The South American Defense Conference, or SOUTHDEC 2024, took place in Santiago, Chile over Aug. 27-29 sponsored by the U.S. Southern Command, as it has every year since 2009, but was co-hosted this year by Chile’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to Argentina’s Ambito Financiero Aug. 29. Participants at the conference, laughably entitled “How We can Leverage New Technologies for the Defense of Hemispheric Sovereignty,” included representatives from ten South American countries, and from North America, Europe and the Inter-American Defense Board, plus partner programs operating in South America, Central America and the Caribbean. U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Laura Richardson and Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, USAF Gen. C. Q. Brown also attended.
On paper, the conference focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, combating disinformation, plus “responsible AI and machine learning to improve synchronization of whole-of-government operations.” But the technological jargon was a flimsy cover for the Southern Command’s and NATO’s real agenda for the hemisphere, which has nothing to do with “defending hemispheric sovereignty.” Think regime-change, destabilization or promoting border conflicts (as in the case of Venezuela and Guyana). In her Aug. 27 opening remarks, Richardson reminded attendees “you are part of a team called ‘Team Democracy’ … committed to strengthening all of our countries’ instruments of national power … to overcome these security challenges.”
What security challenges? Underdevelopment? Lack of infrastructure, healthcare, education, jobs? No, she proclaimed. The real problem is that “authoritarian, communist governments are attempting to seize all they can here in the Western Hemisphere—operating without regard for domestic laws or international laws.” This clearly referenced Richardson’s hysterical obsession with China and its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure development program which, she insists, are taking over the hemisphere and using raw materials the U.S. thinks it should control, lying that China is sinking nations into “debt traps.” Worse, she raved, “malign state actors are increasingly using advanced technology to perpetrate corruption, disinformation campaigns, cybercrime, human rights abuses that undermine the fabric of democratic societies, and hide the truth from populations,” she went on.
She didn’t name the “malign” state actors, but the Russian Federation and Iran, which have cooperative relations with several nations, come to mind. She took the opportunity to attack Venezuela, whose government the global Project Democracy apparatus has been trying to overthrow unsuccessfully for years, including through the imposition of vicious sanctions. Venezuela is an example of how “democracy is under attack globally,” she asserted, implying—although not stating explicitly—that the “undemocratic” July 28 presidential election, in which President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory, would be a good reason to get rid of him because he is “undermining the democratic will of the Venezuelan people.” She hastened to add, however, that this problem should be resolved through “democratic, not military” means.