Pentagon watchdog reviews U.S. Southern Command airstrike targeting process

The Pentagon’s watchdog opened a review of how U.S. Southern Command approved airstrikes, probing whether commanders followed the military’s six-phase targeting process before weapons were released. The May 11 memorandum said the review was self-initiated and would test whether Defense Department components used the established Joint Targeting Cycle in the Southern Command area of responsibility.

That cycle is supposed to move in sequence from commander’s intent to target development, then intelligence analysis, the decision to strike, planning and execution, and finally assessment of results. Inspectors plan to examine those steps at the Pentagon and at U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, where they asked for two points of contact within five days of the memo.

The review lands over Operation Southern Spear, the campaign in which the military has struck nearly 60 small boats it says were carrying drugs through the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. NBC News reported that the operation destroyed 59 vessels and killed 193 people since it began last fall, a toll that has sharpened questions in Congress and inside the government about how the attacks were authorized and reviewed.

Southern Command’s public website says Gen. Francis L. Donovan assumed command on Feb. 5, 2026. The command also listed lethal kinetic strikes on May 5 and May 8, 2026. In its May 8 statement, Southern Command said two men were killed and one survivor was left after a vessel strike in the eastern Pacific, underscoring that the campaign continued while the watchdog review was being opened.

The investigation adds another layer of scrutiny to a program already facing legal and political pressure. NBC News reported that the senior military lawyer at Southern Command raised legal concerns in August 2025 before the strikes began in September 2025, and that those concerns were overruled. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have also questioned the legality of the strikes, especially as the military has expanded its use of lethal force against suspected drug boats far from any traditional battlefield.

For the inspector general, the central question is whether the military’s own safeguards worked as designed. The memo points directly to the chain that is supposed to constrain force, from identifying a target to reviewing the damage after the strike. What the watchdog finds at Southern Command could show whether the Pentagon’s internal policing caught mistakes before they reached the water, or whether the system let repeated strikes move forward with too little scrutiny.