Transcripts For CSPAN Gen. 20240704

Boomers were getting to vote. Host appreciate that and all our callers today. Coming up live is the commander of the u. S. Southern command, army general laura richardson. She looks at security challenges facing latin america. This event is hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. Have a great day, everybody. We will be back tomorrow at 7 a. M. Eastern. See you tomorrow. Malign actors across the region. Those are only part of the strategic challenges to the United States that are emanating from that region. Migration, transnational criminal organizations, illegal fishing, all of these are on the agenda of the United States Southern Command. I am the director of the smart women, Smart Power Initiative and im joined by my colleague, the director of the Aerospace Security project at csis. We are delighted to welcome general laura richardson, the commander of United States Southern Command to csis, to talk about her perspective on whats happening down south. General richardson is an army aviator flying helicopters. Shes trained soldiers, deployed into a rack into iraq and afghanistan, has seen policymaking at the highest levels and understands the role of congress. I had the pleasure of meeting her when she was in the role of legislative liaison, where she met relationships with members of congress to establish policy and fund the army, and also got to meet her again during her deployment to afghanistan, where i saw her lead in a complex and challenging security environment , so i can think of no better leader than general richardson to tackle these tough issues and strengthen our relationship. Its a privilege to have you today. Thank you very much. Its my honor to be here and have the opportunity to be able to talk about the great opportunities that we have in the western hemisphere, talk to you about what this region has to offer, the great partners that we have and the work that we do with our allies in the region as well and just be able to share some of that, but also the security challenges. I think that if we partner Better Together and bring the entire whole of government together to bear, as i say, with all the instruments of National Power for team usa, that we have a great shot of promoting and continuing to be at the forefront with Team Democracy in the western hemisphere. To start our conversation, we would like to get a sense of peoples origin stories. What inspired you to go into the military and what over the years inspires you to stay in the military with this extraordinary career . I think my parents have a lot to do with me joining in the first place. I was an athlete growing up and all of us kids were the oldest of four. Athletics was part of our life from being small kids. That translated nicely into the military but then also i had an aspiration for flying and was able to go into rotc and advance that by being commissioned into the Aviation Branch of the army, so what an opportunity. You cannot make it up, what you get to do in the military, and that is what i like to talk about, the great things you get to do, because i could not have picked what the army has provided for me and allowed me to be able to do but to be able to be a helicopter pilot, to be able to go and travel the world, go everywhere, and you have seen great things and you see where you can help where things are not so great in other countries and things like that. As i talk about Team Democracy, you will be able to help with that, and that is whats so powerful. Its the soft power about Team Democracy and what that means for our globe and i think its hugely important right now. The contest with authoritarian actors and the stakes are becoming so clear. I guess that leads me to my next question. What what is, for the benefit of our viewers, what are your priorities . How are you interacting with the region and what do you see as priorities for moving forward . This region is there are so many things that come to mind, but it is very powerful, and in our National Security strategy from President Biden, in this hemisphere, theres no other hemisphere that is inextricably linked to our homeland like the western hemisphere, and the importance of the region cannot be overstated enough. The proximity, number one, but all of the resources. Its very rich in natural resources, rare earth elements, climate. You talk about the amazon. Eight countries have the amazon. Lungs of the world, which i dont think we appreciate fully, and also, in colombia, talking about where we and this is something that a wise person told me while i was there, you know, we need to start respecting Mother Nature as not someone below us but on par with us or a higher being because of the amazon disappears as it will affect all of us. Rare earth elements. Lithium triangle. 