By Ling Yunzhi
According to reports, in early August, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced the activation of the "Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere" (JTF-WHEM), which replaced the former "Southern Spear" joint task force and became the standing command structure for US military operations in the Western Hemisphere.
The establishment of the JTF-WHEM is by no means a simple adjustment of military institutions; rather, it is another concentrated projection of the hegemonic logic of the "Monroe Doctrine" in the new era of "great power competition." Driven by the "America First" strategy, the Trump administration is attempting to institutionalize and normalize military intervention under the banner of "narco-terrorism," embedding such intervention into the sovereign fabric of Latin American countries.
In recent years, the political landscape in many Latin American countries has shifted markedly to the right, creating unprecedented institutional conditions for the US to deepen security cooperation. After returning to power, the Trump administration rapidly stepped-up high-level interactions with new right-wing governments in Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay, pushing bilateral security agendas forward. These countries have generally strengthened domestic public security and their capabilities to combat organized crime, while showing greater willingness to coordinate policies with the US on counter-narcotics, border control, and intelligence sharing.
While ostensibly citing the crackdown on transnational drug crimes as the rationale for forming the JTF-WHEM, the US is in fact pursuing a layered and progressively deepening geopolitical strategy. Its core objective is to use an institutionalized military presence as a fulcrum to reshape the security order in Latin America and ultimately establish structural dominance over the sovereign space of the Western Hemisphere.
Under the agreements, with authorization from the governments concerned, the task force can conduct joint operations with their armed forces. In practice, however, the US, backed by its overwhelming military, intelligence, and financial resources, effectively controls the definition, command, and evaluation of such operations. Its real objective is to build a US-dominated regional military control network under the guise of multilateral security cooperation, thereby locking countries across the Americas into its defense architecture.
Looking ahead, the prospects for the JTF-WHEM are far from smooth sailing. It will face numerous constraints, including pushback stemming from heightened sovereignty awareness among Latin American countries, resistance to cooperation from key countries such as Mexico, and a deepening regional trust deficit under the "America First" logic, leaving its future highly uncertain.
The US is attempting to integrate military, intelligence, sanctions, and financial tools under a single hemispheric chain of command. However, from a legal and institutional perspective, such cross-border "integrated" operations fundamentally conflict with the existing international legal system. Any transnational military action without authorization by the UN Security Council and approval by the legislature of the country concerned lacks a legitimate basis in international law.
More crucially, the design of this mechanism sends a clear signal: the US is shifting from a global "security guarantor" to a regional "selective interventionist." For Latin American countries, this means that their "security cooperation" with the US is inherently asymmetrical. The US can adjust the intensity and direction of cooperation at any time according to its own interests, while Latin American countries must pay the price in the form of sovereignty concessions.
This structural inequality will keep Latin American countries wary when participating in joint operations, making genuine strategic mutual trust difficult to build. It may even fuel a trend of "de-Americanization" in the region, prompting countries to seek diversified security cooperation with extra-regional powers and thereby fundamentally undermine the US vision of a "hemispheric security community."
Overall, the US establishment of the JTF-WHEM is a product of hegemonic obsession, security anxiety, and strategic opportunism. Pursuing "sovereignty erosion" in the name of "combating drug trafficking" is unlikely to bring genuine security and stability to the Western Hemisphere. Instead, by intensifying sovereignty disputes, deepening regional divisions, and eroding its own fiscal resources and credibility, the US may drag the Americas into a new US-centered, confrontation-oriented security dilemma.
Editor's Note: Originally published on thepaper.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.