 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CSIS. My name is Peter Deschaiso. I'm the director of the America's program here, and I'm delighted to welcome you all to to our military strategy forum. This is a series of presentations with senior officials of the Department of Defense that today we're delighted and very honored to have with us General Douglas M. Fraser, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, who will be talking about non-traditional challenges from the perspective of U.S. Southcom. General Fraser comes to Southcom from the U.S. Pacific Command where he served as deputy commander from 2008 to 2009. He commanded operational units across the U.S. Air Force, including the Twelfth Fighter Squadron at Kadena Base, Japan, the 366th Operations Group at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, and the Third Wing at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. General Fraser has also been director of Air and Space Operations for Air Force Space Command from 2003 to 2005. The general is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science and also has a Master's degree in Political Science from Auburn University. He's attended other schools of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the National War College. CSIS is grateful for the sponsorship of this important series by Rolls-Royce North America. We're looking forward to today to a very important presentation by General Fraser, who will then answer questions from the audience. This discussion with General Fraser will then be followed by a panel discussion with three leading experts on the region whom you have the bio data of, and I'll introduce them when we get to that portion of the event. So, again, it's a great pleasure, great honor to introduce General Douglas M. Fraser. General. Well, it's a great pleasure for me to be with you here today. And from that introduction, you're going to wonder, how did I get selected to be the commander of the United States Southern Command with all that time spent in other locations? And the connection is I spent high school, three years in Columbia. And so it was a very formative time for me. I graduated from Colegio Nueva Granada a long time ago. And so I've had a lifelong affinity for Latin America, for the people of Latin America. And so that is my connection. And for me, I would argue it is a dream come true that I've had the opportunity to come back and serve in Latin America with Latin Americans, because I had such a rich undertaking at that time. And to further solidify that from my perspective, I had not had an opportunity to visit some of my classmates because we scattered to the corners of the earth since I, since before getting this job. And I've now had the chance to visit with them three different times. And it's like we never left high school. So there is and I bring that up because there is a close connection a close affinity that I feel and that I feel with my classmates. And so whether that had anything to do with my selection here or not, I don't know because the secretary didn't tell me what that was. But that's that's my connection to the region. And I guess I'm going to run this room. Is there somebody? Do I need to do this? I'm a military officer. I got to have PowerPoint. Okay, now I'm armed. What I want to talk to you about today is a couple of different things. One is just my perspective on the region. And you have a lot of experts who have studied and been lifelong experts in this area. So and I have not. So I bring what I think is a different set of eyes to the region. I'll give you a fairly broad overview as I look at it our mission, what we're doing from a Southern Command standpoint. I want to focus a couple of minutes at the end on Haiti, but specifically on Haiti on lessons that that I learned from our experience in supporting relief operations in Haiti and then open it up for questions. You know the region a lot better than I do. From our standpoint, I'm responsible for US military operations within this region identified by the red dotted line. That essentially means Central America, South America and the Caribbean with the exception of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, the Bahamas. Those are all part of US Northern Command's responsibilities. I put this slide up routinely with all the audiences because there is a great and enduring relationship between the United States and Latin America. And I think the things there's a lot of trade. There's a lot of demographic issues. But from my standpoint, the fact that the United States is the fifth largest Spanish speaking country in the world, the fact that for the top 10 surnames within the United States are Hispanic surnames. And that's a growing population. The estimates are by 2050 that one third of the population of the United States will be Hispanic descent. That provides a very unique connection. But I would argue also from a US perspective, we a lot of times look east west and not north south within our own hemisphere. You know that better than I do. And I've seen that as we go through. We still have a robust set of activities there. Our mission and our vision is we're both a joint and an interagency organization. I say joint because I have components of each of the services that work for me, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army, as well as the Special Operations Command. They are stationed and assigned at various parts of the US. So they're not all in Miami where