CHAPTER 1: STRATEGIC SECURITY ENVIRONMENT The Security Context 1.1. The world is being rapidly reshaped by the accelerating pace of scientific and technological advancement, demographic trends and the shift in the balance of world population to developing countries, the rise of Asia as a new centre of global manufacturing, surging demand for resources and equally rapid shifts in the pattern of environmental impacts, and fundamental changes in the nature of risk, political and economic influence, competition and conflict, and the geopolitical balance of power. THE WORLD WE LIVE IN To achieve CARICOM’s interests, it is paramount that we understand the context and the nature of the strategic environment within which we operate in order to position the Community for the present and prepare CARICOM for the future. 1.2. These changes represent important new opportunities but also existential challenges for the Caribbean nations, which have to adjust to market liberalisation, the phasing-out of preferential terms of trade and rapidly increasing competition from the emerging economies, while simultaneously contending with high rates of homicide and violent crime, trafficking in guns, ammunition and illegal narcotics, the rise in cyber-crime, the compromising of government programs by organised crime, increasing pressure on water, energy and other resources, environmental degradation and climate change, the growing power of non-state actors including transnational organised crime networks, and the increasing influence of new digital technologies, scientific advances and social networks 2, which can be used for good but also for destructive ends. 1.3. CARICOM nations need flexible but robust plans for dealing with the profound challenge of living in a world of rapidly evolving threats and shifting opportunities. In an age of uncertainty, it is vital to act quickly and effectively to deal with new and evolving threats to national and regional security. The essential interests of the CARICOM nations, however, remain constant. They are founded on our most deeply-held values; democracy, liberty and good governance, the rule of law, and respect for human rights and dignity. 1.4. Today CARICOM faces a number of emerging challenges, such as cyber-crimes with geographic origins and perpetrators that may be beyond regional boundaries, the risk of a terrorist attack, possibly directed at a third party but located in the Region, and the growth in the wealth, power and reach of the Mexican drug cartels. 1.5. The new reality is that of an increasingly interconnected world. Events in a distant part of the world can now have rapid and extensive repercussions for CARICOM. These changes make this CARICOM Crime and Security Strategy absolutely necessary. 2 Facebook has reached more than 1 billion active users in less than a decade of existence, while Twitter has attracted over 500 million active users in seven years. Sina-Weibo, China’s dominant micro-blogging platform passed 400 million active accounts in summer 2012. Every minute, 48 hours’ worth of content is uploaded to YouTube (Global Risk Report, 2013). 13