60 of the worlds lithium is in this region. Gold, copper. We have seen significant illegal mining and deforestation. All these criminal elements are happening this region happening in this region. We work with our partners and allies and partners and partners and allies throughout our National Security strategy and defense strategy, working with our allies and partners. We do nothing alone. We do it as partners. I talk about Team Democracy, because as we think about the 28 likeminded democracies in the region partnering together, that is our strongest defense against malign activity in the region. If i can dive into that a bit further and ask you to talk more about what that strategic environment looks like in your area of responsibility, the key focus in our strategy now is a strategic competition with china. We tend to think of that as an indopacific regional challenge but china has global range. So what are you seeing . Thanks for that. It is absolutely global and right under our nose and closeddoor homeland. I would like to say with the prc say what the prc is doing looks to be investment but i would call it extraction at the end of the day. I would say its in the red zone, to use an analogy there. They are on the 20 yard line to our homeland or on the first and Second Island chain and the proximity in terms of this region and the importance of it, i think we have to truly appreciate, what the region brings and the security challenges these countries face. China has been at the top of the list as a pacing challenge or an adversary to the country. Talk about and educate and inform our partners in terms of what i see from u. S. Southern command, because i think we are in a unique position to be able to put together all the things that are happening in the region and be able to present that. Countries make their own decisions. There are for an and we respect that absolutely. They make their own decisions but i try to make sure they have all the facts because they are sometimes presented that because they are not always presented the facts because they are sometimes not presented all the facts. I see authoritarian regimes using democracy to get elected in using that position to dismantle democracy. And so we have to show how we align with the priorities. As nations go through democratic processes and changes, free and fair elections, if those are free and fair, we are going to figure out how we work with those administrations, and what we find, especially in the security realm, is a lot of things we do align with our new administrations priorities in the hemisphere so we have to explain that and show that, the advantages that has, but in terms of the Critical Infrastructure the prc is investing, its critical. When you look at that and present that, its in the deep water ports. Its in the globe, my hemisphere, my area of operations. 5g technology, five countries have the backbone for 5g from the prc, 25 3g or 4g, so what usually happens is they are offered almost a zero cost upgrade to the 5g and so it is hard for these leaders in the seat, usually one term of four years. They are working on a stopwatch, not a calendar, and we have to be able to have alternative methods, companies and options for them to be able to select the chinese competitors, and that is where we are getting outcompeted by the chinese now. That is a playbook we are seeing in the rest of the world, so thanks for highlighting that in the latin american region, because it does not seem like we are paying enough attention to that. You hit on something on space that i would like to get to as i lead the Aerospace Security team here. He returned from a trip you returned from a trip to south america with the nasa administration. Space is another area of that competition we are in with china. What was the purpose of your trip, what reflections do you take back with you, and how is your and nelsons message received . I think it was a game changer for me. It was such a great opportunity for administrator nelson to travel in the region. He has traveled as a senator and with other commanders before into the region and we spoke about that, but i invited him to the region about five months ago, and, when i was talking to him about the prc space enabling infrastructure already in hemisphere, there was more planned for that number to increase, and so he scheduled a trip, went to brazil. Brazil already signed up as a member of the artemis accords. He traveled to argentina, met with president fernandez. Argentina signed the artemis accords while he was there. I went to columbia and met the administrator in colombia for his visit. The country of colombia had signed the artemis accord. Being able to in terms of colombias case, all these countries have huge Space Programs and having our nasa administrator be able to come there and talk about more collaboration, what nasa is doing, what they are doing, how can we collaborate Better Together, we are only limited by the ideas we come up with of how we can collaborate Better Together, and thats part of what the power of Team Democracy brings and that is how we outcompete our adversaries, likeminded democracies working together on collaborative ideas to make things happen. In colombias case, one of the Top Priorities is Climate Change. They have a number of Different Things going on to help countries identify problems from space with agriculture, for example. And so as you think of the drought corridor in this region, you are talking about food insecurity, how can we change that . How can we change disease in crops, identify it . Deforestation, which impacts the amazon and the lungs of the world and being able to achieve Carbon Neutrality. Colombia and the u. S. Want to achieve being Carbon Neutral by 2050. How do you achieve this . From space, you can identify these things on the ground that are happening and help these countries counter the illegal mining from space, the illegal logging impacting the amazon. We also hope to see a project in we also came to see a project in colombia that was a collaboration to get after this. Five