to organize an exercise with its Caribbean partners in June, I believe. And I really like military exercises because these are excellent confidence-building mechanisms. And again, because this region hasn't had an interstate war in decades, plural. And of course, there are also a couple of bad news that I am monitoring.

One is Haiti. In Haiti continues, the planned multinational force has not been deployed yet. There is a valid concern by several Caribbean countries, like the Bahamas, that there could be a mass migration of Haitians to neighboring states. And also that some of the thousands, plural, of prisoners who have escaped from Haiti in the past, that there was a massive jailbreaking in March, they're concerned that some of these prisoners, maybe most of these prisoners, could try going to neighboring states for whatever reason.

So the Royal Bahamas Defense Force has created a sovereign blockade with offshore patrol vessels, aircraft, and marines to monitor the southern islands to ensure that no potential Haitian criminal could enter the country. And finally, we have to remember that the summer is coming up. That's good and bad. Good because we get more sun. Bad because it's hurricane season for the Caribbean. And there are so many examples that we can discuss of very destructive hurricanes that hit not just Florida and Louisiana, as we've seen before in the United States, but also the Great Caribbean region, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Central American countries are hit by hurricanes.

I remember that recently there was a report that scientists want to increase the categories of hurricanes. Right now, Category 5 is the max because of climate change, hurricanes are becoming more powerful. So now there should be a Category 6. And I'm sure it's just a matter of time before some of the potential Category 6 hurricanes hit the Caribbean. So I'm monitoring not just hurricanes and weather patterns, but the role of navies and other armed services for humanitarian assistance, self-relief, search and rescue missions,

medical evacuations when the next natural disaster strikes, like hurricanes that I'm sure will happen in a couple of months, unfortunately, in the Caribbean. You know, I think those are trends that are exciting to see that Latin American navies and that kind of shipbuilding capacity is expanding. I, you know, when I was in Colombia, Cotecmar, the Colombian National Shipbuilding Corporation, and they had, you know, what seemed to be like really ambitious plans to start building their own frigates out in the future and to start integrating some smaller unmanned systems. But then on the other side, you've got, like you mentioned, hurricane season coming up

in 2021, I think was Hurricane Iota, that really devastated some of the Colombian islands in the Caribbean. But then the Navy got to play a kind of a leadership role in humanitarian assistance and being that kind of first to come back there. Yeah, I'm definitely interested in hearing a little bit more about, you talked about the role of unmanned systems in Latin American navies, because it would seem to me that there's a lot of issues that require kind of, in a way, more monitoring and surveillance than necessarily interdiction or combat assets, right? So you mentioned IUU phishing, illegal phishing, right? It's kind of a monitoring issue. Narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, maritime migration, like these are all things that

it seems like unmanned systems could play a large role in terms of at least a monitoring capability. And I think about countries like Brazil and Chile and Argentina that have huge exclusive economic zones and really difficult to monitor those huge areas. Absolutely. So I will say that unmanned systems are already being used for environmental protection operations. For example, in 2018, the Caribbean Air Force used a fleet of drones, not just operated by the Air Force, but also from private institutions to try to crack down on illegal logging and illegal mining. So there are applications for those types of operations. I know that Chile military uses its drones i think they're the hermits from israel to monitor firefighting

operations so chile is hit unfortunately during the summer months these past wildfires especially in the north of the country but paraiso was just hit a few months ago and drones are essential tools to monitor how where is the fire taking place now where is it spreading to that sort of thing uabs are already used for environmental protection environmental related operations like that, I think it's just a matter of time before they are utilized for IEU fishing. You can fly a drone from the coast, but it's not the same as flying an Alpha ship that can be closer to the country's EEC, and obviously that's where the international fishing fleets operate.

So that's a capacity that Latin American navies will obtain in the future, but I don't think it's a priority right now. I think the navies are more interested in buying or acquiring or building vessels of some sort, maybe MPAs, and then we can talk about that later. But UAVs for not to combat IU fishing or to not to hunt down for narco boats or narco speedboats, I don't see that happening yet. I mean, it hasn't happened yet. I hope it will happen in the future, though. That makes a lot of sense. Imagine something like the U.S. Navy has done some experimentation with the sail drone. So surface, unmanned surface vessels, but can have really long kind of loiter

time. Because obviously, like you mentioned, if you've got a patrol out near the Galapagos or something like that, many miles offshore, you'd need pretty significant aerial unmanned vehicles. No, no. Yeah, absolutely. I know that the US Navy has tested these USBs, and they have actually tested them in the Caribbean. It was part of one of South Coast operations. Very pleased to show that we can test new technologies within our AOR. That's another reason why we are so important to the future of the U.S. military. And I will ask that U.S.V.s, I mean this, again, it don't work for Engepron,

but I'm just going to praise their project with the suppressor U.S.V. When I talked to them, when I interviewed them for my article for Shepard, they told me that they designed the U.S.V. so it can be deployed from a patrol boat or from one of the future frigates, the Tamanari frigates,

Corvettes, that are being built for the Brazilian Navy. So I think that would be a great idea, like, if natives can acquire these USBs, you know, you can have an OPB that goes to patrol leads, there was EEC, then you can launch, it's only a suppressor

or type of USB, so that can extend the reach, you know, beyond the horizon or the line of sight type of, you know, capabilities. And when I talked to them, they told me that they're developing the USB, the suppressor, so you can have a drone launch capability.

So essentially, you can have an OPB that can deploy the suppressor, and the suppressor can launch a little rotary UAV to extend further the reach of the drones so not to increase even more their ISR capabilities. I hope that's going to be the future. I hope that as Latin American navies, especially South American navies, are investing more in new vessels, that they will consider USB or UAV capabilities as well.

That will be really interesting to watch. Hey, folks, it's Jared. This concludes part one of the interview with Wilder Alejandro Sanchez. Come back Saturday to hear the conclusion of the interview. I walked up to the barroom counter Way, hey, bully in the alley There I met with Greasy Annie Bully down your shimbo now

So help me, Bob, I'm bully in the alley Way, hey, bully in the alley Help me, Bob, I'm bully in the alley Bully down your shimbo now A pot of rum and a pot of gin Oh, hey, hey, put it in the alley A pot of wine, both white and red Oh, put it on the shimbo now

So help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley Oh, hey, hey, put it in the alley Help me, Bob, I'm putting it in the alley Put it on the shimbo now