As president , but warning against taking them out on an arbitrary time line next year. The president announcing today that he would keep nearly 10,000 troops in the region until october 2016 and then cut back to 5,500 in early 2017. In a statement the majority leader said the decision to reduce troop numbers should be left to the next president. You can read more here at the washington examiner. Weve heard from the chair of the Armed Services committee, who released a statement saying given the troubling conditions on the ground in afghanistan and the other Security Problems in the region keeping 9,800 troops through at least 2016 is necessary for our security interests. You can also hear the president s announcement for yourself in its entirety and well have it at 8 00 p. M. Eastern time over on cspan. Known as the city of good neighborhoods, this weekend our cspan cities tour joined by Time Warner Cable explores the history and literary life of buffalo wrarks new york, on become tv well visit the mark twain room at the buffalo and Erie County Public Library whose centerpiece are pages of the original handwritten manuscript of adventures of Huckleberry Finn and then well feature against the grain about the history of buffalos first ward. The irish settled in this neighborhood because they were desperate, came over across the atlantic during the famine and the years after the famine things still werent great. It would take maybe one relative to find out about these plentiful jobs along the waterfront, working in the Grain Elevators or in the mills. And then word would go back to ire land, you want to come to buffalo, you arent going to become rich, but you were going to have steady employment. So they came to this neighborhood called the first ward. It has its name because when buffalo first was created in 1832 as a city, it was divided into five political wards. And this area along the waterfront, along the buffalo river, has always been the first ward. On American History tv, on september 6th, 1901, president William Mckinley was assassinated in buffalo. Well tour the Buffalo History Museum exploring the mckinley exhibit that features exhibits surrounding his death and the gun used to shoot the president. Then discover the history of the buffalo waterfront and how its adapted from the nations grain center to modern redevelopment. Right now were at silo city. This is a collection of Grain Elevators built along a bend in the buffalo river. Originally built for different companies, but today all owned by rick smith who is the owner of the metals over on ohio street and its now besides being regenerated for many different purposes, for ats, for music, we do history tours where we take people around the Grain Elevators and tell the story of the history, but theres opera and poetry readings and all the different uses for the historic silos. See all the programs from buffalo on cspan 2s book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 on American History tv on cspan3. The cspan cities tour working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Leaive in two hours south korean President Park guenhye today shell be speaking about her countrys relations in the United States at the center for strategic and international studies. Well take you there live 5 00 eastern. First, though, a recent discussion about u. S. Relations with mexico. Military and local Law Enforcement officials talked about cooperation on Border Security at the offices of the association of the United States army. They talked for about an hour and ten minutes. All right, well, good afternoon. Im not guy swann. He got tied up handing out some awards. My name is george cohen. I work on the national staff. Its an honor and privilege to be here with you. I want to thank you very much for your time. We have a great, great panel for you today. Thank you for joining us for a third and final breakout session. This session is entitled the importance of mexico to Homeland Security. Of course, one of the goals of our association and the institute of land warfare is to foster an understanding of the emerging security environment. And as your professional organization, association, we are proud to provide events like this one that broaden the Knowledge Base of Army Professionals and those who partner with our army in our nations defense. These presentations are our way of amplifying u. S. Armys narrative to audiences inside the army and help to further the associations mission to be the voice for the army and support for the soldier. Of course, we cant do this alone. We rely on our members to help tell the story, tell the armys story and to support our soldiers and their families. A strong Membership Base is vitally important for advocacy efforts in congress with the pentagon and the Defense Industrial base. As well as the public and communities across the country through our 120 local chapters. So, for those of you, army and Homeland Security professionals and your comrades in arnl arms are not yet members of the association of the ujs army, we encourage you to join with a special introductory offer. Youll find the invitation on your chair. Card looks Something Like this. Just bring it to the ausa membership booth, booth 407 in exhibit hall a. If you are already a member, thank you for staying with us. Youre very important to us. So, please give your invitation to a fellow professional so he, too, can enjoy what you enjoy with your membership. Youll be doing a service to the association, to the United States army and to the nation. So, ill finish banging on about that. And now turn the floor over to dr. Richard downing executive Vice President for Global Strategies omnitrue technologies. Thank you, richard. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, george. Good afternoon. You know, its great to be an audience where theres actually interaction, but, you know, its this is an army this is the ausa. This is normally, you know, the kind of spirit we expect. We have our partners from mexico are here down below. So, if you would help me one more time, good afternoon. Oh, thank you so much. Thats much better. Much better. Well, as george mentioned, im richard downey, and its really a pleasure for me to be here today as your moderator on this panel on the importance of mexico for u. S. Homeland security and its an honor to be with this very distinguished panel and also with this distinguished audience, so thank you very much for all of you joining us today. When we talk about threats to the United States, typically we tend to immediately think far away, iran, north korea, al qaeda, although they certainly are here. But, you know, when you look at a map and we dont have maps to project today. But youve all seen those maps of the arrows coming up from the south of the roots of trafficking from south america through Central America through the caribbean through the eastern pacific and they all come up these arrows show how these the traffickers take drugs, pirated material, people, and usually the arrows stop at the u. S. Border. But we all know the arrows dont really stop at the u. S. Border. They continue on. Other maps will show you they continue on to los angeles and seattle, dallas, chicago, atlanta, washington, d. C. And they continue on up to canada, too. And the point is that if these if these traffickers can take Illegal Drugs and pirated merchandise and people successfully into these areas, what else can they bring . And the problem is we see as a result how closely intertwined our security is with that of mexico, because all those roots coming from the caribbean, eastern pacific, Central America, they all converge in mexico going through. And it is so important for us to work with our mexican partners in this. And we have a terrific panel today to address this issue. Of what are those things that can pass through our security, that we need to work so closely with our mexican counterparts with. What well do today, well have were going to have