years that this program has been in place. Also there is colombias Aerospace Force operation center. And president petro renamed this to the colombian Aerospace Force. They dont have a commercials commercial Space Program yet in colombia. So obviously opportunities with nasa for a civilian space agency. And also administrator nelson offered to train as part of the program nasa has, train and put into space a colombian astronaut as part of the international program, so i think that would be available to brazil and argentina too because they were part of the artemis accords. Ripe for partnership. Exactly. Excited about them excited about that. Fentanyl is involved in an increasing number of deaths of americans over 50 and becoming a National Security concern. What is your assessment of activities to combat trafficking, including fentanyl . I think we have a great template for success and that is with our component command, our jitf, joint Interagency Task force south. We have over 16 coal of government, interagency 16 whole of government, interagency elements. I have a complement of about 16. When you get that synergy together to work there in operations we did the detection and monitoring of illicit traffic, Drug Trafficking heading to the United States, and we turn that information over to Law Enforcement and or partner nations and so our partner nations in the hemisphere are able to they are percentages of introductions and disruptions that have gone up this past year 76 . We can see it. They cannot see everything but if we can point to where theres activity and where they can make a finish on a Law Enforcement for a disruption or interdiction, they go after it, and so but i think we have the template for that. The fentanyl crisis and certainly in the hemisphere that i have cocaine. We cannot interdict our way out of this problem, though, so its important that we go after the money, all of those things that contribute, that whole of government process that follows the money, and they are able to go after the drug labs as well. Its important because if you are just getting the submersible that has some cocaine and marijuana on it, the thing is thats not going to step the problem. You have to go after the bigger things and that is exactly what we are doing. But we can also always use, with this great command we have, is be able to get after that problem. We have to continue to do that and build relationships to do that. Looking forward, in addition to, you know, looking at the upstream effect or actors and getting at the bigger sources of financing, where do you think, in addition to that, south, to be prioritizing its efforts when it comes to narco trafficking in countering narcotics . I think continuing to partner with our partner nations, being able to expand our reach, being able to identify barriers to outcompete amongst the interagency and the whole of government and being able to bring those things that are needed to change, i think that that when you are the tip of the spear, it is important. As you both know, to inform our congress, if there are barriers to outcompete, to keep us from achieving things or the Interagency Team being able to do that or Team Democracy, its important to identify those barriers to outcompete, but being able to see innovative ideas to go out after Building Networks with lowcost, high return investment types of capabilities that are out there, that is why i try to speak to industry as well because with the technology thats being developed today there are a lot of things with ai and ml you are able to utilize that helps you put these networks together and be able to counter them whether through team usa or Team Democracy with our partner nations. Given your background working in afghanistan, are you bringing some of those Lessons Learned or those insights into your approach to countering narcotics . Both areas have significant counter products problems. Absolutely. Being able to share the information, the intelligence sharing, the information sharing, having those agreements in place, and that is where we get to having a 3g, 4g or 5g Network Background you can share the information on that is not a prc network that we know has backdoors into being able to get information that we dont want the chinese to have. Absolutely. We have to be able to continue with those sharing agreements and being able to work seamlessly with our partners. Thank you for making that point. The actual National Security implications kind of get lost in the discussion. Thank you for illuminating that for us. Id like to turn to another thorny issue, to put it mildly. Migration and illegal migration. Migration from countries in your area of responsibility is putting pressure on the u. S. Southern border. Many observers therefore think south, should play a leading role in contending with the challenge but the southcom area of responsibility ends at the southern Mexican Border and many of the root causes of population migration are due to nonmilitary issues like poor governance, natural disasters, lack of economic opportunity. With that background in mind, i would love to know your thoughts on how should we be how should southcom and how should we be thinking about the issue of migration and that nexus between security and migration . Gen. Richardson i will answer your question in two parts. We are doing a lot in southcom so in terms of migration, in april, i traveled with secretary mayorkas and