Hybrid Wars in Latin America

Jorge Elbaum

Southern Command head Laura Richardson

Between June 13 and 15, the G7 Leaders Summit, the organization responsible for the neo-colonial and financialist policies implemented at a global level, will be held in the Apulia region, in Italy. At this meeting, following the elections of the Euro-parliamentarians, the war defeat suffered by NATO in Ukraine, the productive weakness vis-à-vis China and the strategy of alliances necessary to confront the BRICS+, which persistently and patiently continue with their gradual process of de-dollarization and sovereign autonomization, will be discussed.

These crossroads explain the State Department’s insistence on guaranteeing strategic control of Latin America, which it continues to consider its backyard or “front yard”, according to the redefinition provided by current President Joe Biden. The Southern Command and the various U.S. agencies are in charge of ensuring that the region remains under control. To guarantee this objective, they are dedicated to empowering political officials, businessmen, lobbyists or propagandists who will be in charge of becoming delegates and ambassadors protecting their interests in the region. Their basic tasks -in the current stage of relative loss of hegemonic power of the neocolonial West-, will have as a basic objective the demonization of political leaders who might think of insisting on sovereignty over transnationalized and financialized globalization. The latter will be labeled as autocratic and enemies of democracy.

The attempted assassination of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico provides an example of how those who dare to question NATO’s warmongering policy, which encircled and threatened the Russian Federation until 2022, should be treated: the New York Times, in its May 16 edition -one day after the attack- reduced the event to a predictable phenomenon of the populist practice established by the victim himself: “Slovak politics was toxic long before its prime minister was shot”.

The hybrid warfare that characterizes the global confrontation between unilateral globalism and multilateral sovereignty has eight core dimensions: (a) access to natural resources, (b) war-strategic availability, (c) economic productivity, (d) control of financial circuits, (e) scientific-technological capabilities, (f) propaganda, media and news influence, (g) control of logistical circuits, and (h) mastery of data, the basic raw material for the configuration of algorithms and deployment of Artificial Intelligence.

Several of these dimensions have been addressed by military officers who arrogate to themselves obscure diplomatic responsibilities: in her last tour of Latin America, the Southern Command General Laura Richardson stated that the region “does not benefit” from cooperation with the People’s Republic of China. The journalists present were unable to ask her about the advantages of unilateral blockades and sanctions or the leverage granted to the most reactionary governments in the region. Regarding Beijing’s investment in critical infrastructure -exemplified in the port of Chancay, Peru-, speakers at the Security Conference argued that it represents a dangerous Chinese presence, which could be used for military purposes in the future. Beijing usually responds insistently that the United States lacks the authority to comment on war preparations since it has “800 military bases abroad, with 173,000 uniformed personnel, stationed in 159 countries”.

While the event was taking place in Florida, the international agencies linked to energy information were spreading the news that the Russian shipping company RosGeo had detected a reserve of 511 billion barrels of oil in the Antarctic, which doubles the Saudi reserves. The discovery was taken up by the Environmental Audit Committee of the British House of Commons, which is interested in appropriating these resources.

Another aspect that worries the globalist logic is the communicational control increasingly associated with algorithms. This is the reason why Washington has approved a regulation to ban the social network Tik Tok, the only one of the ten most used globally whose headquarters are not based in its territory. It is well known that the platforms are playing an increasingly decisive role in the cognitive configuration of the world’s population: “Who is going to count on all this data?” asked Richardson rhetorically, to answer without blushing: “we must promote democratic alternatives in cybersecurity that protect human rights and secure data”. Words from a civilized North, always attentive to the great values of humanity.

Translation by Resumen Latinoamericano – English