In our first installment of FPRI’s Main Line Briefings for this year, FPRI’s John Nagl will host Dr. Evan Ellis for a discussion of U.S. policy towards Latin America. As the Biden administration prepares to take charge, they will inherit a challenging situation in the region. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected relations with Latin America? How much will immigration and security policy toward El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and others change under the new administration? What effect will the domestic unrest and fragile economic situations of Venezuela and other Latin American nations have on U.S. policy going forward? These questions and yours will guide our conversation on a region central to American immigration and security concerns.
FPR’s Main Line Briefings are a series of discussions on global affairs and national security hosted by Dr. John Nagl, the celebrated Head of the Haverford School. Dr. Nagl is a Senior Fellow with FPRI’s National Security Program and a member of FPRI’s Board of Advisors. A retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, Nagl was part of the writing team that produced the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
In this series, Dr. Nagl will draw on FPRI’s vast network of scholars and outside experts to highlight their voices and insight on world affairs, global engagement and foreign policy. This series is co-Chaired by James Gately, John Piasecki, and Eileen Rosenau.
Dr. R. Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, with a focus on the region’s relationships with China and other non-Western Hemisphere actors, as well as transnational organized crime and populism in the region. Dr. Ellis has published over 280 works, including the 2018 book, Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dr. Ellis previously served as on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P) with responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean (WHA), as well as International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) issues. He has given testimony on Latin America security issues to the US Congress on various occasions and is cited regularly in the print media in both the US and Latin America for his work in this area. Dr. Ellis has also been awarded the Order of Military Merit José María Córdova by the Colombian government for his scholarship on security issues in the region.
