Latin America and the Caribbean

摘要

There is now both a need and an opportunity for the nations of Latin America collectively to cater more effectively for the region's own security. The opportunity stems, in part, from a lack of appetite in the US for regional conflict management, while the need derives from the fact that there are increasingly numerous and complex threats to this security. Democratic decay, prospective state failure, transnational organised crime, terrorism and/or insurgency, the trafficking of illegal weapons, narcotics and people, resource competition, environmental degradation and the consequential disruption to social cohesion all pose serious threats to regional stability, and all these domestic and non-state problems impinge on regional relationships.