The Caribbean Region – Geography Or Will

By Dr. Isaac Newton

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Mar. 9, 2026: A Caribbean region may speak confidently about peace. The deeper question is whether it has decided what it is willing to protect and what it is prepared to lose.

This quiet dilemma now moves across the Caribbean.

When regional leaders gathered recently in Basseterre, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness offered a reminder about the Caribbean that is both obvious and often overlooked. Diversity in the region is a form of strategic intelligence. Different languages, colonial histories, and cultural traditions allow Caribbean societies to read global power from several perspectives at once.

Yet perspective does not automatically produce direction.

The environment surrounding small states is changing quickly. Assumptions that once appeared settled now feel provisional. The hemispheric outlook shaped by the Monroe Doctrine still influences how the United States interprets developments in the region. At the same time, China’s commercial and diplomatic presence continues to deepen throughout Caribbean economies.

These realities lead to a question that the region can no longer postpone.

Will Caribbean interests be defined within the region or largely outside of it?

For many years the Caribbean cultivated a political culture that valued restraint. Governments preferred dialogue to confrontation. Borders were not militarized against neighbors. Disputes were managed through diplomacy. These choices underscored intentional values practiced by small societies that understood the destructive potential of rivalry.

However, principles endure only when institutions sustain them.

Sovereignty rarely disappears through a single dramatic decision. It more often fades through a pattern in which choices affecting a region are shaped elsewhere while local governments gradually adjust to decisions they did not help design.

The consequences of this pattern reach into ordinary life. When a country depends heavily on imported food, a diplomatic disagreement can quietly affect what appears on supermarket shelves. When highly trained professionals build their careers abroad, the hospitals, laboratories, and engineering firms that remain at home operate with fewer hands and fewer ideas. Geopolitics eventually finds its way into the routines of daily survival.

This is why the strategic choices now facing the Caribbean are practical and ethical.

How should governments cooperate with partners to address security threats such as narcotics trafficking while preserving the freedom to determine domestic priorities? How can states welcome foreign investment while retaining cultural values and authority over long term development decisions? At what point does cooperation begin to narrow independence?

Three broad responses are visible.

Some governments adapt individually to the expectations of larger powers. Others emphasize national autonomy while acting largely alone. A third possibility requires more discipline. It asks Caribbean states to coordinate policy where shared leverage strengthens them.

Evidence that such cooperation is possible already exists.

When hurricanes strike countries such as Dominica or Grenada, emergency aircraft, engineers, and medical personnel from neighboring states often arrive before assistance from distant capitals. When storms threaten Jamaica, regional disaster systems mobilize meteorologists and logistics specialists whose expertise reflects decades of confronting the same weather patterns.

A similar pattern appears in the long partnership between Caribbean states and Cuba. Cuban physicians support clinics that might otherwise struggle to remain open. Trainers have helped develop Caribbean athletes who later compete successfully on the global stage. Engineers and technical specialists have assisted governments working to expand infrastructure and technical capacity.

These examples show that regional cooperation is not an aspiration. It is already part of the region’s experience.

What remains incomplete is the economic foundation capable of sustaining similar collaboration.

The Caribbean imports most of the food consumed by its population. A significant share of its scientific and professional talent builds careers abroad. Universities often conduct research without strong links to regional industries capable of translating knowledge into production.

These patterns limit strategic freedom.

A region dependent on external food supply cannot easily insulate itself from geopolitical pressure. A region that consistently exports its expertise weakens its own capacity to design complex solutions.

Future cooperation therefore requires attention to systems rather than declarations.

Agricultural production in Guyana, Suriname, and Belize could anchor supply networks that provide island populations with more reliable access to food. Caribbean universities could collaborate in applied research focused on energy resilience, climate adaptation, and regional manufacturing. Health partnerships could expand so that specialized treatment becomes more accessible within the region itself.

Diplomacy must also grow more deliberate. Caribbean governments will continue to engage major powers in trade, security, and investment. The challenge lies in approaching those relationships with clearly defined priorities that are understood throughout the region.

Small states preserve autonomy not by withdrawing from the world but by recognizing precisely where cooperation strengthens them and where it quietly limits their choices.

The Caribbean Sea connects societies that share storms, migration histories, music, and economic vulnerability. Geography created this proximity. Geography explains why the region exists.

Geography alone does not explain whether it will matter.

The future of the Caribbean depends on a different force. It depends on whether neighboring states develop the institutional discipline to think together when their long term interests are at stake.

Geography determined where the Caribbean sits in the world.

Only collective will can determine how it stands within it.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Isaac Newton is a strategist and leadership advisor focused on governance, institutional development, and small state strategy. Educated at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, he has spent more than three decades working across government, finance, academia, and civil society in the Caribbean and internationally. His work examines leadership, policy design, and regional cooperation in an era of shifting global power.