our headquarters are, but they report to us on a routine basis. We do not have a large number of forces assigned to US Southern Command. Right now we're averaging five to 6000 people on any given day. The majority of those are in two locations. First, they're supporting counter drug activities in the maritime environments of the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. That's really the detection and monitoring of that illicit trafficking. And then they're supporting the the detainee operations that we run at JTF Guantanamo. And then the others that are associated with that are conducting various exercises, exchanges with our partners and military partners throughout the region. So that's where the compliment comes in. An exercise like Haiti, and I'll talk about it more as I get to it, and that is we request forces to support those activities, those crisis activities from the joint staff, from Joint Forces Command, if that's a requirement. We're also an interagency organization. We have 17 different organizations from the United States government who are resident within our headquarters. That includes intelligence organizations, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Homeland Security Investigations, formerly ICE, energy, transportation, agriculture, a pretty big mix of capabilities. Our civilian deputy, and we have a civilian deputy, is a former ambassador, a long-term Department of State employee. And so there's a real connection there. And there's a lot of support out of the Department of State for various places within our organization. So a lot of interagency support, because everywhere we go throughout the region, that's a requirement that we understand what one another are doing. Focused on security, stability, and prosperity. But we also see that we need to have the ability to be able to conduct a full spectrum of military operation. And so, much like Haiti, I was not expecting to have to respond to an earthquake in Haiti. And so, the reason I talk about this is I don't know what the next crisis is going to be. And so we need to remain prepared. That's my job. And so that's why you see the full spectrum. But I'll focus more on that on the whole of government approach, and I'll talk about that more in a minute. The pictures you see here are various activities that we conduct on a routine basis throughout the region, from providing some medical care. It's training for our folks. It provides medical assistance to countries where medical care is not as available. We have an experimental unmanned or remotely piloted vehicle that we're looking to see how we can integrate that in with our counter drug activities there, what the capacities and what that brings. You see the training with the Marines in the Dominican Republic, as well as with the Dominican helicopters. You see practice for intercepting a go fast boat with Coast Guard and some of the vessels that we provide and support the nations in the region with and then exchanges with Air Force. This happens to be proven Air Force with US F 16 flying in Utah. I talked about partnerships. This gives you an idea of all the organizations that are represented within US Southern Command. And it also gives you an idea of the countries that also provide liaison officers because it's important that we keep those connections with our partners and our understanding. So we have a robust number of organizations to help support us. We also have a lot of educational institutions from the Western Air Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to our Center for Hemispheric Defense, Inter-American Defense College and the Inter-American Air Force Academy. You can read those. So a lot of organizations that help support and build expertise, build partnership. We also look to attend similar types of venues throughout the region. Challenging conditions, you know this better than I. Poverty remains a significant issue throughout the region. Unequal wealth distribution. The top 10% has 48% of the wealth. The bottom 10% 1.6% of the wealth. And there's a very big difficulty trying to move back and forth between social classes. So that provides also ground for corruption. This is the Transparency International Index for Transparency. The higher number is the better number. And this equation as far as transparency of organizations and governments. And so it's a mixed situation as you go throughout the region. I bring these up because on the next chart, I'll talk about my primary concern within the region. And that's illicit trafficking. And I talk about that not because it's a military concern, but it's a whole of government concern. And it undermines the security and stability in the region. That then becomes a concern for me. All these factors, though, enable some of that illicit trafficking to foster and be conducted throughout the region. This is the list of the items that I focus on. I do not see a conventional military threat to the United States. From Latin America, the Caribbean. I don't see beyond that a conventional military concern or threat country to country within the region. And so we continue to engage with our partners because there are other aspects that we need to be able to support natural disasters. Haiti is the perfect example of that. But we have also responded to other situations within the region over the last year. Right after the Haiti earthquake was Chilean earthquakes. So we helped support the government of Chile. Chile was some capacity to support that