Joint Task Force Bravo

In the early 1980s, the United States looked to counter spreading communism and growing Soviet influence in Central America. In 1982, Honduran authorities began negotiations with the U.S. to grant access to naval and air facilities. By 1983, the United States was expanding the airfield at Palmerola Air Force Base (later renamed Enrique Soto Cano Air Base) which included a US Special Forces Regional Military Training Center. That year Congress authorized the creation of a joint task force based out of the air base to command and control the various exercises and training missions being conducted throughout Central America, primarily to counter Soviet or communist activities in Nicaragua and Honduras. Originally established as Joint Task Force-11, the organization was briefly renamed Joint Task Force Alpha (JTF-A) to avoid confusion with the similarly named U.S. Navy Task Force 11 that operated during World War II. Finally designated JTF-Bravo and assigned to U.S. Southern Command, the organization supported U.S. security efforts in Central America including training and advisory support for Honduran and Guatemalan armed forces and some indirect support for Nicaraguan Contras. Low Intensity Conflict (LIC doctrine) operations included improving in-country logistics support and infrastructure improvements building roads and ports while also providing Army engineering units training unavailable in Conus. Support of Honduran Forces included repelling Nicaraguan forces that invaded the Honduran Las Vegas Salient in 1987 and again in 1988. See Operation Golden Pheasant. By 1987, JTF-Bravo had over 1,000 assigned personnel.

As regional wars subsided and the Soviet threat dissolved in the late-1980s, the threat of narco-trafficking expanded dramatically. The DoD responded by refocusing JTF-Bravo to provide support to U.S. and partner nation law enforcement agency counter drug operations. Furthermore, in order to reinforce the efforts of Central American nations recovering from the violence of the previous decade, the JTF was employed to provide a "soft power" approach by providing humanitarian assistance in the region. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, JTF-Bravo responded to dozens of crises and contingencies throughout Central America. In the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, JTF-Bravo played a vital role in civilian search and rescue efforts as well as supporting host governments' post-disaster recovery operations. Other examples of humanitarian aid rendered by JTF-Bravo include relief missions responding to Hurricane Stan in Guatemala in October 2005, Hurricane Beta and Hurricane Gamma in Honduras in November 2005, a medical mission to León, Nicaragua in September 2006 in response to widespread alcohol poisoning, and a relief effort in response to massive flooding in Colón, Panama in November 2006. In August 2007 JTF Bravo dispatched teams to Peru in response to an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.[1] JTF-Bravo also sent a team to Belize following Hurricane Dean.[2] In September a teams was sent to aid Honduras and Nicaragua following Hurricane Felix.[3] In September 2008, JTF-Bravo sent a team of medical professionals to the border of Costa Rica and Panama to participate in a three-day medical readiness exercise. While in November of that year a team was dispatched to assist with flood relief in Costa Rica and Panama.[4] In January 2009 members from JTF-B returned to Costa Rica and in conjunction with USAID assisted with relief and recovery efforts following a 6.1 magnitude earthquake.[5] Recent humanitarian projects have included medical readiness exercises in the Mosquita Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as in Costa Rica. JTF-Bravo has also supported firefighting efforts in Tela, Honduras and in the Darien Province, Panama, and assisted humanitarian efforts in Haiti following Hurricane Matthew.

In response to the current operational environment in CENTAM, USSOUTHCOM developed a "network based approach" to counter transnational and transregional threat networks and stop threats before they reach US borders, destabilize partners, or undermine security of the Western Hemisphere. Seeking to defeat a network with a network, the approach centers on using non-threat networks (military, interagency, partner nation, civil, etc.) to oppose illicit networks. Shifting away from a commodity-based focus (e.g. drugs), the approach focuses on operations, actions, and activities to defeat the networks that facilitate the movement of these commodities. Based on JTF-Bravo's unique posture as the only forward deployed operational headquarters in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility combined with its three decades of relationship-building activities, the USSOUTHCOM commander designated the JTF as the regional synchronizer for all C-T3N efforts in Central America. In 2016, JTF-Bravo developed a weekly Community of Interest forum that currently brings together over 700 stakeholders from across the U.S. government to share information and intelligence, expand understanding and awareness about all network activities, and coordinate how US and partner nation activities will counter illicit operations.

In November 2020, JTF-Bravo again participated in Central American rescue and disaster relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricanes Eta and Iota.[6][7]