The Caribbean Sea, together with the Gulf of Mexico, has for nearly one hundred years actively exercised the minds and skills of US strategists and policymakers. During this time intervention and diplomacy in defence of interests deemed ‘vital’ has become a commonplace and a corresponding image of the region as first an ‘American Mediterranean’ and then as a ‘back-yard’ has become widely held throughout US society. This chapter will examine the current basis of two critical components of such a belief as they have been represented within the Reagan Administration.

The first is the Caribbean as a proximate resource of almost inestimable strategic and economic value to the US. Such a thesis has been repeatedly affirmed throughout the years, both as cause and consequence of US hegemony. Currently it finds, perhaps, its quintessential expression in the flood of testimony by US officials and interested parties before the committees of the US Congress. Here one encounters a familiar inventory of trade, investment, aid and raw materials as the bedrock of economic interest, alongside sea lanes of communication, overseas bases, military assistance and strategic minerals as the foundation of security concerns. A listing of all these dimensions is not especially meaningful since they can often be encountered in the literature and can readily be accessed in any number of directories. Instead, what will be determined are the specific interests encountered in the region that are of direct relevance to the United States, both in respect of its security and its economic development.