US looks to South America for security partners

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated

Press

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AP) — In these days of shrinking defense budgets, the

U.S. is looking to its southern neighbors to help monitor and protect

the Asia Pacific region in the years

ahead.

Traveling to Colombia, Brazil and Chile this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta underscored the importance of

those nations as military partners in a region where the U.S. influence in a number of countries is being challenged by

China. And as the military relationships grow, defense officials say it can only help U.S. economic and political ties across

the continent.

Panetta’s talks with senior defense leaders from the three nations also focused on how the United

States can support their military efforts, including those directed at the expanding threat of cyberattacks, according to

several senior defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were private.

U.S. officials

left the region thinking that at some point there may be opportunities to talk with South American nations about helping to

train Afghan forces after NATO combat troops leave at the end of 2014. Officials would provide no details on which nations

might eventually be willing to take on some of the training mission, which will be in need of advisers as other NATO nations

pull their troops out.

With the U.S. shifting its focus away from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s

new military strategy puts more importance on the Asia Pacific region, where North Korea is a growing threat and China is

rapidly building its military and its political and economic influence.

The Pentagon is poised to move more forces to

the Pacific region, including plans to rotate units in and out of Australia. The U.S. has long provided training, equipment,

assistance and a security umbrella for many of the Asia Pacific nations. With budget cuts looming that will reduce the size

of the military, the U.S. is looking to South American countries to be more active global partners.

“The United

States, just like other countries, are facing budget constrictions – which are going to affect the future,” Panetta told

reporters at a news conference in Brazil. “And what we believe is that the best way to approach the future is to develop

partnerships, alliances, to develop relationships with other countries, share information, share assistance, share

capabilities, and in that way we can provide greater security for the future.”

Panetta would also like to see the

South American countries use their greater military capability to train some of the Central American countries that are not

as advanced.

All three defense chiefs – Juan Camillo Pinzon of Colombia, Celso Amorim of Brazil and Andres Allamand of

Chile – brought up cyber threats as a major concern for their countries, including incidents of hacker attacks and data

thefts, the U.S. defense officials said as they flew home from Chile, the last stop on the trip.

The three countries,

said one of the officials, want help from the U.S. in hardening their computer networks against breaches and increasing their

technological skills. The official said there is a recognition of how vulnerable they are, and they want to learn more about

the nature of the threat and how to combat it.

That threat, however, is also likely to involve China, which is

steadily gaining as a top trading partner and economic developer in South America. It’s surpassing the U.S. in trade with

Brazil, Chile and Peru, and is a close second in Argentina and Colombia.

For the first time, U.S. intelligence

officials publicly called out China late last year as a significant cyber threat. While they did not directly tie attacks to

the Beijing government, they said the Chinese are systematically stealing American high-tech data for their own economic

gain. The unusually forceful public report seemed to signal a new, more vocal U.S. government campaign against the

cyberattacks, which could also involve helping other nations combat similar threats.

The Pentagon’s clandestine

National Security Agency is an acknowledged world leader in cyber technologies. And U.S. officials have been struggling to

work out ways for the government to help other nations as well as the private sector in the United States shore up critical

networks.

To date, however, countries around the world have not been able to come up with any detailed agreements on

how best to work together. Cyber issues are fraught with legal and political challenges, including conflicting laws and the

lack of broadly accepted international guidelines for Internet oversight.

Panetta made it clear as he traveled across

the continent that cybersecurity was “a whole new arena” that all the nations are concerned about. He also encouraged the

South American nations to expand their security efforts to other regions, including Africa.

“The United States must

remain a global power,” Panetta said during a speech in Brazil. “But … more and more nations are making and must make an

important contribution to global security. We welcome and encourage this new reality because frankly it makes the world safer

and all of our nations stronger.”