The United States has expanded its military operations into Ecuador, launching joint raids with Ecuadorian forces against organizations it designates as terrorist groups, primarily targeting drug cartel facilities. This marks a terrestrial escalation of the existing Operation Southern Spear, which previously involved strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
The operation follows a meeting between U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) leadership and Ecuador's president to discuss security cooperation against "narco-terrorism." Details remain unclear, including the extent of U.S. combat involvement and whether the strikes have caused civilian casualties.
The expansion occurs amidst broader, global U.S. military engagements under the Trump administration, despite campaign promises to avoid foreign wars. SOUTHCOM's role has grown significantly, though it faces internal scrutiny and allegations regarding civilian casualties from its operations.
Main topics: U.S. military expansion into Ecuador, joint counter-narco-terrorism operations, escalation of Operation Southern Spear, unclear rules of engagement and civilian impact, and the contrast between Trump's peace rhetoric and global military actions.
The United States opened a new front in its world wars, launching joint military operations against what the Trump administration calls “designated terrorist organizations” in Ecuador on Tuesday. Two government officials said it was the first of what was expected to be a larger campaign of raids.
Part of Operation Southern Spear — the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean — the expansion of America’s conflicts in Latin America comes as the U.S. is heavily engaged in fighting a new war in Iran.
“This was always going to escalate,” said one government official briefed on Southern Spear who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information. “It wasn’t going to be just boat strikes forever.”
U.S. Special Operations forces are now assisting in raids by elite Ecuadorian forces on suspected drug cartel “processing and shipping” facilities, according to a second U.S. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to restrictions on sharing the information.
It is unclear if U.S. forces are engaged in ground combat alongside their partner forces, as is common in America’s secret wars elsewhere in the world, or simply providing support in intelligence, logistics, and mission planning.
“The operations are a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” U.S. Southern Command said in a spare statement announcing the latest front in President Donald Trump’s globe-spanning wars. A short video accompanying the post on X shows footage of helicopters without context.
The military operation came a day after Marine Gen. Francis Donovan, commander of SOUTHCOM, met with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in Quito, Ecuador, to discuss “security cooperation” and “reaffirm the United States’ strong commitment to supporting the nation’s efforts to confront narco-terrorism and strengthen regional security.” He teased the possibility the U.S. would “expand” its military ties with the South American nation.
“Ecuador is one of the United States’ strongest partners in disrupting and dismantling Designated Terrorist Organizations in the region,” said Donovan. “The Ecuadorian people have witnessed firsthand the terror, violence, and corruption that these narco-terrorists inflict on communities across the region.”
In classified briefings, beginning last fall, military officials hinted at the boat strikes expanding into a terrestrial campaign. In December, Trump said such strikes were imminent. “Now we’re starting by land, and by land is a lot easier, and that’s going to start happening,” he said. “It’s land strikes on horrible people.”
SOUTHCOM refused to provide additional information about the attack in Ecuador, including whether the strikes added to the more than 150 civilians killed in U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific since September.
SOUTHCOM — once an overlooked command — came to prominence late last year when it began taking credit for strikes carried out by the secretive Joint Special Operations Command. Donovan’s predecessor, former commander Adm. Alvin Holsey, who was functionally overseeing the operation, suddenly stepped down, retiring less than a year into his tenure as head of the command, reportedly over the attacks.
Investigations by The Intercept found that SOUTHCOM has been unable to cope with the volume of civilian casualty reports stemming from the January mission to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and has also left survivors of the boat strikes to drown.
For a president who ran for office promising to keep the United States out of wars, claims to be a “peacemaker,” has campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize, and founded a so-called Board of Peace, Trump is conducting wars across the globe at a furious clip. During his second term Trump has already launched attacks on Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and on civilians in boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration also claims to be at war with at least 24 cartels and criminal gangs it will not name and has also threatened Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, Iceland, and Mexico.
The administration is reorienting the U.S. military toward power projection in the Western Hemisphere as part of what Trump and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine” — a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. While President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Trump has wielded his variant as a license for America to do exactly that.
Last month, Donovan and other U.S. viceroys traveled to Venezuela, where the United States now rules via a puppet regime. A short press release said Donovan and the others “reiterated the United States’ commitment to a free, safe and prosperous Venezuela for the Venezuelan people.”
Last year, the Trump administration released a National Security Strategy including a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which it says promises a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere … and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”
The office of the secretary of war did not respond to a request for additional information on America’s growing number of wars in the Western Hemisphere. One of the officials who provided The Intercept with further information on the Tuesday attack in Ecuador at one point mistakenly referred to the operation as occurring in Venezuela. When asked for clarification, the official responded: “Yeah, sorry, it’s a lot to keep track of.”
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