Study and report on advancing United States interests in the Western Hemisphere

(a) Findings Congress finds that there are unconventional transnational threat networks that— (1) are centered on, but not exclusive to, drug trafficking organizations; and (2) the President’s National Security Strategy has identified as challenges to the core national interests of the United States. (b) Study The Secretary of Defense shall carry out a study of the major threat networks operating in the Western Hemisphere, with the purpose of revealing their principal leaders, capabilities, activities, methods, infrastructure, financial assets, and weapons, as well as how they overlap with drug trafficking organizations. In carrying out the study, the Secretary should prioritize such major threats that— (1) threaten the homeland; (2) abet international terrorism; (3) smuggle illegal drugs or supply weapons; (4) are heavily reliant on entities not located in the Western Hemisphere; or (5) traffic human beings or facilitate mass migration. (c) Report Not later than 180 days after the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives a report containing— (1) all findings and determinations made in carrying out the study required under subsection (b); (2) a comparison of the threats identified in such study to the global threat priorities of the Department of Defense; and (3) an explanation of how the Department of Defense plans to coordinate with the heads of other appropriate departments and agencies of the United States to use the resources of the Department, in coordination with criminal prosecutions, diplomacy, and other tools, to dismantle the major threat networks studied under subsection (b).