Big Winner of Colombia’s Election Is the U.S.

A decade ago, I spent three years as the commander of U.S. Southern Command, a vast, multiservice organization directing all military operations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Our missions included disaster relief, humanitarian operations, medical diplomacy (such as missions from Navy hospital ships), counternarcotics, strategic communications, intelligence collection and a great deal of military-to-military cooperation with 28 other nations.

But the centerpiece of my responsibility was assisting the Colombian government and military deal with the virulent insurgency that had flourished there for 50 years and had caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. It was combat in the jungles, and it was demanding fighting.