NATO’s 800-mile border in South America
The website of NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium featured a story on Bastille Day in which it interviewed a French chief petty officer with the SHAPE military police.
SHAPE had been based in France until the government of President Charles de Gaulle evicted it in 1967 when the head of state withdrew his nation from NATO’s integrated military structure.
The interview was unremarkable until the Frenchman was asked what were some aspects of France that outsiders (and perhaps not a few insiders) might not know. He said that France is a large country – no revelation there – and that metropolitan Paris is the largest urban area in Western Europe.
He also reminded readers that France borders seven countries: Andorra, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland. Borders seven countries in Europe, that is. The officer surprised not a few readers, certainly, when he said the longest border France has with any country is with Brazil: some 450 miles. That’s how long the boundary is between Brazil and France’s overseas territory of French Guiana, which also borders Suriname (former Dutch Guiana). France’s border with the latter is 345 miles.
Earlier this year U.S. Southern Command held an Allies Conference 2021 with representatives of the Pentagon and opposite numbers from Britain, Canada, France and the Netherlands, all fellow founding members of NATO.
In 2006 the Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG-1) entered the Caribbean Sea for the first time to pay port visits to fellow NATO members’ possessions and engage in exercises with the owners.
The preceding year then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused NATO of planning an invasion of his nation under the code name of Operation Balboa.
In 2018 Colombia was brought into NATO’s Partners Across the Globe.
NATO is no stranger to the Western Hemisphere.
In addition to Canada and the continental U.S., which provides NATO a 2,000-mile border with Mexico, other NATO possessions in the New World include:
Britain: Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands.
France: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint Pierre and Saint Martin.
The Netherlands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten.
The U.S.: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
French Guiana is home to France’s Guiana Space Centre, which is also used by its NATO allies, and is alternately known as Europe’s Spaceport.
It’s not only the Americas from the Arctic Circle to South America that is NATO territory; there is a continent to the east of French Guiana at which former colonial masters Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Turkey – all NATO members- cast a covetous glance.
The French petty officer cited above also celebrated the fact that this year’s Bastille Day parade included troops with the Takuba Task Force, a military force in Mali led by France and consisting of conventional and special operations forces from NATO members Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal and from NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner Sweden.
NATO and its constituent nations are active most everywhere nowadays.
Anti-bellum 
Military/ Corporate/ Government complexes have become a 21 century status quo and are gobbling up the planet at an accelerating pace. As Bush stated “You are either with us or against us”.
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About French Guinea & Martinique. In November 2019 the Canadian Army Today magazine in an article “Welcome to the jungle” reported that in October, a Canadian combat unit, 3rd Battalion, Royal 22e Regiment (3 R22eR) from Valcartier, Quebec, had trained in jungle warfare in French Guinea, colony of NATO bloc member France. Its Centre d’entraînement à la forêt équatoriale (CEFE) is under the direction of the Foreign Legion, which operates a similar centre in Martinique. They participated in an exercise called Ex Spartiate Equatoriale.
In 2013, the Brazilian and Canadian armies concluded an agreement that has seen a Brazilian exchange officer sent north to Canadian Army Advanced Warfare Centre (CAAWC) in Trenton on a two-year secondment to help develop jungle warfare doctrine. The aim is to “develop its jungle warfare doctrine and train future specialists.” It notes that “Jungle warfare is a particular specialty of the Brazilian Army.” The agreement is specifically with Centro de Instrução de Guerra na Selva (CIGS), the Brazilian Army’s jungle warfare school located in the city of Manaus, far up the Amazon in the jungle.
Since 2016, a section-sized group from 3 R22eR has travelled to Manaus each year to take part in a jungle warfare competition at the centre. (The Canadian and Brazilian armies recently renewed this agreement for another four years.)
There are no jungles in Canada.
“The immediate purpose of the program was to give the soldiers on the course firsthand experience operating in a jungle environment—not something available in Valcartier or indeed anywhere in Canada.
“The larger goal… was to build skills and expertise to deliver future capability. Through courses like this, and drawing on the experience of experts like Souza Campos and others, the Army wants to create a pool of experts and a written doctrine to guide them so that if it is ever committed to serving in the jungle, soldiers will be ready.”
As noted in your article, the French bases are part of a series of important bases and installations throughout the Americas maintained by the European colonial powers stretching from Suffield in Alberta, a tank range which hosts the largest overseas British deployment in the world, to the Malvinas (Falklands) and Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
https://canadianarmytoday.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/
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