relief effort, as well as rains from Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala here recently. We also provided some capacity to support them. So we never know when natural disasters are going to strike. And so the ability of us to work jointly combined on a fairly rapid basis is important because it makes a difference for all our citizens. Elicit trafficking then becomes my biggest concern. And by elicit trafficking, I mean drugs, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, bulk cash. There's even a big market in exotic animals, $82 billion a year. So there is a lot of different types of elicit trafficking that happens and it undermines the security and stability throughout the region. Columbia has been a prime example of that for a number of years. There has been a great effort to support the reduction of elicit trafficking and the impact within Columbia. It's been successful. It's not over yet. There's still a fight that continues there. Mexico on the other end, if you go to the isthmus is addressing that issue now, but the traffickers are moving in between also. And so the issue is becoming much more of a concern throughout. The connection with elicit trafficking and narco terrorism is there primarily with the FARC, as well as Cenderro Luminoso and Peru, because they're being financed through elicit trafficking issues. And so that that remains an issue that we work. Crime and urban gangs are becoming more and more of a problem, especially in Central America. There's about 100,000, at least by our estimates, gang members within, especially the northern part of Central America, that are undermining again the stability problems there. Transnational terrorism, Hezbollah, Hamas have organizations resident in the region. I don't I stay focused on it just because of I'm paid to be skeptical. What we see right now is support, financial support to parent organizations in the Middle East. I don't see any ops. I don't see anything like that. It still remains a issue and a concern for the supply they are doing. But on a skeptical basis, because the amount of elicit trafficking that happens throughout the region, the ability to move people, goods, capability across the border of the United States makes it a concern that that I will continue to monitor. The potential for mass migration remains. We didn't see any of that as a result of the earthquake in Haiti. It remains as a concern as you look to the southern borders with the United States. And so it's an area that we continue to focus on along with the Department of Homeland Security. And I talked about natural disasters. Next, I'll do that. I focus a lot on this because I think it's the concern. It's the concern that I have throughout the region. We have traditionally focused on elicit trafficking in my mind on a country by country basis. And we haven't taken a broader look at it. If you take that broader look and you see that the estimates are between the U.N. and other estimates $320 to $394 billion a year industry, that's a significant impact on all the trafficking throughout. And it is not just an issue in the Western Hemisphere. It has expanded beyond that. Demand remains high in the United States. It remains the number one consumer of drugs. This chart focuses primarily on cocaine because that's what we know the most about. But there are other drugs that are transiting also. But it's not only within the United States there are growing markets within Europe. Spain is now the highest per capita consumer of cocaine. And it's growing in the Middle East as well. If you take a kilo of cocaine out of the northern part of South America, it's about $2,200 to purchase that kilo in Columbia. When you get up to the United States, it runs $20,000 to $40,000 in the United States. You go to Europe. It's in the $70,000 to $100,000 a kilo. You go to the Middle East. It runs $120,000 to $150 per kilo. So 95% of the cocaine is still produced in the northern part of South America. Trans have been declining within Columbia, but they've been increasing in Peru, Bolivia. Peru, as the UN stated this year, is now the number one producer of coca leaf, not necessarily cocaine. And so there's a distinction there. It transits then through the maritime environments to the United States. About 60% of the cocaine produced here gets and makes it to the United States. Two means that we see, and again, this is where we have the most information, Intel derived tracks. Some of this radar supported air activity because of the success of Columbia. And seven, eight years ago, you would have seen these tracks all emanating out of Columbia because of the air bridge denial programs, the success of those programs, the traffickers have migrated to a location where they can operate. So we see most of those operating or emanating out of the southern part of Venezuela towards Spaniola and coming ashore in Honduras or Guatemala. If you look at the maritime environment, they continue to adapt. Six years ago, they would come around the Galapagos or Mexico, Guatemala as a primary first destination and then transit up through Mexico into the United States. What we're finding is go fast, remain about 40%, almost 50% of the trafficking capability in the maritime environment. You've heard about semi submersibles. We've seen a decline in the use of semi submersibles, at least of what we know over the last couple of years. They peaked 2008 and have been coming down, but you saw evidence to capture an Ecuador of a fully submersible