United States Southern Command

The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Miami, Florida, is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands (COCOMs) in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providing contingency planning and operations in Central and South America, the Caribbean (except U.S. commonwealths, territories, and possessions), Cuba, their territorial waters, and for the force of U.S. military resources at these locations. USSOUTHCOM is also responsible for ensuring the militarization of the Panama Canal and canal area.

Under the leadership of a four-star Commander, USSOUTHCOM is organized into a headquarters with six main directorates, component commands and military groups that represent SOUTHCOM in the region of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The current commander is General Douglas M. Fraser, USAF.

USSOUTHCOM is a joint command of more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel representing the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and several other federal agencies. Civilians working at USSOUTHCOM are, for the most part, civilian employees of the Army, as the Army is USSOUTHCOM's Combatant Command Support Agent. The Services provide USSOUTHCOM with component commands which, along with their Joint Special Operations component, two Joint Task Forces, one Joint Interagency Task Force, and Security Cooperation Offices, perform USSOUTHCOM missions and activities. USSOUTHCOM exercises its COCOM authority through the commanders of its components, Joint Task Forces/Joint Interagency Task Force, and Security Cooperation Organizations.

Read more about United States Southern Command:  Area of Interest, Components, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief, History, Transformation of U.S. Southern Command To An Interagency-Oriented Organization

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, southern and/or command:

    “Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada are the horns, the head, the neck, the shins, and the hoof of the ox, and the United States are the ribs, the sirloin, the kidneys, and the rest of the body.”
    —William Cobbett (1762–1835)

    “When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “... there is a place in the United States for the Negro. They are real American citizens, and at home. They have fought and bled and died, like men, to make this country what it is. And if they have got to suffer and die, and be lynched, and tortured, and burned at the stake, I say they are at home.”
    —Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915)

    “If the study of his images
    Is the study of man, this image of Saturday,
    This Italian symbol, this Southern landscape, is like
    A waking, as in images we awake,
    Within the very object that we seek,
    Participants of its being.”
    —Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
    —Bible: New Testament, Matthew 4:3.

    Tempter to Jesus.