The 2025 National Security Strategy elevates Latin America as a region of serious U.S. security concern. In this report, the authors outline potential ways to harness the full potential of U.S. Department of War security force assistance activities in Latin America to counter threats to the U.S. homeland, strengthen partnerships, and advance U.S. strategic influence in the region.

Force Multipliers in the Americas

Harnessing Security Force Assistance to Bolster Homeland Defense and U.S. Strategic Objectives in Latin America

Irina A. Chindea, Elina Treyger, Tahina Montoya, Kiki Hunegs

ResearchPublished May 5, 2026

The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) elevates Latin America as a region of serious U.S. security concern. The region presents the United States with both promising opportunities and notable challenges. By employing security force assistance (SFA) in new and innovative ways or by expanding its current use, the United States can magnify these opportunities and mitigate existing challenges. Importantly, these outcomes can be achieved at a relatively modest cost, making SFA a valuable tool for advancing U.S. interests in Latin America.

In this report, the authors outline potential ways to harness the full potential of U.S. Department of War (DOW) SFA activities in Latin America to counter threats to the U.S. homeland, strengthen partnerships, and advance U.S. strategic influence in the region.

Key Findings

  • By employing DOW SFA capabilities in new, innovative ways or by expanding their current use, the United States can magnify the opportunities that Latin America presents and mitigate existing challenges. Importantly, outcomes from the use of SFA can be achieved at a relatively modest cost, making SFA a valuable tool for advancing U.S. interests in Latin America.
  • The lines between threats from state adversaries and violent nonstate actors in the region have become increasingly blurred, as the 2025 NSS recognizes.
  • In addition to other instruments of national power, DOW SFA capabilities can be used to address a wide spectrum of problem sets across multiple strategic environments, ranging from competition to irregular warfare to crisis.
  • DOW could use the Army Security Cooperation Group—South (formerly known as the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade), special operation forces, and the National Guard State Partnership Program to reinforce each other's activities to reduce the corruption that underpins the illicit trafficking in drugs and, in some cases, the advancement of Chinese interests in Latin American countries.
  • General security cooperation authorities are largely sufficient for the conduct of SFA activities, but these authorities are not designed with the purpose of countering economic coercion in partner nations, which is the prevailing method through which China projects power in Latin America. Accordingly, DOW may want to give more consideration to how it can contribute to meeting these challenges.

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Chindea, Irina A., Elina Treyger, Tahina Montoya, and Kiki Hunegs, Force Multipliers in the Americas: Harnessing Security Force Assistance to Bolster Homeland Defense and U.S. Strategic Objectives in Latin America. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3928-1.html.
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This research was made possible by National Defense Research Institute exploratory research funding that was provided through the federally funded research and development center contract and approved by the institute's primary sponsor. This work was conducted conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division.

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