vessel means that the traffickers are continuing to involve a four million dollar vessel built in the jungles of Ecuador as a significant undertaking with a vessel that has oxygen scrubbers, has two engines, has the ability to operate fully submersible is a significant leap in technology, if you will, can transport 10 tons of cocaine. So a significant capability. That's the first one we've seen. We don't know whether there's others. What we find this year also is on average to date we have disrupted or obtained about 100 metric tons of cocaine. That's about half of what we did last year. And we don't know why but the numbers of activities are up. So there is a change going on within the trafficking world and we're trying to catch up with that right now. So my message there is it is not just a western hemisphere issue. It is also transiting through other parts of South America into West Africa up into Europe. And we need to look at it as an enterprise and address it as an enterprise from where it's produced, how it's transited, reducing the demand and the national drug program within the United States focuses on this as a public health issue and addressing it to reduce the demand within the United States. But the traffickers are going other places. And it's significant because homicide rates in Panama, for example, because of traffickers are coming ashore. Further south on the Isthmus has increased by 80% over the last year. So there is a significant impact that the trafficking is having especially in Central America. But it's also starting to have an impact in other parts of South America. My concern is, and this is not a traditional military concern. Our job is the detection and monitoring in the maritime environments. That's what we're to do. We get intel from law enforcement, a lot of that local law enforcement. Some of it supported through US efforts as well. And then we monitored those vessels as they transit the maritime environments until we can hand them off to another law enforcement organization, whether it be national organization or international or US, who then intercepts and detains and then prosecutes those organizations. So if I go back to my earlier side and talk about the importance of partnership, the importance of interagency, it all comes through as we look at this chart. The other thing I'd like to say is this is a nontraditional threat in the way that we think about it. It doesn't respect our borders. It doesn't respect the normal institutions of government that we have grown over a number of years. And as a result of it, it is not a country by country issue. It is an issue that we all need to work together on government to government, militaries to militaries, all the organizations working together to address this issue. Because the traffickers will go where the least resistance is. And so we, as we've had success in Columbia, they moved to other places. And we have to start pressing on all sides of the balloon. So that's why I'm as concerned as I am and that's why I focus as much on illicit trafficking as I do. Where did that put my, the other things that we focus on joint and combined training operations, we've talked about that. Unitas has been in operations over 50 years now. It's a maritime exercise with the partner navies throughout the region. And it's been a long enduring exercise and continues to get great support. Another example of the exercise we conduct, we'll conduct next month an exercise with Panama, as well as our partners in the region, Panamax, a work to help support Panama in the defense of the Panama Canal just because the important infrastructure it provides. And we get support from all our military partners throughout the region. We support peacekeeping operations. As you know, a lot of the militaries within the region are supporting peacekeeping operations throughout the world to include Manusan. I'll talk about that. That's an important relationship and we work to support that. And we have an exercise also that helps. And then disaster relief. This gives you an idea of what U.S. Southern Command has done within the last couple of years as far as different situations, different crises, disasters that we have helped support. We wait and we support at the request of the governments that come in, but that we go support. So this is not a unilateral. This is supporting international efforts in this arena. Let me talk just a minute about Haiti. Haiti was a significant undertaking for us with the United States Southern Command. We went from that standing start, if you will, of roughly about, I think we had 7,000 people assigned to the United States Southern Command on the 12th of January. And within two and a half weeks, we had 19 ships. We had almost 22, a little over 22,000 people supporting relief efforts. And about 7,000 of those just under were on shore in Haiti. We brought a lot of capacity and from my standpoint, my focus was on a couple of different areas because there's a lot of support, a lot of supplies that come with any disaster, especially one of the magnitude that happened in Haiti. So because the airport and the tower at the airport had become non-functional and it was the real lifeline we had for the 3 million people affected in Port-au-Prince and the fact that the port had been largely disabled, we needed to have the ability to get goods across the shore. So we need to make sure that the airport was operating and we had to have flexibility for whatever situation we found and that's