We take you live to capitol hill now where Navy Admiral Craig Faller will testify on the National Defense strategy, testifying before that the Armed Services subcommittee chaired my joann joni ernst. Welcome to the admiral. Thank you very much for being her, sir. Todays hearing is a continuation of the committees efforts. This is an important component to our efforts to ensure our military is appropriately resorr resourced, equipped and postured to defend the nation against a growing away of threats. In europe and across the indo pacific region. U. S. National security interests not just within their geographic boundaries but elsewhere around the world. China is taking a long term approach oftentimes with the goal of undermining the United States. The situation in the western hemisphere is no different. Admiral faller you highlighted in testimony earlier this year that china has accelerated expansion of its belt and Road Initiative in the western hemisphere at a pace that may one day overshadow its expansion in Southeast Asia and africa. Chinas efforts to back oppressive governments and to pump loans into local economies at unpayable Interest Rates reveal chinas interest in spreading influence and consolidating power. As a result, latin america has become a fixture for chinese ambitio ambitions. And the exclusion of the u. S. And canada from regional discourse. Trade and economic ties between the United States and latin america are changing with china surpassing the United States as the main destination for exports from several latin american countries. We have cooperation in brazil, venezuela andargentina. China has increased arms sales in a manner that violations restrictions and hinders our ability to integrate with our strategic partners. Russia is also working to expand its influence in the region. Its doubled down on its efforts to prop up corrupt authoritarian regimes. Just a couple weeks ago one of russias most advanced warships was docked in havana harbor. Finally drivers of migration place significant strain on regional governments and can engender regional instability impacting not only the southern border of the United States but providing additional flash points for china and russia to exploit at the expense of american soft power. All of this demonstrates clearly that the western hemisphere should be viewed as an important front in our efforts to compete with china and russia and implement the nds. I look forward to your input and your candid assessment of the involving Security Dynamics in this region. Describe how the nda information is important and how youll allocate south coms resources. Thank you for joining us today. Stability in south comm is critical to our National Security. I want to thank admiral faller for his service and for appearing here to today to testify on the implementation of the National Defense strategy in the Southern Command area of responsibility. Its clear that russia and china have increased their influence in the south comm ar. Personnel. Russias supintervention in venezuela has propped up the maduro regime and helped deny transition to the interim president guaido. This fits a pattern of increasingly aggressive russian seeking to use all of the tools in its play book to undermine the appeal of the democratic process and keep russian aligned regimes in power. While russia and chinese influence in latin america is destabilizing to the region, i think its also important to spend a few minutes on the most pressing threat to democracy in the western hemisphere. And that is kruchgcorruption. Corruption is the root cause of mass migration, instability and impugn in latin america and the trafficking of narcotics to our country. No amount of Security Assistance dollars to latin america will be helpful. President trumps stated rationale to punish these countries for the migrant crisis is ill considered and totally counter productive to reducing forced migration numbers. Ultimately it undermines our National Security in the region. Unless we support Civil Societies in these countries and help improve economic conditions, we will never get a handle on the illicit drugs that flow through these countries and into the United States. One final note and i think its critical for us to discuss is that corruption in central and south america not only destabilizes the region but it also provides china and russia with a foothold into these countries as well. Corrupt governments are more likely to take loans from china that allow them to skim millions off of the top and leave their treasuries empty. The more we focus on combatting corruption, the more successful we will be in implementing the National Defense strategy in the regi region. Thank you for those opening comments. Admiral faller well start with your Opening Statement and then we will move into questioning. