How strong are Latin America’s military forces, as they face US threats?
Over the weekend, the United States carried out a large-scale military strike against Venezuela and abducted President Nicolas Maduro in a major escalation that sent shockwaves across Latin America. On Monday morning, US President Donald Trump doubled down, threatening action against the governments of Colombia, Cuba and Mexico unless they “get their act together”, claiming he is countering drug trafficking and securing US interests in the Western Hemisphere. The remarks revive deep tensions over US interference in Latin America. Many of the governments targeted by Trump have little appetite for Washington’s involvement, but their armed forces lack the capacity to keep the US at arm’s length. US President Donald Trump issues warnings to Colombia, Cuba and Mexico while speaking to reporters on Air Force One while returning from his Florida estate to Washington, DC, on January 4, 2026 [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters] Latin America’s military capabilities The US has the strongest military in the world and spends more on its military than the total budgets of the next 10 largest military spenders combined. In 2025, the US defence budget was $895bn, roughly 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product. According to the 2025 Global Firepower rankings, Brazil has the most powerful military in Latin America and is ranked 11th globally. Mexico ranks 32nd globally, Colombia 46th, Venezuela 50th and Cuba 67th. All of these countries are significantly below the US military in all metrics, including the number of active personnel, military aircraft, combat tanks, naval assets and their military budgets. Advertisement In a standard war involving tanks, planes and naval power, the US maintains overwhelming superiority. The only notable metric that these countries have over the US is their paramilitary forces, which operate alongside the regular armed forces, often using asymmetrical warfare and unconventional tactics against conventional military strategies. (Al Jazeera) Paramilitaries across Latin America Several Latin American countries have long histories of paramilitary and irregular armed groups that have often played a role in the internal security of these countries. These groups are typically armed, organised and politically influential but operate outside the regular military chain of command. Cuba has the world’s third largest paramilitary force, made up of more than 1.14 million members, as reported by Global Firepower. These groups include state-controlled militias and neighbourhood defence committees. The largest of these, the Territorial Troops Militia, serves as a civilian reserve aimed at assisting the regular army against external threats or during internal crises. In Venezuela, members of pro-government armed civilian groups known as “colectivos” have been accused of enforcing political control and intimidating opponents. Although not formally part of the armed forces, they are widely seen as operating with state tolerance or support, particularly during periods of unrest under Maduro. In Colombia, right-wing paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s to fight left-wing rebels. Although officially demobilised in the mid-2000s, many later re-emerged as criminal or neo-paramilitary organisations, remaining active in rural areas. The earliest groups were organised with the involvement of the Colombian military following guidance from US counterinsurgency advisers during the Cold War. In Mexico, heavily armed drug cartels function as de facto paramilitary forces. Groups such as the Zetas, originally formed by former soldiers, possess military-grade weapons and exercise territorial control, often outgunning local police and challenging the state’s authority. The Mexican military has increasingly been deployed in law enforcement roles in response. History of US interference in Latin America Over the past two centuries, the US has repeatedly interfered in Latin America. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the so-called Banana Wars saw US forces deployed across Central America to protect corporate interests. In 1934, President Franklin D Roosevelt introduced the “Good Neighbor Policy”, pledging nonintervention. Advertisement Yet during the Cold War, the US financed operations to overthrow elected governments, often coordinated by the CIA, founded in 1947. Panama is the only Latin American country the US has formally invaded, which occurred in 1989 under President George HW Bush. “Operation Just Cause” ostensibly was aimed at removing President Manuel Noriega, who was later convicted of drug trafficking and other offences. Adblock test (Why?)
Israeli forces kill two in Lebanon, ahead of truce monitors meeting
Representatives from France, Israel, Lebanon, the US and UN tracking the ceasefire are due to meet amid Israeli attacks. Israeli forces have killed two people in southern Lebanon a day before a committee monitoring a yearlong ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was due to hold its next meeting. Lebanon’s NNA news agency said two people were killed in the Israeli attack on a house in south Lebanon’s Kfar Dunin in Bint Jbeil on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The Israeli military said in a statement that it struck two Hezbollah operatives in the area, accusing one of being “an engineering terrorist in a structure that facilitated the organisation’s reestablishment efforts”. The attacks come as the committee monitoring the ceasefire, which includes representatives from France, Israel, Lebanon, the United States, and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) prepared to meet on Wednesday. Israeli attacks have killed more than 300 people in Lebanon since the November 2024 ceasefire, including at least 127 civilians. Israeli forces bombarded several parts of Lebanon, killing at least two other people earlier this week, and ordered the forced evacuation of at least four villages in the south and east of the country. Another overnight attack reduced a multistorey building to rubble in an industrial area of Ghaziyeh town, near the coastal city of Sidon, according to a video verified by Al Jazeera and a photographer from the AFP news agency. In a statement earlier on Tuesday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said, “Israel’s continued attacks aim to thwart all efforts made locally, regionally and internationally to stop the ongoing Israeli escalation, despite the response shown by Lebanon to these efforts at various levels”. Advertisement Beirut-based security affairs analyst Ali Rizk told Al Jazeera the recent attacks come as no surprise following last week’s meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “There had been reports that Israel got a green light to escalate against Hezbollah,” Rizk told Al Jazeera. ‘Difficult and dangerous conditions’ The spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, told a media briefing