3 - The Americas: A General View

Summary

In this chapter, we discuss the Western Hemisphere (the Americas), as a continent of peace. Whereas all the international borders in the Americas are peaceful, there is an important variation in terms of the occurrence and proliferation of illicit transnational flows across its borderlands. We assess the thirty-six land borders in the Americas, testing the three hypotheses developed in Chapter 2. We examine the general background of Latin America, including the Latin American movement toward regionalism, the persistence of traditional conflicts in the region, the role of the United States vis-a-vis Latin America, security initiatives of Latin American countries, the new security threats and the persistence of ungoverned spaces in the Americas. Moreover, we assess the reality of transnational crime in the Americas, by referring to drug trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking and human smuggling. The second half of the chapter explains the reality of peaceful bordes and illicit transnational flows in the Americas, by presenting and testing the relevant data. In general terms, we corroborate the three hypotheses.