U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) hosted military representatives from 16 Central and South American and Caribbean countries for PANAMAX 2021 functional component Planning in Crisis (PIC) training, June 11-17, 2021, at the Sheraton Miami Airport Hotel, Miami, Florida.
The purpose of the training was to build readiness, interoperability, and strengthen partnerships in a dynamic coalition environment.
Major General Julio Baltieri, chief of Staff of the Brazilian Army Southern Military Command, who was selected to be the Combined Forces Land Component commander for the training, described the exercise as, “an excellent opportunity to make our bonds stronger and create opportunity to work together […].”
Upon conclusion of the PIC training, the participants from Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the United States evaluated their planning in a tabletop exercise held at SOUTHCOM’s Conference Center of the Americas in Doral, Florida, on June 18.
Other commanders selected as functional commanders for the exercise:
Maritime Component — Argentine Navy Captain Marcelo Luis Fernández, Atlantic Naval Area commander,
Air Component — Colombian Air Force Major General Pablo Enrique García Valencia,
Special Operations Component — Peruvian Navy Rear Admiral Oscar Iván Oliva Angulo, Special Operations Force commander.
“I think the greatest result of the exercise is to reinforce bonds, to reinforce knowledge, and to exercise the ability to work with each other, to work together, with mutual goals,” Maj. Gen. Baltieri added.
He knows the greatest and worst threat we face are transnational ones, and the best approach to deal with these threats is a multinational one.
He believes the two most important things this type of training provides is the opportunity to understand our similarities and differences with respect to our doctrines, and the other “is the personal relationships that we can establish in this kind of operation.”