Through courses, seminars, outreach, strategic dialogue, and focused research in support of policy objectives, the Perry Center works with senior civilian and military officials from the Americas to build strong, sustainable networks of security and defense leaders and institutions.

[2] In so doing, the Perry Center is supposed to promote greater understanding of U.S. policy, mutually supportive approaches to security challenges, and improved, sustainable institutional capacity."

[8] However, in 2015 the Center for Public Integrity, in an article focusing on alleged gross violations of human rights by senior Center staff, quoted an internal Southern Command document that reported that CHDS "staff had exchanged 'racially charged emails' — including one directed at President Barack Obama; used offensive language such as 'faggot,' 'buttboy' and 'homo'; and that 'women employees feel that they are treated inappropriately.'

In February 2017, Miami Herald published an article on former CHDS Dean Craig Deare, who had been appointed by General Michael Flynn to be the Western Hemisphere chief for the National Security Council.

"[13] A day after its publication in the Herald, Deare offered a controversial analysis of Trump Administration policies and the role of key First Family figures during a supposedly "off-the-record" talk before a score of Beltway "insider" invitees at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

In 2015 the Center for Public Integrity, in an article focusing on alleged gross violations of human rights by senior Center staff, quoted an internal Southern Command document that reported that CHDS "staff had exchanged 'racially charged emails' — including one directed at President Barack Obama; used offensive language such as 'faggot,' 'buttboy' and 'homo'; and that 'women employees feel that they are treated inappropriately.'

Even senior leaders used 'inappropriate hand gestures,' it said, and mentioned simulations of masturbation.” [9] Three years earlier, following national security whistleblower disclosures of corruption, alleged human rights violations and other gross malfeasance by other senior staff working under the then Director, Richard Downie, (who earlier was the first Commandant of the controversial Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC), the latter requested an officer from another Regional Center to "informally"—not outside of the chain of command headed by that same Director—investigate the claims.

)[15][16] However, four years later, the AR 15-6 military inquiry used by Downie in a civilian DoD center to defend against accusations against him and his colleagues was significantly revised and would not be permitted to be used in such cases as that of CHDS.

Conducted in Spanish or English, foundational and specialized courses are designed to meet the evolving needs of sophisticated professionals from the defense and security sectors across the hemisphere.

All of the following countries have sent participants to resident events at the Center: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Belize, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Great Britain, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Spain, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, the United States Uruguay, and Venezuela.