Strategic Insights: Caribbean Security Issues
R. Evan Ellis
Article by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College Press
"Outside of military, law enforcement, and some academic circles, security issues are rarely part of the discourse about the Caribbean. Yet, during the Cold War, the region’s contiguity with the United States made its largest island, Cuba, the focal point of the world’s closest publicly known approximation to nuclear war.
Today, the Caribbean is at peace and continues to be a strategically important region to the United States and its geopolitical rivals, transnational criminal organizations, and those who live there. Currently, the security environment of the Caribbean is subject to multiple interacting stresses, influences, and potentially transformative events posing significant consequences for the United States and the region."