South Florida is an ideal perch from which to observe hemispheric geopolitics, and FIU has harnessed its experts and location to strengthen understanding of threats to the nation's security. Brian Fonseca serves as vice provost for defense and national security research at FIU and the director of its Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. Here he breaks down some of the institute's most impactful work: a suite of federally funded, open-source online dashboards that track illicit activity in Latin America and the Caribbean.
What are the dashboards and how do they work?
Our dashboards take large amounts of publicly or commercially available data to capture insights that enhance understanding of the various activities in the region. These insights are used by the U.S. government and partner nations to inform decision-making.
One of them maps illegal fishing. What does it track exactly?
The illegal fishing dashboard tracks fishing activity in the eastern Pacific off South America and Mexico. It relies on data collected in collaboration with our partner, Windward Intelligence, by satellites and a vessel's automatic identification system [required technology on commercial ships] to identify suspect vessels based on suspicious activity such as turning off the transponder, known as "going dark," or ship-to-ship meetings that are indicative of unloading cargo from one vessel to another. Our dashboard also shows where a ship has travelled in the past 12 months as well as the company that owns it, enabling analysts to identify recurring patterns of illicit activity, uncover corporate networks associated with illegal fishing and distinguish isolated incidents from broader, more coordinated operations.
Another focuses on small arms and light weapons. What does it reveal?
Our large language models scrape the web for reports of homicides and weapons seizures, and we verify the information. The snapshot helps us understand a wide range of things: Which transnational organizations are most involved in trafficking? What are the most trafficked weapons in certain geographies? What's the proliferation of ghost guns and counterfeit weapons?
How do these assist authorities in those countries?
Our dashboards provide publicly available geospatial tools to help partner nations prioritize their scarce resources and focus their capabilities for the greatest return on investment.
For example, our research team visited Argentina this year to host a workshop with its coast guard, which was also attended by representative of Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. We found that the illegal fishing dashboard is a key tool used by the Argentines to validate their findings.
In another example, we conducted a working group with Caribbean nations where our weapons trafficking dashboard was featured as part of weekly meetings. That dashboard was used to bust a ring in the northern part of Argentina.
And how does this go back to U.S. national security interests?
In the case of illegal fishing, incursions off the coast of Peru, Ecuador and Argentina undermine the economies of those countries to the tune of billions of dollars.
Based on our research, Chinese vessels, some of which are state controlled, are the biggest contributor to illegal fishing in Latin America. The United States does not want to see China, or anyone else, depleting fish stocks or degrading any other natural resources in the Western Hemisphere as this can have devastating consequences for political stability, security and economic prosperity in the region. We must identify and understand the kind of activity that threatens the broader landscape.
What does the "China influence" dashboard capture?
China plays a long game, so for us it's about understanding Chinese engagement across Latin America and the Caribbean over the past quarter century. How is China using its instruments of national power to advance foreign policy and national security interests? How is it leveraging diplomatic engagement, Confucius Institutes, cultural exchanges? There are also security questions around surveillance technologies, and we must consider economic questions and investigate China's growing role in ownership of critical infrastructure such as ports and strategic mines.
Our dashboard is an effective, easy-to-use platform that tracks and maps all of these important points so they are simple to view and understand. We can identify where activities overlap, reveal long-term patterns of influence and understand how individual projects fit within China's broader regional strategy.
Once the data provides us with a picture of what is going on, we here try to answer the why and even to forecast the future, because the Chinese have a playbook. They pursue a long-term strategic output with a sequence of events and consequences. For instance, China donates a soccer stadium to a community. Why? Probably because it wants rights to the minerals that are controlled by the provincial government. We're using the dashboards to help us understand the reasons behind China's economic, diplomatic and military decisions.
What is FIU's role within the national security landscape?
We support the integration of research by all our partner universities across the state to optimize Florida's ability to serve as the premier national security go-to.
Let me say this about FIU. The U.S. national security strategy focuses very much on securing the Western Hemisphere, and there is no university in the country better positioned to support that from a Latin American hemispheric security context. We run the annual convening on hemispheric security here at the university. We have proximity to and support from U.S. Southern Command, which has a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. We're very much locked in with our State Department partners and the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. You will not find another university in the country that has as much equity in hemispheric security than FIU.
What's next?
We're building a dashboard right now that is going to help the international community if there is a humanitarian crisis or intervention in Cuba. We're mapping hospitals, schools, roads, bridges so we have something publicly available for civil society and charities or governments to use as they begin to plan for deployment of aid. For example, are roads able to hold a five-ton truck? Right now, on social media, we're seeing trucks flipping over because roads are buckling and the infrastructure is so poor. So we're mapping that. ♦
For more about the Cuba humanitarian assistance dashboard, watch a presentation by Randy Pestana, director of National Security Policy and Strategic Engagement at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy.
Read an opinion piece by Brian Fonseca about China's potential to manipulate American political debate over artificial intelligence and energy policy through use of suspected inauthentic social media accounts believed involved in influence operations.