Samantha Power from usaid to panama, and that was to bring colombia and panama and the u. S. Together to sign a trilateral agreement. First it was to present the idea of the agreement and then get the agreement and sign it. All three of us did that day on 11 on the 11th of april and there were three pillars. Security, legal pathways. Everybody knows how to get in touch with a smuggler to get across the jungle but nobody knows not to get to where you sign up for pathways. How do you achieve that . That is the second pillar. The third was development. It was in communities around the jungle so that is what we are in tune with in colombia and panama and the dangers of crossing through that very expensive and dangerous jungle, so on the security pillar, since the end of april, colombia and panama, the Colombian Military and Panamanian Security forces, have been conducting operations, security operations, to go after transnational organizations doing human smuggling. Those operations have been successful. I received an updated briefing from colombia on their operations, which they have 23,500 Colombian Military involved, the entire military, army, navy and air force conducting the operations, and we have been successful on the Security Side of the house. The intent is not for the Security Forces going after the migrants. It is to go over or after the smugglers and Human Trafficking piece of that. In addition, what they are finding as they are being successful with these other things in terms of the counter narcotics, illegal mining, illegal logging. All these countries in the hemisphere are dealing with the security challenges and so they had a trilateral meeting with panamas minister of public security, the colombian minister of defense, and myself. We conducted that about a month ago. I was in panama. The weather was bad to get in with a helicopter so we did it virtually and we continue to have those engagements. I routinely talk to panama and colombias ministries and the military and Security Forces weekly. That is being successful, but through pillars, they come together as part of the whole of government. Cycling into these things that are causing migration, there are families on the move, people on the move, at alltime highs. The prediction, by 2050, is going to continue to increase. When you thing of not being able to get health care, food, security and instability. This is what i see with the transnational criminal organizations. They stir the pot, make things very insecure, scare the populations, and that allows china to come in with their belt and Road Initiative to look like its economic recovery and those sorts of things. These leaders are only in the seat for one term, four years, working on the stopwatch, not the calendar. They need help now, not in two or three years. Some of our processes from team usa are slow so we have been pressurizing the system, identifying the barriers to outcompete that are keeping blocking team usas field goals. What is not allowing me to be instantaneous or quick in delivery. And working with the whole of government. As part of the instruments of National Power for team usa, diplomats, information, military, which is what i did, the security operation, my main lever, working with our partners, conducting exercises where i can bring 20 over 20 partner nations together. We have had five exercises in the region over this past month. Five of them at the same time. Guyana with tradewinds, colombia hosting. The 64th year we had that maritime exercise. Southern star. A special exercise in chile. Resolute sentinel, which is colombia, peru, and ecuador, a 2. 5 month exercise. Thats the military side of it. The e part of economics you mentioned, and this is where i see you can raise the profile of companies that are already investing in the hemisphere. These countries are hurting from covid, still digging out from covid. When you talk about an 8 to 10 percent drop, panama is digging out. They are having a hard time doing it. So we have to be there, Team Democracy, western solutions, u. S. Solutions, but what is keeping companies, u. S. Companies, from competing on tenders for these countries, contracts . What are the barriers. Because when there are only Six Chinese Companies that are competing, why is that . What is happening . Something is happening. And we have to get western solutions, u. S. Solutions, Democratic Solutions on the economic side, because there are barriers out there and thats why mentioned senator menendezs bill, senator kathys. There are initiatives to make a difference. This is part of our hemisphere. These are our neighbors. Their success, as we go back to my National Security strategy, is inextricably linked. Its linked to the security of the hemisphere. As you mentioned, what is the security is so much more broad because the game is being played by other actors in the information space, the economic space, and that is not necessarily the place the United States is best prepared to act. Exactly. I wanted to tee off that and dive into exactly that. I remember being at the pentagon. Southcom never fared well in terms of assets and resource priorities. You have to be more creative with your toolkit that is not always military. It is power and other elements. So how are you approaching that . Thank you. We are putting on a fullcourt press to talk about team usa and the branding. My meeting with secretary blinken in the spring in denver. Then i went to