RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Washington's recent expansion of ground military operations in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and other Latin American countries represents an "escalation of imperialism" in the region, a Brazilian political observer has warned.

Noting that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the expansion earlier this month during his visit to Panama, Jose Luiz Niemeyer, an international relations professor at Brazil's Ibmec university, said the move marks a qualitative leap in Washington's interventionist policy, extending to ground operations the same approach it has used to strike boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

"It is an extremely concerning move and, unfortunately, is in keeping with the U.S. historical approach to our region," Niemeyer said in an interview with Xinhua.

The United States is using the fight against drug trafficking not only to justify expanding its military presence, but also to impose "its security agenda without any regard for the sovereignty of Latin American countries," he said.

"The attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and the Pacific were already a unilateral action with serious human rights violations, resulting in more than 200 deaths and little presented evidence. Now, by applying that same logic to ground operations in countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala, the United States is creating a highly dangerous precedent for direct interventions in our territory," he said.

Niemeyer questioned Washington's narrative about striking agreements with allied countries, saying they ignore popular will and national laws.

"What we are seeing is pressure from Washington on governments that are mostly ideologically aligned or in a position of political and economic vulnerability," he added.

From the Monroe Doctrine to the Roosevelt Corollary to the recent "Donroe Doctrine," Latin American countries "are faced with the same logic of domination that reinvents itself throughout the centuries," Niemeyer said, describing the latter two as extension and revival of the Monroe Doctrine as Washington's guiding policy for the Western Hemisphere.

By reviving that rhetoric with a play on the name of U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington "is saying out loud that the United States feels entitled to intervene wherever it wants in the region to 'defend its hemisphere,'" he said.

"What concerns me is that this rhetoric is being accompanied by concrete actions, with training, intelligence gathering and joint operations," he said. "In the long term, this creates a military dependency that makes us hostages to Washington's volatile and aggressive foreign policy."

Recalling the history of U.S. military intervention in the region, which is "full of troubling examples," the expert urged Latin American countries to stay alert.

"The history of our region is full of examples of what happens when the United States decides to 'help' us with its armed forces: dictatorships, human rights violations, dirty wars and stunted development. Brazil, with its tradition of non-intervention, must raise its voice against this escalation that threatens the entire continent," he said.