Please join the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security for a Commanders Series event with General John F. Kelly, Commander of US Southern Command, to discuss the future of US defense cooperation in Latin America.

Latin America is of increasing strategic importance to the United States. In an age of the rebalance to Asia, continued engagement in the Middle East, and the emergence of an aggressive Russia, Latin America has received comparatively little attention from the US national security community. Slowly, this is starting to change, especially with the recent crisis of unaccompanied children migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. How will these and other developments affect US defense strategy and cooperation in the region, and how will this strategy help the United States best deal with this important region? General Kelly will come to the Atlantic Council to discuss these and other questions. 

Since 2012, General Kelly has been the Commander of US Southern Command, which is responsible for all Department of Defense security cooperation in the forty-five nations and territories of Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea, an area of 16 million square miles. Before his current position he served as the Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from March 2011 to October 2012. Kelly also commanded Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North in Iraq from October 2009 to March 2011.