China and Russia are expanding their influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, and challenging the United States’ ability to deter conflict, according to two U.S. generals who spoke before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 24. “Our strategic competitors, China and Russia, are seeking ways to expand their power regionally in South America and the Arctic as well as through advancements in long-range missile capabilities and offensive cyber tools,” said Committee Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI). The Chinese Communist Party is working to erode the international order in a grand effort to replace it with a system more favorable to the Party’s interests, said Gen. Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Southern Command. “The PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] ambition to fundamentally revise the world order to serve its authoritarian goals and expand its global influence has triggered a new era of strategic competition with the United States,” Richardson …