what we looked to support. So that's why we asked the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to come down and it provided helicopter support that we didn't have to burden the airfield with the fuel, with the maintenance, with the activity that happened on the airfield. We asked for support from marine amphibious groups and expeditionary groups because they have the capacity to move goods from ships to shore and I didn't know what other capacity we were going to have and they had the ability to do that plus they had the flexibility to move wherever there was going to be a problem. The hospital ship comfort was not set to sail and it responded in a record time and provided great capacity as well. But a significant undertaking for the United States Southern Command. So what does that mean for me? Situational awareness. We did not know what the situation on the ground was in Haiti so we made a lot of effort to coordinate and build capacities that we could gain that situational awareness. A lot of non-traditional means if you will for gathering that information. There's a lot of NGOs who work there, there's business people who work there, there's church groups, so religious groups, wherever we could find information was where we were looking to gain that awareness so we could put the right capacity at the right place all in coordination with the government of Haiti and the United Nations. Significant undertaking will be a significant undertaking no matter where we go and so we're continuing to try and support that effort with a SharePoint website that we're working with all our partner militaries throughout the region to try and build the capacity that we can share information on a routine basis so that when a crisis happens we already know how to share information. Unity of effort. There were a lot of organizations associated response to Haiti from a thousand different NGOs to different organizations out of the UN and so being able to pull all those pieces together, coordinate it, make sure we have a coordinated effort was significant. Our job was to support the lead federal agency from the United States, US agency for international development. So it is a significant effort and we can't take it for granted that we all know how to do it because we all have our own individual ways of supporting efforts and it's something that is very important in every instance in a crisis. Information sharing, I talked about that. There are some new capabilities that are out there. In fact, Google provided 25 Android handheld devices. We gave those to our soldiers and so our soldiers could go out to a location where there was a destroyed building or there was a blocked canal. There was an issue where we need to understand what the situation was. They could take a picture, it would come back into Google Earth, geo rectified so we knew exactly the location but it's instant awareness of what's going on on the ground. Those capacities, those capabilities are important in crisis to understand what's going on. We found that there were hospitals that actually had capability and we didn't know about that until we were able to get everybody up on a SharePoint and people start reporting what their capacities were. So information sharing in a crisis is a critical requirement. I talk a logistics balance and that is the normal tendency is to send whatever we think is the right thing and just flood the situation. Haiti, it was critical because we had a very, very small pipe. We had a single runway airport that could support 140 flights a day. That was a maximum. We had a 10-day waiting list of flights to get in at the max of this. We weren't having any ships that were coming in. As you look to support from the Dominican Republic, it was a 12 to 16 hour drive because of all the traffic and yet we had ports that were clogged. We had airports were clogged because there wasn't an organization on the other end to take some of the goods that were delivered. So balancing the logistics demands in a crisis when there are limited capacities is an important endeavor and it gets back to the information sharing that I talked about. And then we need to talk with everybody. We need to let everybody know what's going on, what the situations are, where we need help, what kind of help we need, just a continuous communication because it helps everybody understand what assistance is there, what assistance is coming when it will come. And so again it's a dynamic situation that requires that support no matter what. And so at a high level, those are the key things that I took away from our support to Haiti. And we continue to work with all the US government agencies as well as the United Nations in supporting the continuing efforts in Haiti. Right now we from a US military have gone back to traditional support to Haiti. And our traditional support means we support the Haitian Coast Guard because there is no military in Haiti and so we don't support non-military organizations. And so we support the National Guard but we have about 500 people in Gonaive right now doing what we call New Horizons. They're repairing schools, they're building schools, they're providing medical assistance, a traditional exercise that we conduct not only in Haiti but throughout the region. And with that, that's my view of Latin America, the Caribbean, that's the focus that I have is really on illicit trafficking because I see it as a very non-traditional issue but it's one that is, as I talk with my counterparts