The member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Regional Security System (RSS) – Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – are often referred to as the “Eastern Caribbean,” and information about the U.S. security assistance they receive is usually reported jointly.

As these small island nations sit within the “transit zone” between Andean drug-producing countries and the market for drugs in the United States, the vast majority of their U.S. military and police assistance is oriented toward counternarcotics. The region’s small defense forces, anti-drug police, and coast guards received funding, training and equipment from several U.S. programs, much of it aimed at bolstering their mostly maritime drug-interdiction activities. “Military assistance to the Coast Guard and security forces” of the region, notes the State Department's 2000 Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, “kept the forces in action by providing critical fuel and repairs to regional forces.”¹

While no eastern Caribbean country is a primary recipient of funding from the State Department’s International Narcotics Control (INC) program, the seven states of the region share in the program's Caribbean regional fund, which assists security forces in all Caribbean countries except the Bahamas and Jamaica, which have their own targeted programs. This regional fund is expected to distribute $2.6 million in assistance in 2003, most of it for equipment, spare parts, fuel, and operational support.²

The entire Caribbean region (not just the seven eastern Caribbean nations) shares a $2 million yearly grant of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Like INC, this program chiefly funds Foreign Military Sales (FMS) purchases of equipment and spare parts for local security forces. FMF, the State Department's Congressional Presentation reports, is intended to "sustain Caribbean defense and maritime forces, allowing these island nations to maintain small professional forces essential to regional peace and security."³  FMF and International Military Education and Training (IMET) funding, the State Department adds, "will make the RSS an effective partner in maintaining regional stability, and increase its capacity to respond to increased drug trafficking and international peacekeeping."⁴ 

All of the eastern Caribbean nations are eligible to receive Excess Defense Articles (EDA) which, according to the Congressional Presentation, "will be used to promote inter-operability and modernization of equipment."⁵ Not all eligible countries actually receive excess equipment, however; in 1998, Antigua and Barbuda and St. Lucia were the only recipients of EDA, with each country acquiring one point-class patrol boat.⁶

The region buys some U.S. weapons as well. All seven countries made small Foreign Military Sales (FMS) purchases from the United States. Antigua and Barbuda, with $125,000 in FMS agreements for 2004, led the eastern Caribbean.⁷ Most FMS involved items such as patrol craft, spare parts, small weapons, technical assistance and communications equipment. In addition, a total of $18,487,547 in Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) export licenses were granted in 2002 to all of the island nations combined.^{8 (This rather significant amount is due to a license granted to St. Kitts and Nevis of $18,000,000 dollars for ship components and spare parts in 2002.)}

The Eastern Caribbean countries received a $1.5 million counternarcotics emergency drawdown package of rations, field gear, and small arms for police forces in September 1998. This drawdown also funded Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) training for Antigua and Barbuda.^{9 There have been no drawdowns for the region through Fiscal Year 2003.}

Further training is funded through the IMET program, with each country sending between five and twenty-seven students each year for training by U.S. military personnel.¹⁰ The Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies also regularly receives students from almost all of the Eastern Caribbean nations.

U.S. Special Forces visit every eastern Caribbean country on Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) and counter-drug training deployments. Topics of past deployments (this information is now classified) include light infantry training and small unit tactics (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada) and counternarcotics naval special warfare (St. Kitts and Nevis).¹¹

Eastern Caribbean nations are active participants in the U.S. Southern Command's regular multinational military exercises, such as Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarian, Fuerzas Aliadas Peacekeeping, and Tradewinds. In the past few years, these exercises have practiced counternarcotics, disaster relief, and peacekeeping scenarios.¹² U.S. military Humanitarian and Civic Assistance (HCA) activities are also frequent under the aegis of the Southern Command's "New Horizons" exercise series. In 2002, for instance, HCA activities in Barbados resulted in the construction of one community center consisting of rudimentary construction and repairs. HCA activities throughout the Caribbean increased in 1999 in response to Hurricanes Georges and Mitch, which both struck in late 1998.¹³

The eastern Caribbean's maritime forces participate actively in joint counternarcotics operations led by the U.S. Coast Guard. The most prominent of these is Caribe Venture, a periodic activity in which all of the region's forces "extend legal authority to law enforcement officials of other nations that permit entry and pursuit of suspects through sovereign sea and air space," and Snowbird, a three-month operation carried out in 1998.¹⁴

 

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Sources:

Sources for "country snapshot":

 

United States, Department of State, Background Notes: Antigua & Barbuda, (Washington: Department of State: March 1998) <http://www.state.gov/www/background_notes/antigua_barbuda_398_bgn.html>.

United States, Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 1999, (Washington: Central Intelligence Agency: 1999) <http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ac.html>.

United States, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1996, (Washington: ACDA: 1996) <http://www.acda.gov/wmeat96/wmeat96.htm>.

¹ United States, Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000, (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 879.

² United States, Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Congressional Presentation (Washington: Department of State: March 1999): 56-7, 59. <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/fy2000_budget/latin_america.html>.

³ Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000: 878.

⁴ Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000: 1112, 1114.

⁵ Department of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000: 878.

⁶ United States, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Excess Defense Articles Authorized Foreign Countries Under the Provision of Section 516 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, As Amended (Washington: July 1999).

⁷ United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Defense Articles (Including Excess) and Services (Including Training) Furnished Foreign Countries and International Organizations Under the Foreign Military Sales Provisions of The Arms Export Control Act, Chapter 2 (Washington: July 1999).

⁸ United States, Department of State, U.S. Arms Exports: Direct Commercial Sales Authorizations for Fiscal Year 98 (Washington: July 1999): 1-123.

⁹ United States, Department of State, "Memorandum of Justification for use of Section 506(a)(2) special authority to draw down articles, services, and military education and training," September 15, 1998.

¹⁰ United States, Department of State, Department of Defense, Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest in Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999 (Washington: 1999).

¹¹United States, Defense Department, "Report on Training of Special Operations Forces for the Period Ending September 30, 1998," Washington, April 1, 1999.

United States, Defense Department, State Department, "Foreign Military Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest In Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999: A Report To Congress," Washington, March 1999.

¹² United States Southern Command, J34, Exercise Program Quick-View, (U.S. Southern Command: October 13, 1998).

¹³ United States, Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Humanitarian and Civic Assistance Program of the Department of Defense, Fiscal Year 1998, (Washington: Department of Defense, March 1, 1999).

United States Southern Command, J34, Exercise Program Quick-View, (U.S. Southern Command: October 13, 1998).

¹⁴ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1998, (Washington: Department of State: February 1999) <http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/1998_narc_report/other98.html>