US, Colombian troops kick off exercise amid the Pentagon’s Western Hemisphere pivot

Hundreds of American and Colombian troops kicked off a sprawling military exercise in Colombia this week, training to navigate dense jungles and counter explosive threats as the U.S. military sharpens its focus on the Western Hemisphere. 

Dubbed Exercise Southern Vanguard 2027, the exercise is the 41st iteration of the annual training event, which runs through mid-November, the Army announced this week. Hosted by the Colombian Army and led by the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, the drills involve roughly 350 U.S. military personnel and more than 400 Colombian soldiers.

After the event’s opening ceremony, the U.S. Army said joint exercises will focus on jungle warfare and counter-IED skills, with command post training, maritime interdiction, cyber skills and ground security. 

The Colombian National Army’s Chief of the Force Generation Staff Brig. Gen. Edilberto Cortés extended a welcome to all of the exercise’s international participants.

“This presence demonstrates the shared commitment of our nations to strengthen collective readiness and consolidate the ties of cooperation that support our strategic and historical relationship,” he said in the Army’s release. 

The exercise — which kicked off on Monday — is scheduled to run until mid-November, and troops planned to conduct medical evacuation drills from Colombia’s Tolemaida military base to its Cavalry School in Bogotá, according to a separate release. 

In an extensive force restructure, the Army launched a the new Western Hemisphere Command in late 2025. The change reflects a broader shift in Pentagon priorities alongside the 2026 National Defense Strategy, which prioritizes defending the “U.S. Homeland” and Western Hemisphere over countering China.

At an annual U.S. Army conference in October, the service’s top commander for the Western Hemisphere characetrized American “economic supremacy” as a major goal of Washington’s regional security plans.

“The end state is economic supremacy for the United States,” Gen. Joseph Ryan, the commander of the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, said during a panel discussion. Later, he added, “we have ceded control of that economic terrain in this hemisphere to the People’s Republic of China over at least the last two decades, and that is a major threat to our national security.”

The Pentagon has increasingly prioritized jungle warfare skills, launching a reinvigorated jungle school in Panama with the Panamanian armed forces and sending troops across the world to learn about and develop jungle warfare doctrine. In September, a U.S. official told Military Times that Colombian soldiers were soon coming through the reestablished “Green Hell” course. 

The U.S. and Colombia have a long history of cooperation, and the U.S. has previously partnered with the country’s Lancero course, which is similar to Ranger School. Colombia also recently participated in PANAMAZ, a multinational exercise where forces simulated defending the Panama Canal. 

Both countries are part of the Counter Cartel Coalition, chaired by the U.S. 

Months before Exercise Southern Vanguard 2027, U.S. soldiers took part in Exercise Southern Vanguard 2026, which included another field training scenario in Sauce, Peru. It brought together roughly 400 soldiers for jungle training.