meet with secretary raimondo. We get our commerce Liaison Officer this month. Excited to get that. Congratulations. She had a great idea, the secretary of commerce, and i pitched to her if she would consider coming to the western hemisphere. She said i am coming to panama and we ended up traveling together a couple of weeks ago. And that was with the announcement of President Biden that panama was selected as one of the seven partners for the u. S. To partner with on semiconductor supply chains, so panama is an emerging leader in the region with so much promise on this initiative and also costa rica and their ability to be one of the seven countries as well, but this is exactly what we are talking about. How do we get more investment, raise the profile of important countries that are doing huge, great things to matt great things democratically that are part of democracy. I mean, you cannot make an argument stronger than that. We have to continue our full court press to bring together the instruments of National Power. That is what the chinese do well with the belt and Road Initiative. They do it with these huge economic projects. When they sign on, countries sign on to the belt and Road Initiative. It is usually for billions of dollars. They can do it so quickly as we were talking earlier, theres a little bit of buyers report. Projects have not gone well, cost overruns, huge delays, and these countries now they are having buyers remorse. As someone put to me earlier, when you are desperate for help, you will turn to whoever is there. So we need to have alternatives to the prc and if we are not there competing than they are going to choose it is not a matter of a choice. They will have to take it. You take whatever life raft is available. Can i shift gears it is related to this as well. I know southcom has a tremendous role. We have interns at cis going into careers at National Security and one of them, Calista Jones from georgia tech, posed a question i want to present to you, which is when we are looking at the area of responsibility assigned to southcom, can you talk about southcom activities in this area, and back into the space discussion, do you see a future where space and satellite data give someone the capabilities of these new Space Companies that can move fast . Do you see a role where they can aid southcom in its objectives . Absolutely. The ability to see in this huge area of operations, talking about the caribbean, Central America and south america, huge. To be able to see and our partners want to be able to see. They cannot see. I go back to sharing agreements, having partners that we can share information with that they do not have, the p. R. C. Backbone for technology and their telecommunications, and then being able to make them aware of that. So we are very innovative. I could talk about traditional isr, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, traditional, but then we have been successful, i think, at southcom. We dont sit around and wait for someone to give us something. We figure out innovative and you know, how do we come up with some ideas and approaches ourselves and whatever technology is out there and i think we have been successful in doing that. Congress has helped us out in terms of the ability to provide capability in place of military capabilities that is not as good but its a capability and we certainly exploit that and take advantage of that and look for ways we can expand it. And as i said, the ability of our partners to be able to see, because working with likeminded democracies, sharing information, what they see, what we see, and having that good conductivity, is what its all about. On the subject of regional partners, taking a step back, how do you assess efforts to build partner capacity, building the capacities of our security and military institutions and those of the partner countries with which you work . When you think of success stories, which ones come to mind . Our Senior Leader enlisted development program. I think that is what makes our military so strong, our Senior Enlisted Leaders in force. They are educated and understand their role, the importance of the constitution for our country, for their country, and, as we see, the security challenges they are dealing with the security challenges and capabilities, but those militaries are being asked to help police. There role in dealing with the population, which is not their normal role, but i think our Senior Enlisted Leader program, being able to empower and educate first to empower that force, so when they are in small teams reinforcing elections in their countries, which is so important, and in some cases, close, as we have seen in previous elections with colombia , brazil, chile. I could go on and on. And so that is a program thats been very successful and very well received. I could take our peace and Security Program and the integration of women into public Security Forces and the militaries has been well received. We have a lot of Women Leaders and positions president s, prime ministers, Vice President s, ministers of defense. We have the only female chief of defense in jamaica. We have a huge example of many successful women, so being able to highlight that program, and we are rolling out a Theater Maintenance Partnership Initiative across a whole hemisphere. We are going to, with the help of our partner nations, from the tactical level, the individual operator level, all the way