Regional Security Cooperation: Traditional and Non-traditional Areas

• Author: Edmund Dillon
• Pages: 462-484

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Caribbean Security in the Age of Terror

Regional Security Cooperation:

Traditional and Non-traditional

Areas

Edmund Dillon

Cooperation has become the predominant theme in discussions of security

in the Caribbean Basin. Whether the specific subject is drug trafficking,

migration, money laundering, natural disaster, or trade, the premise is that

it is better to work together than to go it alone.

Joseph S. Tulchin & Ralph H Espach1

Regionalism is on the rise around the world and in the Americas, and with

it comes new ways of interacting economically, politically, socially and

militarily. States devote considerable thought and planning to economic

issues, particularly trade, but precious little has been devoted to the security

cooperation imperative that arises from these other integration areas.

Joseph R. Nunez2

Introduction

The quest for regional security cooperation is not new; it has been a

preferred, but far-reaching, arrangement in most regions of the world. Existing

collective defence arrangements, such as the Rio Treaty of the Organisation

of American States, have been around since 1947. In 1960, there was the

West Indian Regiment, which was formed within the English speaking

Caribbean. Moreover, since 1960 the Conference of the American Armies,

which includes countries from the American continent and the Caribbean,

was established to collaborate and cooperate on common grounds. However,

the environment in which most of these arrangements were created has changed

considerably, as the contemporary security arena presents new challenges

and a new focus that require solutions flowing from relevant security

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Regional Security Cooperation

architectures. The two epigraphs above capture well the tone of the security

environment in this Age of Terror.

Historically in the Caribbean, there have been several initiatives in respect

to finding cooperative solutions for peace and security. In analysing the

contemporary security situation in the Caribbean, several authors suggested

that national and international issues are intertwined. In fact, many of the

contemporary Caribbean security issues are not confined to the region; rather,

they are transnational or have transnational consequences. The very nature

of these security issues, which transcend countries, regions, and hemispheres,

lends itself to some type of cooperative endeavours in the pursuit of finding

solutions. The question of working together to solve security issues in the

Caribbean, therefore, will always be a fundamental aspect of how we do

business, as long as these security issues continue to exist in this form and the

people of the Caribbean continue to seek ways of providing a safe and secure

environment that is conducive to the development of the region.

It is against this background that this chapter examines continuities and

challenges to regional security cooperation in the Caribbean. It is envisaged

that, from a re-examination of security cooperation that occurred both in the

traditional and non-traditional realm, appropriate responses can be shaped

to treat with security issues in this Age of Terror. The chapter seeks to answer

the question ‘Can the Caribbean develop and establish regional security

cooperation mechanisms to deal with traditional and non-traditional concerns

in this era?’ The chapter proposes a brief insight into the traditional and non-

traditional areas of security cooperation by looking first at continuities and

changes. Second, the relationship between security cooperation and the

integration movement is examined. Finally, attention is paid to a menu of

choices available to the Caribbean as it treats contemporary security

cooperation issues and efforts. Within this framework, it is proposed to link

the quest for integration in the Caribbean with regional security cooperation.

It is hoped that regional security cooperation would be a positive outcome

from the deepening and widening of integration movement.

This chapter argues that for regional security cooperation to be successful

it must be intertwined with the integration movement in the Caribbean.

Regional integration should, therefore, be used as the platform upon which

security cooperation can be achieved. A word of caution here, however, is

that, for regional cooperation to be viable, it must aim at more than the

traditional model of economic integration to embrace specific projects,

increased functional cooperation and a commitment to the principles of

regionalism as a mechanism for achieving peace, security and development.3