With this compilation of essays, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) wishes to encourage the study of a new type of global conflict faced by open societies. From the Cold War between ideological blocs we have moved onto a new conflict between open, democratic, rule-of-law abiding societies, and on the other hand a fluid coalition of States and dissimilar irregular forces that represent various forms of transnational organized crime.We are not in the presence of leftist or "revolutionary" processes, but in the face of the emergence of a regional criminal alliance under the guise of the so-called "Socialism of the 21st Century." A new type of State, criminal and transnational, linked to drug trafficking and terrorism, has established itself under the noses of an inter-American system that does not know how to classify what is now confronting it, and for that reason fails to assess the seriousness of the threat it represents for its national security or is incapable of finding effective ways to deal with it.