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for the steadfast support you provide the men and women of the south Southern Command day in and day out. Id like to introduce my command senior enlisted Sergeant Major brian zik foos. Ive been in command of southsome fsouth so comm for several months. These opportunities and challenges directly impact the security of this hemisphere, our neighborhood. Criminal organizations, narco trafficking, all enabled by weak governance. Most disturbing insight the aha for me however has been the degree to which the external state actoractors, china, russi iran have expanded their access and influence right here in our neighborhood. The National Defense strategy makes clear Great Power Competition has reemerged as the number one security challenge facing our nation. China, russia and others want to shape a world consistent with their thoirn models. Theyre blurring the lines of what constitutes a military threat through economic coercion, the systemic stealing of technology, influence campaigns and malicious cyber activity. Competition is happening globally and right here in our neighborhood, the western hemisphere. We see this most acutely in venezuela, where the security crisis created by maduro has compounded every single security crisis we face in this hemisphere. Russia in their own words is predicting their loyal friend to quote by propping up the regime with loans and technical and military support. China, as venezuelas largest single state creditor, saddled the venezuelan people with more than 60 billion in debt and is exporting Surveillance Technology used to oppress the venezuelan people. Iran has restarted direct flights from tehran to caracas. Along with cuba these actors engage in activities that are counter to u. S. Interests. How do we counter the threats and seize the opportunities in this hemisphere . How do we counter the threats posed by state actors in venezuela and across the region. The best way to outcompete is by fe focusing our strengths, the strong and enduring ties we have with our neighbors. We work with each other from a foundation of mutual respect. We reinforce and build on this through training, education, intelligence and information sharing and exercises. Security cooperation is our best tool to continue building these strong partnerships and turn the challenges of our hemisphere into opportunities. Working together training and exercising shoulder to shoulder with American Military professionals is our Competitive Edge and no one can match our system. We also need the right focused and consistent military presence day in and day out to go along with this training and education. We cannot achieve positive results and influence outcomes without being on the playing field. Ill point to two examples of the positive impact of our presence. Our Strategic Bomber force and f16 Fighter Aircraft from the South CarolinaNational Guard are trained with the Colombian Air force in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of colombias air force while also demonstrating our shared resolve in the face of regional and global challenges nearby the United States naval ship come fot comfort is in lima peru. Comfort shows the very best of the United States of ill start with just a couple questions and well go back and forth in order of arrival. With that well go ahead and get started. Feel free to take as much time as necessary, admiral, to discuss the challenges and opportunities you have in southcomm. The National Defense strategy clearly identifies Great Power Competition between the United States and of course china and russia as the most pressing threat to National Security. Given their expanding presence in your a. O. , the nds has particular relevance to your area of responsibility. So if you could explain what is the role of the u. S. Military as were competing with china and russia in the western hemisphere what more can we be doing . Our partners want to work with us so its up to us to deliver that in a way that provides a return on investment for american taxpayers. Colombia and brazil are two very good examples where we spent a lot of time, weve traveled to columbia on multiple locations, weve been to brazil, their chiefs of defense have been to see us. It begins with intelligence sharing and education at a personal level. We enhance each others situational awareness, strengthen our understanding of the opportunities and challenges and work on education both in our schools and ours. Ive had the opportunity to go down there and speak at their institutions. Thats the foundation that counters russia and china best because frankly they cant compete with our system. Theyre trying. Theyre in the area. Everywhere i go the chiefs of defense say the chinese have come, theyve offered us free education, unlimited travel, opportunity to go to their schools. Theyve replicated our model. Theyve started Spanish Language training in beijing. The message i get from our capable partners is we dont want to train with them, we want to continue. When you meet new chief of defense, for example the new chief of defense in el salvador and the new minister of defense, both have been to u. S. Schools and theyre committed to working with us, not with others. Thats the way we move forward in a real meaningful way, senator. Thank you very much. Just to go a little bit further with that, i do firmly believe in those mill to mill opportunities whether through training exercises or through educational opportunities. Now, we have spoken, maybe you can expand a little bit on the lack of opportunity maybe that we have been able to extend to other military members attending our military schools. If you could talk a little bit about what some of those challenges are whether its funding or otherwise, it would be good to hear that. The opportunities to expand our education in our schools and training in our schools, and there is a difference, is the single best investment we can make longterm to our partnerships. Graduates