U.S. and Brazilian army soldiers kicked off exercise Southern Vanguard 22 in Lorena, São Paulo, Brazil on December 6. Southern Vanguard — called CORE 21 in Brazil — is a U.S. Southern Command-sponsored, U.S. Army South-conducted exercise at the operational and tactical levels designed to increase interoperability between U.S. and Western Hemisphere forces. Diálogo spoke with Major General William L. Thigpen, U.S. Army South commanding general, about this combined exercise.

…Diálogo: Can you provide more details on the U.S. participation in the exercise?

Maj. Gen. Thigpen: These exercises vary in scale. This one is conducted at the company level, where we have 152 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division participating. We also have 31 soldiers from Army South who are facilitating some of the support structure to make it happen.

…Diálogo: Is there a plan to add a cyber piece to this exercise between now and 2028?

Maj. Gen. Thigpen: No, this exercise currently, as it exists, is for tactical air mobile air assault operations, which is a means of deploying soldiers into an operation by helicopter. And then, of course, they would go on to ground tactical execution of a ground tactical plan. So right now, we are not focused on the cyber aspect of warfare.