ISBN 92-808-0967-9 1998, 108 pages US$14.95, paper

A great diversity of points of view on international security, one of the most current subjects in the area of international relations, coexist nowadays in Latin America and the Caribbean. This region is immersed in an interesting debate in which reticience and enthusiasm cohabit and confront themselves in order to enlarge the functions of regional mechanisms of security, or else to evaluate experiences acquired either through UN action or recent tendencies of the Security Council. Naturally, the center of the debate is also found in the impossible-to-ignore role of the United States.

Does the end of the Cold War modify the US interests in Latin America in the field of security? Should existing mechanisms of collective security in the region be strengthened? Or should we find new alternatives? How far is a shared agenda for security, not only with the United States but also between the countries in Latin America itself, and among them and the Caribbean, possible or desirable? How acceptable are the new tendencies of the multilateral organizations in the field of security for the countries in the region? These are some of the questions that the papers in this book deal with from different points of view. Its reading will give the reader a new perspective on the contemporary debate in the area of international security in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Olga Pellicer is General Director of Instituto Matias Romero de Estudios Diplomaticos, Mexico.