this panel will speak, each of them will speak seven or eight minutes or so. We want to leave time for questions because that will be the richest part of this dialogue. We want to make it a dialogue. I ask you, please, as you listen to each of the speakers, to be thinking about what you want to ask them. And dont be shy. Because theyre happy and we want to engage with you on this. So, first up, on the speakers today, will be general Brigadier General j. T. Taylor who is the Deputy Director for plans, policy and strategy at the u. S. Northern command and norad which is the unfied command that focuses on mexico. And hes going to give a strategic overview to start things off. Hell be followed by Michael Houston who is the principal director for the americas in the policy directorate of the department of Homeland Security. And he will address he actually has spent a lot of time focusing in Homeland Security on mexico, so hell be giving us the framework that department of Homeland Security uses to address this. Hell be followed by dr. Duncan wood the director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson center here in washington, d. C. , who has spent tremendous time in mexico as a professor here and has a great overview of all issues related to mexico and particularly our relationship with mexico, and our cleanup batter will be Lieutenant GeneralParry Wiggins who is the commander of u. S. Army north and amongst his many responsibilities army north is the the Army Component that focuses on the relationship with mexico. And during his time hes actually spent six years ago at army north in a variety of positions, so hes seen not only during this administration under the current president of mexico but also on the Previous Administration of lefelipe cald and hell be addressing some of the strategies one of his very Close Relationships is with general salvador fuegos who is the defense minister of mexico and then well get an overview and then your questions. Again, be thinking about what youd like to ask our panelists and let me turn it over to general taylor, please, thank you. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, i appreciate the opportunity to share a few insights to you of the absolute necessity of mexico to the security of north america from the perspective of u. S. North command, and id like to start with a little strategic context from a north american continental perspective writ large. Because i think its essential to understand the role that mexico plays in our security by comparing it a little bit to the role that canada plays in our security. Now, history has shown that if you want to threaten the United States, theres a number of approaches that you can take to get to north america. You can take an equatorial approach where you come from the east or west coast from the sea. Thats a hard approach because theres great distances involved or you can take a polar approach where you go over the north pole. There is less distance involved with that in the aerial domain. Thats absolutely inhospitable in the land domain. But our aerial dough maymain th over the pole is an existential threat, so over five decades we have cultivated a very close relationship with canada to address the existential threat that exists coming over the poles that has served north america very well. In fact, our chairman recently articulated four nationstate threats to north america and of those four three of them can reach us in the aerial domain over that polar approach. And so we learned of the absolute necessity of a close relationship with canada. We learned that that was in our National Interests. And that relationship that we have with canada has enabled us to truly be able to provide Aerospace Control and maritime warning. That relationship is critical to the security of the United States and canada. Both our countries benefit from that against extensioncial threats. That relationship we have with canada is a model that is worthy of emulating. But an Aerial Threat over the poles is not the only threat that north america faces. The Security Landscape is evolving and north america faces a threat from the south. Now, our threat from the south is not presently an existential threat, but it is a Security Threat nonetheless. And this threat that is transnational in nature exploits seams between countries. Its an organized threat. It is a networked threat. It is agile. Its adaptive. And it can reach the point to where it actually destabilizes regions and it can also challenge sovereignty. And so we broadly describe that threat as transnational organized crime. Now, this threat enters the United States through the land domain transiting through mexico and through the maritime domain coming up through the caribbean. And like i said while that threat is not as of yet existential it is a National Security matter. And mexico is postured to play every bit an Important Role against that kind of threat that canada plays against the aerial domain threat that we face from the poles. And so these kinds of threats include such things as special interest aliens, the potential smuggling of weapons of mass destruction, the trafficking of drugs and persons moving north or weapons and money moving out of the United States and south. And from a safety or a human rights perspective, the migration of uncompanied children. So, supporting mexicos southern border strategy is in our National Interest in the United States. Because the threats that mexico sees on their southern border, if not checked, we see then on our southwest border. So, were working with mexico to provide a cooperative plan that supports the implementation of their strategy. And in the near term were focusing on providing them with some needed capabilities like biometrics or Tactical Communications and in the long term were working on helping build sustainable capacities that will improve what were terming as regional interoperability, enhancing equipment commonality between our forces so we can Work Together. Theres a leadership role that mexico can play in the region to address this kind of a threat and that is something that we are seeking to foster. And what we consider to be a very historical event, weve had the leaders in the staffs from the trilateral meeting of north American Defense ministers, thats our defense minister in the United States, the Canadian Defense minister, mexicos defense minister, they all got together in a meeting and they acknowledged that they share many of the same threats and theyve been actively developing whats being termed the continental threat assessment. And that correlates all of the common, shared threats that are facing north america as a continent and so were already moving closer to recognizing a shared responsibility and collective security and were working with mexico in the development of an externally focused security cooperative capability in our Partner Capacity Development work that were doing with them. And so right now im very pleased to say that from northcoms perspective, we have an unprecedented level of Security Cooperation with mexico and it continues to increase annually in kind of the four main areas that are necessary for interoperability, training, exercises, engagement and equipment. And this really began a number of years ago with president calderons mexicos former president s decision to begin fighting Transnational Criminal Organizations and its really evolved holistically since then. And now as we interact with the leadership of sudana, thats mexicos army and air force and somar, that mexicos navy and mari marine force, their leadership is voicing an interest to be interconnected with the United States and they routinely talk of collective defense of north america. And these are good words to be saying. And so were routinely interfacing at the tactical and at the senior levels. Mexico has requested in our work with them that we begin interfacing with them at the operational level. And this kind of Capacity D