up to the Institutional Capacity building, its hard for us in the military to do logistics and sustainment, so i imagine its hard for our partners. With our Foreign Military sales and excess defense articles and we have a lot of u. S. Equipment in this hemisphere, so we rent that equipment not just to get it to them but to help them in the ability to maintain it, keep it ready so they can use it, and counter the security challenges. If i could follow on, because he mentioned women, peace and security. We have a couple questions from the audience about that. What are your objectives with respect to gender equality within latin America Military forces and what obstacles do you see that impede progress toward achieving those goals . Every trip i do, i do a women, peace and security event. My small office of three is traveling all the time because they are putting on amazing events and opportunities for us to highlight. We bring together women together all the women we can for an event and the leaders too and talk about their barriers to opportunities, their barriers to be more successful in their roles, and so just being able to hear that and how articulate they are, smart. But its not just having women there. Its also having their colleagues and being able to provide what they see and us leaders being able to hear that and i think it is just a continued press and, you know, the old thing of you cannot be what you cannot see is true sometimes, so there are many examples. They are doing great in the hemisphere. We have to continue to show them that they have to create the opportunities. From richardsons perspective, its about the opportunity. If you dont have that, being able to raise the level, then we are that is a barrier and we have to realize that because we should not be surprised when the opportunities are opened and how well women do. It is interesting how many of the topics and issues you are working with moving forward, progress is very much about removing barriers to collaboration, gender collaboration, opportunity, interagency collaboration. Its interesting that that seems to be the theme of the theme you are running into quite a lot. It is good for the leaders to be able to hear that. You talk about flattening all the layers and the people that are right there on the front lines being able to communicate with their leaders and talk about the things that are impeding their success or from being more successful is a huge benefit. If i could jump in with audience questions, and i will ask you to do the same, this first from our audience comes from alice from voice of america, and she asks she notes data recently published explored the potential for china to establish permanent overseas naval bases. We have seen it in djibouti. Theres consideration in sri lanka, uae, elsewhere. What does that look like in latin america . Will china set up a military base there in the near future . If so, where and when . What are those military and strategic consequences for the u. S. . Great question. Thanks, alice. To go back to the investment, what looks to be investment by the chinese, in Critical Infrastructure, in all of these countries. When you are talking about deepwater ports, telecommunications, smart city technology, and also space infrastructure, and if i just take deepwater ports, i would take the panama canal. There are five Chinese State owned enterprises along the panama canal. So what i worry about is being able to use it for dual use, not just civilian but military applications. Why are the chinese investing so much in the Critical Infrastructure in this hemisphere . Why do they do it in africa and see that the western hemisphere is about five to seven years behind africa . They have done it elsewhere before. But why . Is there such investment going on in this region . So absolutely concerned about it. And you take the panama canal and what it means to the global economy. The other strategic c line of communication i have in the southcom ao are is the strait of magellan and the p. R. C. Building capability in these waterways and along the opening at along the way on these waterways, yeah. So i worry about the flipping and using it for military applications. Theres a lot of chinese based theres not a lot of chinese bases yet in this hemisphere but i see it with these Critical Infrastructure investments, these belt and Road Initiative projects, that there could be sunday. That includes cuba as well. It does. Another question. Christian white asks how are you and southcom broadly viewing Climate Change as a security challenge . Can you provide examples of advents or to restaurant examples of events or disruptions . We were talking earlier about migration and Climate Change in the severity of storms and the frequency of storms are getting stronger and more frequent. So the five lines of effort, the Climate Adaption plan the parma defense has developed. I have some seed money for starting out with Climate Change and being able to put that to use. Thats why it was important for me to travel with administrator nelson and see that project nasa has with usaid that was going on in california and what space can provide to help with Climate Change. So we will carry that forward to be able to see if the implementation to see the implementation across the region. We have the drought corridor. Argentina, when i was there in april, they were struggling with an unprecedented drought that occurred. They had