America’s War in the Americas

The footage was grainy and imprecise, the black-and-white nighttime combat visuals to which Americans have become accustomed over the past generation. Still there they were: American aircraft and American soldiers in action, another strike in defense of a nation at war. Yet this combat operation was not part of the American war with Iran, then only four days old: the announcement on March 3, followed by another on March 6, concerned American forces in Ecuador.

With the cooperation of Ecuadorian authorities, the United States attacked narco-terrorists who were reportedly a splinter faction of FARC, a guerrilla force that once sought leftist revolution in Colombia. Now having devolved into a cartel with socialist characteristics, its successors find themselves on the receiving end of American violence. The two military actions received relatively little attention in U.S. media: an air-assault infantry raid in the Andean region isn’t as telegenic as B-2s flying over Isfahan. But they just might be as portentous.

For the first time in history, beginning with the epochal Caracas raid of January 3, 2026, the U.S. Armed Forces have deliberately and programmatically entered direct combat on the South American continent. The 19th century saw a handful of gunboat-diplomacy episodes there, to be sure: the U.S. Navy landed on the Falklands once; U.S. Marines came ashore to guard against disorder in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Valparaíso; and a punitive expedition was sent to extract compensation for a Paraguayan attack on an American vessel. But these were episodic and indicative of no larger strategy on the part of the United States.

What we see now, however, is something else altogether: there is a strategy, there is engagement, and there is—in the euphemism beloved of the defense establishment—kinetic action, which does not look to be ending any time soon.