throughout the region, is impacting almost every nation in the region, non-traditional and I think it's the key issue that we all need to continue to work within the region because it will undermine the potential for undermining the capacity and capability within and stability in the region is something I'm not sure we always have our arms around. So with that I'll be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you very much General Fraser. General has offered to answer questions. If you could please raise your hand when your call on, if you could please state your name and your affiliation before your before you ask your question. Thank you very much. The floor is open for questions for General Fraser. Gentleman here and we'll bring a microphone to you sir. Sir George Nicholson, a policy consultant. You talked about capabilities. I was at the surface Navy Association when the operation kicked off and I asked the Marine Commandant General Conway who had just talked about the capability of the V-22 Osprey able to fly. Aerial refuel down there put assessment teams in I said are they being used and he paused and said no it would have been a great asset but nobody asked for it. Are you all looking in the future with the capability of the V-22 Osprey being able to get in as rapidly of taking assessment teams in of doing emergency medevac initially of doing that kind of capability? From my standpoint I haven't seen a resource that I didn't like. So in the response actually there's also a timing associated with this. So the Marine Expeditionary Group that was available was not an Osprey equipped force and so they're the ones who came down first. We asked a second one to come in and actually they did have Ospreys on board and so they provided us with a lot of a capacity to range especially the northern part of Haiti and that was important because we didn't have a good understanding of the situation within the northern part of Haiti just from a communication standpoint. So their legs and and their ability to move around did provide us with a lot of capability. So from my standpoint I wanted the flexibility and as much flexibility as we could provide from a military force down there just because we didn't understand what situation was and and I wanted to be able to respond to whatever we found. Gentlemen here. I'm Tom Schieber from National Institute for Public Policy. Thanks for a nice concise overview of your mission General Fraser. I want to ask a question on how you think about South Combs role in the counter WMD trafficking and smuggling issue. You painted a picture of the of the illicit trafficking and all of the the potential cargoes and you painted a picture of a Hezbollah Hamas presence. Of course we know Iran has has also been been active increasingly so in the area and so the question is kind of how do you see South Combs role. Who are our partners to capability build with in the region and kind of where should we where do you see South Com going in in capacity building with partners in the region for this for this mission which is related to illicit trafficking of other goods but is special in in certain ways. From my standpoint that's why I focus on illicit trafficking because it does provide an avenue for the entry into the United States. I have not seen any connection with it but I'm skeptical and so I continue to look for that connection. Again I haven't seen that connection but but that's why I focus on and from my standpoint I'm not sure right now that our operations would change significantly other than a focus point because of the significance of WMD coming through that those areas but that's why we focus on reducing the overall illicit traffic and capacity. That's why I think it's important for all of us because because it does provide a capacity that we don't have as much visibility in as I would like. And so it continues to be an area of that I will watch and as we get if there are connections then we'll continue to address it at the time but I don't see that right now. So bottom line to that answer is our focus on illicit trafficking helps us address the issue you're talking about. Julie McDonald, Marstell Day thank you for your presentation. I noted that absent from your conversation was environmental security concerns or climate change issues that are affecting the AOR and I was wondering if you could elaborate on how those issues are shaping how you're thinking about not just natural disasters but other types of more long term effects such as water management issues water scarcity that will have a long term impact and how how is that shaping how you engage countries in developing perhaps climate change adaptation strategies. From my standpoint a lot of that falls to other parts of the U.S. government. We would look at it from how it impacts security and so we have an organization within Southern Command our J9 our partnering division that works not only intergovernment and looks for those opportunities but also works private public to to understand the concerns the potential impacts again as they they focus on a security standpoint from my area so it is an area that we're concerned about we're focused somewhat on but it's really other parts of the U.S. government that we would support in their activities rather than us taking it on by ourselves and that is in then in support of our partners wherever that becomes an issue. Thank you I think this is Ray Walser from the Heritage Foundation just to last week there was a