ABSTRACT
Caribbean states are located in a region beset by vulnerabilities and threats to the security of their populations. Many of these countries are particularly vulnerable to security threats because, as some observers point out, the majority of them are small in territory, population, and economy. But their vulnerability goes beyond smallness of size. And the threats to their security are much broader today than the narrow military-security threats that posed a problem to them during the Cold War era. Today, in the post-Cold War era, Caribbean states are facing potential and actual vulnerabilities and threats from a number of quarters, ranging from: external economic shocks, the negative impacts and vagaries of globalization, global warming and climate change, a series of natural disasters, food insecurity, radioactive nuclear waste, transnational crime and concatenated violence, corruption, lack of transparency, a return of piracy, and home-grown extremism. One of the biggest challenges posed by these vulnerabilities and threats is the fact that Caribbean states now operate in an intermestic environment in which the lines between domestic and external policy prescriptions have become increasing blurred.? This chapter elaborates on these vulnerabilities and threats.
