Overview

• Admiral Alvin Holsey completed a three-day visit and co-hosted SOUTHDEC 2025 in Buenos Aires with Brig. Gen. Xavier Isaac, drawing defense leaders from South America and Europe alongside U.S. envoys Mike Jensen, Roosevelt Ditlevson and Joseph Kumar.
• Holsey cautioned that the Chinese Communist Party seeks to export its authoritarian model, seize strategic resources and deploy dual‑use infrastructure that could project power through the Magellan and Drake passages and challenge Antarctic neutrality.
• U.S. speakers pressed for stronger maritime-domain awareness and for armed forces to support security agencies against transnational criminal organizations, with Ditlevson stressing shared responsibility and higher defense investment by partners.
• Bilateral discussions in Buenos Aires covered Stryker armored vehicles, rehabilitation of the LeoLabs radar in Tierra del Fuego, information-sharing and training arrangements, alongside Argentina’s pending F‑16 fighter acquisition.
• The conference and visit coincided with an intensified U.S. regional posture, with reports of deployments under SOUTHCOM that include thousands of Marines, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, P‑8 patrol aircraft and additional naval escorts.