HSDF THE PODCAST

From the Battlefield to the Homefront: Evolving Threats, Leadership Lessons, and the Strength of the Interagency - Part 2

• Homeland Security & Defense Forum

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Welcome to “HSDF THE PODCAST,” a collection of policy discussions on government technology and homeland security brought to you by the Homeland Security and Defense Forum

 In this episode, our panel discusses the transformation of criminal cartels into designated terrorist organizations and the implications, bilateral agreements signed by Panama and China during a 5-year period, and Chinese "investment" vs. American quality investment.  

 Featuring:

  •  Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command
  • Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service 

 This discussion took place at the HSDF’s Symposium Defending the Frontline on June 26th, 2025. 

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Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

Okay, so Team USA check. I have a follow-on question to that. So, with some cartels being designated as terrorist organizations, how does this impact DOD operations along or across the border? What does this mean for DOD collaboration with DHS?

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

So I think it's great. I think it's long overdue. So I think it's great. I think it's long overdue. The foreign terrorist designation the FTOs that allows a lot of things to unlock in our own country, right for the United States, and the ability to do things overseas as well. I think it's a great thing. I think that it'll continue to iterate as we go, but I think that it needed to happen. I'm glad it finally happened. If you haven't seen the list of all the FTOs, it's a pretty long list, but there's a reason for that.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

I would say that just seeing what's happened in the Western Hemisphere with the crime is that criminal gangs and things like this have turned into transnational organized crime. To work together internationally is what it's going to require, because there are too many things and too many connective tissues with other organizations and following the money Following the money is always really important to really find the head of the snake and be able to get after that. That's really really hard to do. In terms of the money laundering, you know all the fake businesses that clean that money and are able to just keep that. I mean in the Western Hemisphere alone, we predicted in US South Com that it was about $310 billion annually. I could add up all the GDPs of the countries and wouldn't be at $310 billion annually. And so we have got to clamp down with team democracy right, our allies and our partners to figure this out, if we're going to continue to stay ahead of it and sometimes we don't feel we're ahead of it as we should be.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

Okay, this next question. If you haven't noticed, I'm one of your biggest fans and I'll tell you why. I've held a myriad of leadership positions. I know that leadership is a risky business to navigate position. Know that leadership is risky business Navigate risky waters every day. It involves making difficult decisions, managing status quo, navigating uncertainty, disappointing a lot of people. There's a lot that goes into leadership. Here's the kicker, though. There's a lot that goes into leadership. Here's the kicker, though. I haven't flown a Black Hawk helicopter, I haven't dodged any roadside bombs in Afghanistan or Iraq, and I have not led 780,000 active duty reservists and National Guard soldiers, but you have. With that wealth of experience, can you share with us your most impactful leadership lessons? Pushing boundaries and tracking, taking hold of bold actions towards meaningful progress, especially when eyes are watching.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Yeah, so great question. So I like to use the example of my me and my husband. Right, I'm like five, four, you know not very tall, I'm not very uh. And my husband's like six two is a great big, tall, loud guy and uh, and you know the um. So when he comes into a room, you know the if, if I'm in the back, it's like, oh, that's a big guy, oh, that's our new commander, you know and. But if I come into a room, I'm not that, I'm not that I don't know intimidating or whatever, right and so. But what I would say is that you know over time, the just how you work and and and your eyes.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

I in the military we called it commander's intent. I think it's important. You know the as you try to. You have a vision, you have a strategy. You always have to continue to communicate what, what you want to achieve. And so I boiled down the Southcom, for example, strategy, which was like 50, some pages, and every year I had to go testify as part of our posture hearings right after the president's budget in the month of March, and we did four hearings and you would have to do a, like my mind, a doctrinal thesis about the region and talking about the importance of the region, but being able to communicate all that down to one chart. It had three lines of effort, right, and then it had a couple sub bullets underneath to articulate exactly what was important. And so we started out every briefing right. It'd be the title slide, and so the and we started out every briefing right be the title slide, and then the next chart would be that one where we're trying the roadmap and you just keep trying to communicate with your subordinate commanders, with your teams, communicate what you're trying to do, Not doing a lot of.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

You know, you got to go, look people in the eye, you got to be with them, you got to spend some time with them, right, got to do that down and in, as I call it, to be able to do the up and out, I would say working with this region. We didn't have a lot of visitors during that time. We had a lot of things going on east to west, west. So and I would ask congressional members to, when I go testify and do my office calls, I need you to come visit, like this whole region feels like we've been totally ignored from Team USA big time, and I need, I need you, you know, to come in.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

So the CODELs picked up, the staff, dels picked up and we created a really good relationship with the US ambassadors. We have a US ambassador that's the civilian deputy to the commander. That is like a jewel to have that, to have that ability of someone that doesn't think like you, thinks totally different, has been a US ambassador can help you with that down and in Our US ambassadors. As I say, talk about the dime, our instruments of national power. Diplomacy is number one, our number one teammate, our ground game is that US ambassador on the ground. That is my number one teammate. That is the quarterback Tell you what they're really really good made. That is the quarterback Tell you what they're really really good.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

And we have got to have make sure that we you know, as part of Team USA we don't have gaps in our US ambassadors on the ground, because that's where China doesn't have a problem to out-compete us, right. They don't have big gaps Like we're going on three-year gap with a US ambassador in the country of Colombia Colombia is in the top three of the biggest militaries in the region Colombia, brazil and Chile and we're going on three years. You know what happened in Panama From 2017 to 2022, five-year gap of the US ambassador. You know how the president of the country looks at our US ambassador. That's their number one point person for the US president. And if the US president doesn't put a US ambassador in the seat, what does that call that president? It's kind of like having a three-star general and a four-star command for a year. They don't care, right, that's how they look at it and they don't do anything substantive. That's when Panama signed 47 bilateral agreements with the Chinese during that time frame.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

So, but you know we're on a different level now with our relationship with Panama. We had a great ambassador from 22 to 2025. We got another one in there now. So that's good. We didn't have any gaps. But anyway, I did a lot of listening to the US ambassadors, teed me up with many of the presidents because nobody else was visiting and that's not my counterpart. Right had to figure out and modify my talking points to talk about what Team USA was doing, not just what Team Southcom was doing. The M part what are we doing with diplomacy, information, economics, investment and all of those sorts of things?

