On October 7, the Perry Center welcomed 71 participants from the Joint Military Defense Academy (ADEMIC) of Ecuador, including participants from Ecuador and Brazil. The delegation was led by Colonel José Loaiza Ledesma, Director of ADEMIC, along with Colonel Marco Villacis Batallas, Vice Director of ADEMIC; Colonel Miguel Iturralde Maya, Military Attaché of Ecuador to the United States; Colonel Dehivi Salgado Proaño, Director of Joint Military Education and Doctrine; and Colonel Petronio Segarra Córdova, Inter-American Defense College (IADC) Liaison Officer with the Inter-American Defense Board/Organization of American States.

Perry Center Director Dr. Paul J. Angelo, Deputy Director Ruben Lopez, Associate Dean for Research and Publications Dr. Patrick Paterson, and Professor Celina Realuyo welcomed the group. The visit began with a tour of the Perry Center and National Defense University’s Special Collections exhibit. The group then received presentations on “Global Threats from a US Perspective” by Professor Realuyo and “The Impact of Climate Change on Security and Defense” by Dr. Paterson.

This Perry Center engagement with Ecuador follows on others, including an executive seminar on strengthening national and regional security co-hosted with the Ministry of Defense of Ecuador in June in Quito and a virtual presentation in August in which Perry Center Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. William Godnick engaged 780 participants from ADEMIC to share the results of his research published in Perry Center Occasional Paper “Soldiers and Prisons: Reflections on Military Interventions in the Latin American and Caribbean Prison System.”