About the Authors

Retired Admiral Craig Faller is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. From 2018 to 2021, he commanded the US Southern Command in Miami, Florida, where he led a diverse team of seven thousand people with an annual operating budget of over $1 billion. In this role, he enhanced Western Hemisphere security by building strong, trusted partnerships between the US military and Latin American and Caribbean security forces. His team rapidly responded to a myriad of complex security challenges including transnational criminal organizations, the Venezuela crisis, the global pandemic, and the August 2020 Haiti earthquake.

Patrick Paterson, PhD, is a professor of practice at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. A 1989 graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, he retired from the US Navy as a commander in 2009. He completed his PhD in conflict resolution at Nova Southeastern University, where his research focused on negotiations with military institutions during postconflict transitions to democracy. He has a master’s degree in national security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, a master’s equivalent from the Argentina Naval War College in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a master’s degree in political science from the American University in Washington, DC.