in New York on Tuesday that Israeli attacks are continuing in close proximity to UNIFIL peacekeepers stationed along the Blue Line, which demarcates the de facto border between Israel, Lebanon, and the occupied Golan Heights. “We are aware that Israeli strikes carried out late Monday night following evacuation orders on targets, reportedly linked to Hezbollah and Hamas,” Dujarric said. “The strikes occurred in areas north of the Litani River, including in western Bekaa, in Lebanese territory in southern Lebanon.” Dujarric added that the UNIFIL peacekeepers detected “three air strikes in their areas of operations” on Monday as well as “several fighter aircraft activities above UNIFIL.” “In addition, our peacekeepers reported multiple instances of direct fire originating from [Israeli army] positions south of the Blue Line, including small arms fire impacting the Kfar Shouba area, a Merkava tank fire near Shab’a, and a small arms fire impacting near a UN position near Kfar Shouba,” Dujarric said. UN Undersecretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who is visiting Lebanon currently, said on X that he met with UNIFIL peacekeepers who are “carrying out their mandated tasks under increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions”. Lacroix is set to meet Lebanese officials on Wednesday. Later this week, Lebanon’s cabinet will convene to discuss the army’s progress in disarming Hezbollah, a plan launched under heavy US pressure and amid fears of expanded Israeli strikes. The army was expected to complete the disarmament south of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the border with Israel, by the end of 2025, before tackling the rest of the country. In his statement, Aoun said the government’s plan to “extend its authority over the south of the Litani” has been “implemented by the Lebanese army with professionalism, commitment and precision”. Adblock test (Why?)
Who is Banojyotsna Lahiri? Jailed student activist and JNU alumni Umar Khalid’s partner; shared his response over SC ruling
Student activist and JNU alumni Umar Khalid was denied bail by the Supreme Court in the 2020 Delhi riots CAA protest case on Monday. Hours after the SC decision, Umar Khalid’s girlfriend Banojyotsna Lahiri shared a brief and private conversation between them. She is Khalid’s long-term partner.
Haridwar to be linked with Delhi-Dehradun economic corridor, work on railway over bridge accelerates, check details
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MCD demolition drive near Delhi mosque turns violent, stone pelting, tear gas fired, 5 cops injured
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Delhi-NCR shivers as cold wave peaks, schools closed, AQI slips to ‘very poor’ category; IMD predicts North India to witness…
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TribCast: 10 questions that will shape Texas politics in 2026
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Wyoming Supreme Court rules laws restricting abortion violate state constitution
The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a pair of laws restricting abortion access violate the state constitution, including the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills. The court, in a 4-1 ruling, sided with the state’s only abortion clinic and others who had sued over the abortion bans passed since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which returned the power to make laws on abortion back to the states. Despite Wyoming being one of the most conservative states, the ruling handed down by justices who were all appointed by Republican governors upheld every previous lower court ruling that the abortion bans violated the state constitution. Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women, including two obstetricians, argued that the laws violated a state constitutional amendment affirming that competent adults have the right to make their own health care decisions. TRUMP URGES GOP TO BE ‘FLEXIBLE’ ON HYDE AMENDMENT, IGNITING BACKLASH FROM PRO-LIFE ALLIES Voters approved the constitutional amendment in 2012 in response to the federal Affordable Care Act, which is also known as Obamacare. The justices in Wyoming found that the amendment was not written to apply to abortion but noted that it is not their job to “add words” to the state constitution. “But lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue,” the justices wrote. Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement that the ruling upholds abortion as “essential health care” that should not be met with government interference. “Our clinic will remain open and ready to provide compassionate reproductive health care, including abortions, and our patients in Wyoming will be able to obtain this care without having to travel out of state,” Burkhart said. Wellspring Health Access opened as the only clinic in the state to offer surgical abortions in 2023, a year after a firebombing stopped construction and delayed its opening. A woman is serving a five-year prison sentence after she admitted to breaking in and lighting gasoline that she poured over the clinic floors. Attorneys representing the state had argued that abortion cannot violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not a form of health care. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon expressed disappointment in the ruling and called on state lawmakers meeting later this winter to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion that residents could vote on this fall. An amendment like that would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced as a nonbudget matter in the monthlong legislative session that will primarily address the state budget, although it would have significant support in the Republican-dominated legislature. “This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself. It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote,” Gordon said in a statement. APPEALS COURT SIDES WITH TRUMP ON BUDGET PROVISION CUTTING PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDS One of the laws overturned by the state’s high court attempted to ban abortion, but with exceptions in cases where it is needed to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases of rape or incest. The other law would have made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, although other states have implemented de facto bans on abortion medication by broadly restricting abortion. Abortion has remained legal in the state since Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens blocked the bans while the lawsuit challenging the restrictions moved forward. Owens struck down the laws as unconstitutional in 2024. Last year, Wyoming passed additional laws requiring abortion clinics to be licensed surgical centers and women to receive ultrasounds before having medication abortions. A judge in a separate lawsuit blocked those laws from taking effect while that case moves forward. The Associated Press contributed to this report.