ABSTRACT
Latin America is usually considered a weapons of mass destruction–free zone. Starting from the mid-1990s and with few exceptions, all the countries of the continent are members of the main regimes of nonproliferation, such as the nuclear, the biological, and the chemical. At the beginning of the 2000s, Cuba was the last country of the region to commit to all the regional and international norms for curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The lack of relevant external threats can justify the absence of WMDs in the region. However, in the last few years, because of deteriorating relations between some Latin American countries, and between Venezuela and the United States, many analysts opened a debate about possible new attitudes in the region towards weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.
