The Caribbean region is experiencing an increasing number and severity of threats that affect national and regional security. Those threats include small arms and human trafficking, natural disasters, radicalisation and extremism, and many more challenges. The smallness and limited resources of most Caribbean countries make it difficult to respond to those threats independently by each state. Therefore, it is pivotal to understand multilateral collaboration mechanisms, possible pitfalls, and prospects to tackle the mentioned regional challenges. Whether it is a Coast Guard patrolling the Caribbean basin for trafficking actors or Army responding to natural disasters, the military organisations play an essential role in national and regional stability. Understanding the collaboration potential between the military organisations of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Barbados can strengthen the collective response of small states against present and future security threats. 

The main objective of the research is to understand the current arrangements for military security cooperation and the challenges that impair these arrangements; the study will also seek to identify other areas of opportunity for collaboration between military organisations across the region. The instability of Venezuela and resulting human trafficking, the increasing piracy in the Caribbean basin, and the severity of natural disasters, among many other threats, stress the importance of the (in)ability to collaborate between military organisations to strengthen national and regional security. Yet, no empirical research on regional security takes the military perspective on the subject matter. Therefore, the research aims to fill the void and contribute to the body of knowledge on multilateral military collaboration.