The Caribbean’s location is again coming to be of global strategic significance

Long-term Caribbean security and defence policy and its relationship to foreign policy are issues rarely written about or commented on in the Caribbean media. Like much else in the region that is over the horizon, discussion is left to a small number of expert academics or professionals.

The consequence is that there has been little public discussion about the ways in which some nations beyond the region may be coming to view the strategic importance of the Caribbean, its possible implications for national sovereignty, or how this might relate to existing functional relationships such as the Caribbean-US Security Co-operation dialogue.

The Cold War ended long ago, and beyond border disputes, military exercises at a sub-regional level, the sharing of intelligence and experience, and occasional training with