security exercise at the Organization of American States in which one of your partner nations pointed finger at another nation and said that there are illegal camps involved with illegal armaments with Fark bases in Venezuela. Do you have a response or a take on sort of the intel which I presume is being shared that they presented last week. Well we from a U.S. government standpoint have had a long concern about just the ability of the Fark and ELN as well as the list of traffickers to cross many borders. And so that's that's the issue as I see it and it's and it's the the ability of the organizations to do that. And so I think it's an allegation that needs to be treated seriously. And it's one that from the U.S. government standpoint again I think ought to be investigated and investigated in a serious manner. Jessica Kruvan from Creative Associates and thank you for calling me young. I wanted to ask you to speak a little bit more about illicit trafficking in the area of Central America and particularly about the gangs problem. So if you could elaborate a little bit about how you're dealing with that issue and a little bit more about your thoughts. A lot of the specific issues as we look at gang problems as well as just the trafficking it really falls in a law enforcement arena more than it does a military. But what we're seeing is El Salvador is an example. Guatemala is becoming an example of it also as well as Honduras where militaries are being asked to support law enforcement organizations to help address the violence in the region. So it is from our standpoint we support other U.S. government and other host partner nation efforts to reduce that. So we would provide some training if requested to militaries to help them understand how to deal in a law enforcement situation and how to support police organizations. So that's that's really the connection that we see with it. We also support partner navies. We have a program we call enduring friendship where we're providing some interceptor boats that they can now use to help interdict the traffickers as they transit close to shore because that's what we're finding the track the traffickers are coming closer to shore transiting through territorial waters which makes international response more difficult. We have a program of ship riders also so that we have the capacity from host nations to engage in intercept requirements in territorial waters if we have those agreements. So we look at on a holistic basis if you will. But the specific issue with gangs and addressing them really is a law enforcement issue and it's better handled by other parts of our government. Richard White's Hudson Institute. How would you assess the security and defense activities of some of the extra hemispheric actors particularly China Russia and Iran. I see from all of those nations and there are others also that there's a market within South America within Latin America as as they look to increase some of their military combat not increase but modernize some of their military capacity. So I see that as an avenue. China I see primarily as interested in economics and resources. They are providing some military capacity to some of the militaries there. Russia I see focused on providing same kinds of capabilities. You just saw I saw a report this morning that they will provide some helicopters to Peru. So they're looking for markets around the region also. So that's that's where I see especially from a Russia and a China engagement. I also see the countries though throughout Latin America. Well throughout the Western Hemisphere that includes U.S. Canada. We're also especially as you look at China looking at China as a place for markets also. So I see that activity just as as the normal interaction of international commerce from an Iranian standpoint. They are increasing their presence in the number of embassies that they have within the region on a number of levels. They've gone from seven. I think they'll open their 12th embassy in the region this year. My concern there is just their traditional support to Hamas and Hezbollah and whether or not that then has an impact in Latin America, the Caribbean. I have not seen that connection right now. So I see primarily diplomatic and commercial activity. I don't see anything beyond it. Ben Burnbaum Washington Times. I want to follow up on the gentleman's question about the Venezuela Columbia tensions. The Venezuelan ambassador said a couple days ago that his country was on red alert. And I was wondering if you had seen any indications of that and if you thought that there was a chance of a flare-up in the near future. I've seen two different parts of that. I've seen that there was activity, but then I've also seen reports that there isn't activity. What I would ask is that Columbia and Venezuela address this in a diplomatic arena. And I think that's that's the activity that I've seen. There's been activity within the OAS as we mentioned. And I think there's a meeting today with UNASUR in which that will be discussed. That's the proper forum for addressing the issue. Pedro Oureli from BNV Consulting. General, Planned Columbia just celebrated its tenth year. And it's a concerted effort at $6 billion expenditure to support the institutions of Columbia to get a hold of a number of issues that are dealing with them. We actually change in objectives and many people have called it a success. But you, among others, by showing certain slides, have admitted that some of the problems that you