of our School Systems go back with an understanding of u. S. Doctrine, tactics and techniques and really become lifelong friends. The chief of defense in argentina, for example, is an honor grad of the Army War College and very proud of it and was just admitted to the Army War College hall of fame. That is noted by the Political Leadership and valued. Hes one of my best strategic partners. Our levels of funding that have been provides and principal source of funding comes from education training. Thats basically been flat lined for as long back as i can do the math. Then your dollars of flat accounts getting us less school seats over time because the schools cost more than what we are able to contribute within the rules. Ive advocated and former defense secretaries have as well that we would be well served to look at increasing. For southcomm its about 11 million. I think i could absorb 18 million, a modest increase. When you look at the kinds of monies were spending in other areas, this is a low amount of money for a high dividend, hawahig hawahigh thats an area wed do well to expand, senator. Very good. Dollars well spent. Thank you very much, admiral. Ranking member peters. Thank you, madam chair. Admiral, we appreciate it. I think its clear from the discussion that we had earlier in my office as well as in your testimony that you provided here in the opening is that you agree corruption, lack of economic opportunity, violence and really the failure of democratgovernan the connection between weak governance, corruption, Transnational Criminal Organizations and then even the opportunity for china and russia, as you articulated, is significant. I consider that the number one Security Threat that we face here in this hemisphere. That same corruption breeds criminal activity, could breed terror activity and certainly breeds the kind of dirty deals that other external state actors come in and thrive on. In order to deal with that breakdown of governance, it probably makes sense to have a whole of government approach in dealing with it. That means not just the military operations that youre engaged in but also ngo activities. I know youve had experience working with the ngos. Are they helpful . Do you think thats part of the approach that we need to take in order to stabilize those countries . The strong institutions and the Strong Defense institutions in these countries contribute to the whole of government solution and thats where we focus. We have a program called Defense Institution building which gets after that through our perry center here in washington, d. C. As that plays into a whole of Government Strategy across what we call the dime, diplomacdiplo information, military and checkchec economics. Youre saying programs like u. S. Aid, state Department Programs in those countries are critically important for us in our work to stabilize those areas and hopefully prevent mass migration. Ti have a civilian deputy whos a full ambassador from the state department. She has former u. S. Aid experience. We have a Senior Executive from usaid that sits to my left at every meeting as one of my most senior reps. The Trump Administration recently cut off all nondefense aid to the northern triangle. Did the administration consult you as to whether or not that made sense . The pressure thats being applied to these governments i would offer is good. The decision to cut off is a policy decision and im not normally part of policy decisions, senator. I advocated and articulated to the defense leadership the important contributions that professional militaries from honduras, guatemala and el salvador have made particularly in the counter narcotics fight. Thats why we were able to continue our mill to mill engagement, senator. The leahy law bars assistance to Security Forces who have committed gross human rights violations. Would it make sense to add corruption to the list that would cut off Security Assistance, particularly corruption that enables drug and Human Trafficking . Senator, i dont know that i would have thought through enough how corruption might play into the leahy law. I think the leahy law is extremely effective. Its demanding, rightly so. And it produces units that we can trust and look at and know are doing the right thing with respect to human rights. In the Financial Times interview from june 26th, 2019, president putin said, quote, there are no Russian Troops in venezuela and characterized the personnel there as just specialists and instructors to train local forces. Yet multiple press outlets have reported that Paramilitary Forces deployed to venezuela to provide security for president maduro. These are the same forces that conducted missions on kremlins behalf. How would you characterize the actions of kremlin forces in venezuela . Is it just regular training or is it something more nefarious . Senator, weve consistently seen the way russia manipulates media around the world. At one point in february for my full senate Armed Services committee hearing, about a week before the hearing i was here doing prehearing office calls and i came out to the news that russian state tv was reporting my appearance near the border. I think that states russias approach overall to accuracy. There are Russian Troops, defense contractors, their presence in the hundreds in venezuela. They are supporting the maduro regime. They are keeping russian gear operable. They are conducting a