AIDING COLOMBIA’S COUNTERINSURGENCY FIGHT
and maintenance capability for all of the helicopters matured through the employ- ment of DynCorp International Inc. and the training of Colombian military mechanics and maintainers. Tis meant that, beginning in 2003, when a helicop- ter went down anywhere in the country, it could be extracted and repaired in most cases within the borders of Colombia by Colombians. Before the PCHP, when a helicopter went down, it stayed down.
U.S. and Colombian military forces collaborated to establish a Colombian intelligence capability that was fully integrated with the overall security and antinarcotics strategy of Plan Colom- bia and supported offensive operations against FARC. When word was received on high-value FARC or other irregular army key operatives, the intelligence would be fed to the Combined Air Oper- ations Center. Concurrently, an aircraft with a precision guided missile would be sent to hit the target and a special forces team would be dispatched on a UH-60L helicopter from the Army Avia- tion Brigade.
Once the missile hit, helicopters deliv- ered special forces troops with members of the National Police to clean up the impacted area and secure enemy combat- ants as well as any materials that might provide intelligence information. Using this approach, from 2007 to 2011, more than 80 high-value targets were taken out, including members of the “secretar- iat” that runs the entire organization. Te successful operations to take out these individuals acted as a marketing tool, capturing the enthusiasm and support of the Colombian people and shifting momentum from FARC to the Colom- bian government.
Te additional rotary-wing and intel- ligence assets provided through U.S.
INSURGENCY WANES
The maps represent levels of insurgent activity in Colombia in 2002 and 2010. The red areas rep- resent moderate insurgent activity, while the purple areas represent high levels of activity. (Images courtesy of DASA(DE&C))
assistance had intangible benefits as well. One of the major stumbling blocks to success against FARC was that the Colombian military was casualty-averse, in that it lacked consistent, reliable means of rapid extraction or support during counterinsurgency operations. Tis capa- bility gap made troops hesitant to remain in remote areas after an offensive. Te full capability of the PCHP-augmented Army Aviation Brigade was effectively employed at arguably the exact time it was needed in the context of the counterinsurgency strategy, at the beginning of 2004.
In addition to an offensive capability, the PCHP gave the military on-demand defensive
capabilities of air support,
MEDEVAC and extraction from any point
in Colombia within an hour. A
national logistics pipeline and a world- class training pipeline were also in place so that the military could fully employ the rotary-wing capabilities. With the composite of these capabilities in place, the newly transformed counterinsurgent military could now mass and overwhelm
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the insurgents in any location of the country, no matter how remote, with an hour’s notice. Te insurgents lost the advantage of being able to dominate remote and challenging terrain.
CONCLUSION Te decisive capability provided by the PCHP was not the only ingredient in facilitating these Colombian successes, but it was an essential component. Without the use of PCHP to achieve asymmetric military dominance starting in 2004, the Colombians would have had a very diffi- cult time advancing with their operations to secure villages, highways and mobility corridors, let alone taking on the insur- gents in remote regions of the country.
Today, the enduring and decisive capa- bility that the PCHP has provided to the Colombians,
in combination with
multisource, actionable intelligence, has resulted in an asymmetrically dominant deterrent capability whereby the insur- gents have no sanctuary as individuals or units. Tis enhanced deterrence has
Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2015
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