Without participation since 2019 by instruction of the then government of Alberto Fernández, Argentina – through a DNU signed by Javier Milei and his ministers – will participate again in the UNITAS LXV 2024 exercise which will take place from September 2 to 12 in Chilean territorial waters off the coasts of Coquimbo, Valparaíso and Punta Arenas. This year, it brings together more than 4,300 sailors from 24 countries with 17 ships, two submarines, more than 20 aircraft with marine infantry and special forces equipment.
The navies of Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad-Tobago, and Uruguay will also participate. Guests will include Germany, South Korea, France, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The naval forces will be trained in electronic warfare, anti-submarine, air defense, maritime interdiction, amphibious and special forces operations, as well as cyber defense.
The UNITAS naval exercise was launched at the request of the United States Navy in 1959 and within the framework of the TIAR (Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance). It was part of the dominant vision of the conflict, the threat of the former USSR in the Cold War. Later, it modified its objective towards strategic concerns of an uncertain world in threats to the security of the region.
For many years since its creation, Argentina was one of the pillars in the organization of UNITAS And among the countries with the most uninterrupted participation are Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela (until the advent of Chavismo). The last edition in which Argentina participated was in UNITAS LX in 2019, with the deployment to Ecuador of the destroyer ARA Almirante Brown and the transport ARA Bahía San Blas.
In later years, the Navy was left out of UNITAS. In 2020, the Covid emergency forced participants to use virtual formats (chosen by the Argentine Navy, Brazil, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and France as observers), but the traditional format was maintained with the presence of warships (Ecuador, the host country, Colombia, the United States and Peru).
In 2021, with Peru as the host country, the departure of two warships, the ocean patrol vessel ARA Bouchard and the destroyer ARA Sarandí, had to be cancelled due to the lack of authorization from the National Congress for the ships to deploy to foreign waters, apathy of politics.
In 2022, Brazil will be the host country and in 2023, Colombia will be the organizer, the Argentine Navy, despite having agreed to participate, did not take part in the exercise by decision of the Ministry of Defense. Jorge Taiana, then minister, decided to cancel the naval deployment in the presence of British ships invited to both editions of UNITAS.
Decision by DNU
Now by DNU N°774/24 of President Javier Milei signed by Guillermo Francos, Diana Mondino, Luis Petri, Luis Caputo, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, Patricia Bullrich, Mario Russo, Sandra Pettovello and Federico Sturzenegger, the high naval command sent to the UNITAS LXV naval exercise organized by Chile, the ARA Sarandí destroyer with a Fennec helicopter on board plus a group of special forces and rescue divers.
The return of the Navy to an essential maneuver for combined training in tactics and procedures with navies from countries in the region overcame a certain vision of political isolationism that vetoed participation in the presence of British warships as guests.
The icebreaker HMS Protector The absence of a British Navy ship at UNITAS 24 will not be an obstacle to the training of the national navy with its peers in the region. The ship is returning to the southern hemisphere after setting sail last week from the US Navy’s Norfolk Naval Station following a deployment in the Canadian Arctic.
The exchange of naval exercises benefits interoperability, which is applied, for example, in peacekeeping missions. The Argentine Task Force with members of the Army, Navy and Air Force deployed in the peacekeeping mission in Cyprus is currently interacting with British soldiers under the UN flag.
Argentina and the United Kingdom are the two largest contributors of Blue Helmets personnel and assets (armoured vehicles, helicopters and trucks) to the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission, which was established in 1964 to prevent hostilities between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities facing a territorial dispute.
Source: Ambito
