US Southern Command commander Admiral Craig Faller is scheduled to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and outline a number of national security challenges for the United States in Latin America.

According to the committee, Admiral Faller, as well as Northern Command commander General Glen D. VanHerck, will testify about "US national security challenges and force posture in SOUTHCOM and NORTHCOM areas of operation and related policy.

For Admiral Faller, the testimony comes at a time in which the long-term future of Southern Command - which covers 31 countries in the Caribbean and the Americas - remains uncertain.

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The command has previously seen repeated cuts to staff and budget - which stood at approximately $1.2 billion in early 2020 - even as Russia and China become increasingly active in its area of responsibility. About two-thirds of the command's budget has traditionally been used on security cooperation programs or drug interdiction efforts.

In an interview with LPO, Adam Isacson, the director of the Defense Oversight program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an NGO aimed at promoting human rights, democracy, social and economic justice in the Americas, said that the command's priorities have never been properly defined. 

The command has previously seen repeated cuts to staff and budget - which stood at approximately $1.2 billion in early 2020 - even as Russia and China become increasingly active in its area of responsibility.

"When you look at the commander's statement...it's sort of like a checklist. There's a little bit of Venezuela, there's a little bit of great power competition, there's a little bit of transnational organized crime. There's a lot of cocaine," he said. ‘'But there's no overwhelming narrative. There's no war on ‘blank' that galvanizes everybody."

Isacson added that many of Southern Command's primary missions - such as fighting transnational organized crime - are barely mentioned in the Department of Defense's wider defense strategy.

"Their main missions are just not what are the main missions for the Pentagon - which is an existential threat for them," he said. "It's not an exaggeration to say they're in an existential moment. Being rolled up into Northern Command or made into a pseudo-command is a possibility."

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On Wednesday, Faller and General VanHerck will also have to navigate potentially difficult diplomatic issues.

In March, General VanHerck made international headlines when he said that "ungoverned areas" controlled by criminal organizations account for approximately one-third of Mexico's territory. The statement was quickly dismissed by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Michael Shifter, the President of the Washington DC-based Inter-American Dialogue, told LPO that such comments are "not helpful" to the relationship and security cooperation between the two countries.

"I think [the general] has to be very careful, and be very mindful of what the overriding US objective is today, which is getting Mexico's cooperation and support in carrying out its migration policy," he said.

"I think that takes precedent, and I think the entire Biden team, including SOUTHCOM, has to bear that in mind," he added. "There are serious problems that have to be address, but you also have to be mindful of the possible consequences are of what you're saying. This is a very delicate moment, so it would behoove him to be quite sensitive to that."