were dealing with have actually just shifted to the country next door, Venezuela. From a Western Hemisphere perspective, not just from a pure U.S. Columbia perspective, would you say that Planned Columbia therefore has been a success or a failure? I will, I will say we've got kind of a mixed bag. There is my assessment. Planned Columbia, as it was designed, and as it has been supported, has been and is a success, but it's not over. Yet the FARC is still active within Columbia. The list of traffickers are still active. It still is a difficult country from geographic standpoint to address. The Colombians have matured beyond Planned Columbia. If you look at Planned Consolidación and the efforts that they're focused there, and that's starting to make some differences also as you look at how they've gone out across the country. So I think what we are coming to, at least from my perspective, is a recognition that that success has bred now problems in other parts. And that's why we need to look at it as a regional issue. And I would argue that we all need to work together to build a plan Latin America to address this from a regional standpoint, recognizing that the traffickers will go to where they find the best opportunity to operate. And that's going to be traditional. And it's not going to be, it will be a long-term effort as we've seen within Columbia. But I think it's worth continuing the efforts in Colombia. And as we look at least from a U.S. standpoint, there's a program as we focus to support to Mexico, Merida. There's a Central American Region Security Initiative that looks to support Central American countries. There's a Caribbean Nation Security Initiative. Our Caribbean initiative. So looking to provide similar capacities as Plan Colombia, if you will, in other parts so that we don't have the result that we had with the success in Colombia. So I think it's an evolution is what I see. Norman Bailey Institute of World Politics. Thank you for your presentation. Much of the cocaine that goes to West Africa and from West Africa up to Europe goes out through the mouth of the Orinoco. And my question is whether aerial and maritime surveillance of the mouth of the Orinoco has been increased. We're looking as we look to the eastern part because there is more capacity going there. We're trying to get our arms around all exactly where the trafficking is coming out. Whether it is the Orinoco, there's a lot that is also transiting out, if you will, through Argentina as well as Brazil. Those are growing. Problems also saw. We're working with our partners in each of those regions to do that. I've asked for a capacity to increase at least our over the horizon capability in the eastern part of the Caribbean. We're looking to understand what that really means. And so from both an intel derived law enforcement derived as well as a surveillance capacity. We are looking in that area. But we have. We have not. Increased the number of forces, if you will. Overall, that are focused there because the bigger trafficking route remains Central America. Bruce Graham, Textron. Good morning, sir. And thank you. You started to address the shift of some of your surveillance operations. You talked about Merida after Plan Colombia. There was another plan called ramp. Can you tell me what the status of it is? Under center has been some funding issues. And where do you see that going ramp just so everybody knows is a program in the U. S. Air Force Air Force of South has advocated for a number of years to provide some. Capacity of our partner nations within especially Central America to provide awareness of what trafficking is within the region. Right now it hasn't changed. It still is not receiving support. But as we look at the overall situation, we are looking to build and review. Look at Merida, Carsey, all these programs on what makes sense. Within within the region. And we're going to have to focus dollars where they make the most sense. Right now the maritime environment, the ground environment has a much bigger transit of drugs than does the air environment. And we are having some success just by being able to respond to air tracks that are coming into the region and being able to understand where they are in reducing some of that capacity. So it's something that we're looking at. We need to understand how to do that. Our partners in the region would like some of that capacity. So it's a it's an effort that still is underway and we're still addressing. Hi, I'm Luis Alonso with the AP and I will have a follow up question on the Colombia-Venezuela issue. I would like to ask you now whether South Command has assessed, reviewed this evidence that the Colombian government says is new and has been collected in the last two or three weeks. Is this reliable? Is this true? Is the coordinates that the Colombian government is giving out? Is it, has South Command check that out? Thank you. From my standpoint, I'm looking at the information that the government of Colombia has provided. I have no reason to to, to assume that it, that it is not valid. We're looking at it. But it is really, I think important that Venezuela and investigate the allegation and do a very concerted effort because that will help validate the data if it is. Well, it'll help validate the data. Okay. General Fraser, thank you so much for your excellent presentation, for your generosity and answering so many questions and for, for being here today with us. Thank you. It's a great pleasure. Thank you very much.