a 1000 year fire in february. We were able to help them by sharing imagery so they could predict where the fires were going to go as well as do some humanitarian assistance donations the ambassador was able to do as a result of some of that daca funding we have access to from the department of defense and congress. You both mentioned it. Just in terms of these things that southcom is able to help countries with when they have crises. We may not be asked you know, we support usaid in terms of if theres a formal request by country for assistance, but we do not wait until we get formally asked. We think how do we help our partner nations . What can we do with what is out there now to help Team Democracy and help our teammates get through this chaos that they are going through . That reminds me. There is so much our military does and supports that you dont see but are so consequential. So on the humanitarian front. Can you talk a little bit more about how are we engaging in the region on those fronts . So we are constantly doing we had the hospital ship, the comfort, in the region, going to countries october through december. That was off the charts amazing. But i was not able to get the comfort this year. So we did not get it. So we are taking one of our two combat ships that i get allocated. We are going to put innovative capability we discovered called clinic in a can and we are going to put these clinics we were able to roll off the ship and set those up when it comes with the comfort and do those set up activities. Several clinics that were able to provide different sorts of qualityoflife treatment for our partners, but we are constantly jt bravo is a brigade sized element out of honduras. They have helicopters that provide immediate Disaster Response for hurricanes. The earthquake in haiti a couple years ago. They had medical capability. Clinics. We do surgery clinics. This keeps up the surgical skills of our military medical providers to be able to do things in combat, so its a winwin, but we are constantly doing that. We do not wait until theres a big hospital ship thats able to come into the hemisphere. I continue to work that and secretary del toro has been helpful, traveling in the region numerous times, but those capabilities of the soft power, humanitarian assistance, being able to do that, we are working to build bridges, a bridge capability, because colombia, ecuador and panama have had severe flooding from el nino. You are either getting the drought from el nino or the flooding. Many bridges have been knocked out going to indigenous populations. That also creates a problem with getting to market for the farmers. Its just how can we help them . Again, we are limited by our ideas of how we can help, so as to the big military kind of thing with the hard power but a lot of how we get after that soft power and help our partners. We are just about out of time. I cannot resist the opportunity to ask you the question. Do you think that being a woman has affected how you approach your decisions and your leadership style as the Combatant Commander of the United States Southern Command and if not why not . I think the skill sets that women bring to the table, and as i said before, about 50 of the talent pool being able to build teams, solve things, always bring in the team together, how can we figure this out, and try to find workable, Peaceful Solutions that you know, you have to listen to your partner. Thats a big thing, to be a good listener. You have got to be able to understand their challenges through their eyes, not my eyes. That is not how they see things. I need to fully understand how they see it and i think that intuitive being able to understand through another country, humans eyes, the challenges they have, and so i think i am glad to say i might be the first woman commander of southcom but i will not be the last. Excited for that. Thank you so much for joining us for this incredible rich discussion this incredibly rich discussion. Your schedule is jampacked so we are grateful you were able to spend some time with us this morning. Thank you kathleen. Thank you, kari. Thank you. Coming up alive today on cspan, at 1 15 p. M. Eastern, u. S. Diplomats discuss policy toward Central America. At 3 00, a discussion about the economic challenges facing the u. S. , including inflation, interest rates, and the potential for a recession. At 8 p. M. Eastern, we hear from former President Donald Trump in montgomery, alabama, speaking at a dinner hosted by the alabama republican party. You can watch live coverage of these events on cspan, cspan. Org, and our app, cspan now. A healthy democracy does not just look like this. It looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work, where citizens are informed. Our public thrives. Get informed straight from the source on cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the Nations Capital to wherever you are. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Today the Labor Department reports 187,000 jobs were added in july, coming in slightly below wall street estimates. The Unemployment Rate fell from 3. 6 to 3. 5 for the month. Job gains occurred in health care, social assistance, financial activities, and wholesale trade. The next report is said to be released friday, september 1 is set to be released friday, september 1. N journal. We start with the front pages of the major papers. Take a look at the Washington Post because this says