Measures of Mutual Trust and Security in the Western Hemisphere

Within the hemisphere there are many differences about how to characterize the new contest and the new demands in the area of security. These differences appear both in the debate in international bodies, and in the debate between scholars and intellectuals. Despite this, as the essay tries to show, it is feasible for advances in the development of Mutual Trust Measures (MTM) in the hemisphere to allow new areas of policy coordination that culminate in the creation of a new international system of security that is essentially cooperative. The essay is divided into three sections. The first analyzes the main, current hemispheric trends and highlights the existence of different approaches to the topic of hemispheric security. The second section underlines the need to achieve cooperative hemispheric security; Latin American countries today have an opportunity that they must not fail to take advantage of: that of establishing common objectives that allow them to influence the design of the post-Cold War world. The third and last section analyzes the definitions, characteristics and range of action and operation of the MTM, with views toward hemispheric application.