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

So Thank you. Well, that concludes my questions. Would you like to take some questions from the audience?

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Okay, we have our CNN correspondent, who's on location. If you have a question, please raise your hand and he will bring you a microphone. There's a microphone, a question, right here in the front, third row end. I just want to be able to reference you. Thank you.

Audience:

Sam, the pregnant women there's just so much going on. The families, the pregnant women there's just so much going on. I'm curious how do you think the US government, in your opinion, could better communicate, since public sentiment about some of these issues tends to wax and wane and you know you sometimes have and I'm speaking as an immigrant myself I came to this country when I was seven and you have folks who are maybe hyper-focused on just the compassionate side of the equation and the national security piece kind of falls, falls away. So you have what seems like a groundswell of people who are anti security, anti immigration or I should say anti anti immigration. So I'm curious for your take on that and how we can do better as a community to communicate this in a way that is so compassionate but also balances it with reality.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Yep. So economic, I'll go back to the economic security is national security, because you see countries with so much progress and promise. And then you talk about technology and you see how Team USA trying to become chip independent Right, we're not going to achieve that until 2030. You talk about nearshoring, friend shoring and those sorts of things. We have like over 200 US companies in Panama, we have over 250 in Honduras, right. And so, as you talk about investment in the region, you talk about the.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

What does Team USA also do for the globe? What does Team USA also do for the globe, right? If I take every one of our states in the United States and drill down in terms of what they're exporting out of the states in terms of agriculture, in terms of, maybe, defense equipment or medical equipment, whatever, it's huge. I was just meeting with a member of Congress earlier today from the state of Ohio. They export 56 billion a year from that state globally. And then you look at what you know, and then we broke it down into Western hemisphere and that kind of thing. It's huge. So we're interconnected, right, whether we realize it or not. And so I think that the just you know. I'd like to say that, like I said I'll go back to the one thing I said earlier on, that I can fly to 80% of this hemisphere and three to four hours right, and we don't. I think we've realized or we've lost the realization of how close, you know, our neighborhood is, but we rely on each other.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

I believe that what the Chinese have done with the Belt and Road Initiative you know I didn't talk a lot about the Caribbean, but what is, I say, the first and second island chain to our homeland is already in play with the Chinese With, through the Belt and Road Initiative and through all of the what looks to be investment right in these countries. Thing is is I don't look at it as investment. It might look like investment when you go to these countries, you see the big cranes, the big Chinese cranes and things like that, but they bring in Chinese workers. They don't hire local workers, don't invest in the community. We don't talk about US quality investment. What does that mean? That means labor standards, that means environmental standards. That means, you know, diversification of the workforce. That means they generally adopt a school or a hospital or a clinic and they invest.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Chinese don't invest, they extract and some of these projects in terms of you know if I just several of them what we tried to do is employ the US Army Corps of Engineers because I had the Southeast District that worked for me for the region. You're talking about billions of dollars in projects for the Chinese, the Corps of Engineers, the division. I had got about 50 million, so a sliver of what the Chinese had. But we would go in and try to fix some of the things that the Chinese company had really totally screwed up environmental hazards and things like that. So there's like a handful of projects that way. But you know, you got to build trust with the countries too, because you know, if I'm a president of a country and you haven't been there and now all of a sudden you're wanting to be there and it's like, well, you know, show me that you really mean it, kind of thing. So I'll give you an example of vignette with the president from Panama.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

When I went there the first time, my headquarters in US South Com was in Panama. We moved 26 years ago from Quarry Heights when the US gave the bases back to Panama and I thought, out of all the countries, I would go to Panama and I would get this big bear hug like welcome home, good to see you South come. You know, and I will tell you it was like talk to the hand and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, it was like the worst out of any of the countries and I was like what is going on? I did a lot of listening in this job when I first got in there, like what are your challenges? And since I was meeting with the presidents, I could hear it firsthand. And and the president told me he goes, general Richardson, I just, I just need one thing. I'll commit to you to things behind closed doors that I won't say publicly I said, okay, it has to be that way.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

And he said I just need that one maritime patrol aircraft. That's two years late. And I was like, oh my God, I've got the president of a country asking me for a prop airplane. You know, I went back and found out why are we two years late? What's going? On the trail of tears, the roaches were scattering. I went back three months later, donated the aircraft and from then on the door was open to work. They were ready to work with us. Right, because we showed that we were serious and we meant what we said. But it's that kind of thing. Are you going to be there? You know, I will say that the you know with. Well, I won't get into that.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

That's a whole nother. That would start a whole nother conversation. We're all just hanging on with bated breath, but we are at time. We are at time. We are at time. This is a Secret Service Challenge coin and you know the meaning of this. I want to give you this. Thank you so very much.