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Strategic Studies Institute Monograph

DILEMMAS OF BRAZILIAN GRAND STRATEGY

Hal Brands

August 2010

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iii

FOREWORD

Over the past 20 years, Brazil has made great strides 

in consolidating a multiparty democracy, taming macroeconomic instability, and attacking deep-seated social 

issues like poverty and exclusion. It has also become 

an ever more important player in the global arena, assuming a key role in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping 

missions, South American economic and political integration, debates over world trade and politics, and other 

issues. 

Given Brazil’s growing regional and global influence, it is imperative that U.S. policymakers achieve a 

fine-grained understanding of Brazilian foreign policy 

and the motivations that drive its leaders. In this monograph, Hal Brands critiques Brazilian grand strategy as 

it has developed over the past 8 years in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brands acknowledges the sophistication and accomplishments of 

Lula’s grand strategy, but he argues Brazil still confronts 

several challenging strategic dilemmas—ranging from 

persistent internal problems to the increasingly competitive nature of its relations with the United States—that 

could negatively impact its geopolitical potential. Dealing with these dilemmas, and charting a steady course in 

U.S.-Brazilian relations, is thus the difficult task that falls 

to Lula’s successors.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this 

monograph as an important contribution to the debate 

over Brazilian foreign policy and its implications for the 

United States and the global system.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HAL BRANDS is Assistant Professor of Public Policy 

at Duke University. He previously worked as a defense analyst in Washington, DC. Dr. Brands is the 

author of From Berlin to Baghdad: America’s Search for 

Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (2008), as well as 

recent Strategic Studies Institute monographs on drug 

trafficking and radical populism in Latin America. His 

next book, Latin America’s Cold War, will be published 

in late 2010. He has written widely on U.S. grand strategy, Latin American politics and security, and related 

issues. Dr. Brands holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale 

University. 
v

SUMMARY

This monograph analyzes Brazilian grand strategy under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During Lula’s nearly 8 years in office, he has pursued a 

multipronged grand strategy aimed at hastening the 

transition from unipolarity and Western economic hegemony to a multipolar order in which international 

rules, norms, and institutions are more favorable to 

Brazilian interests. Lula has done so by emphasizing 

three diplomatic strategies: soft balancing against the 

United States, building coalitions to magnify Brazilian 

negotiating power, and seeking to position Brazil as 

the leader of a more united South America. 

This strategy has successfully raised Brazil’s profile 

and increased its diplomatic flexibility, but it has also 

exposed the country to four potent strategic dilemmas 

that could complicate or undermine its ascent. First, 

issues like poor infrastructure, rampant crime, and excessive taxation and regulation of the economy may 

impede Brazil from attaining the strong economic 

growth and social cohesion necessary to sustain such 

an ambitious strategic project. Second, in dealing with 

South America, the Brazilian political class has not 

reconciled its desire for regional leadership with its 

unwillingness to share power or economic benefits 

with its neighbors. As a result, many of these countries 

perceive Brazil’s diplomacy to be domineering and its 

trade policies to be narrowly self-interested, and they 

have thus refused to support Lula’s bid for regional 

preeminence. Third, at the global level, the long-term 

cohesion and effectiveness of Lula’s various diplomatic partnerships is open to question. Fourth, while 

Lula has maintained good relations with Washington, 

his grand strategy unavoidably entails a growing risk 
vi

of conflict over issues like Iran, trade policy, and the 

U.S. diplomatic and military role in Latin America. 

Looking ahead, the efficacy of Brazilian grand strategy—and its consequences for U.S. interests—will be 

contingent on how Lula’s successors address these dilemmas.
1

DILEMMAS OF BRAZILIAN GRAND STRATEGY

INTRODUCTION

Only a few years after America’s post-September 

11, 2001 (9/11) displays of military might led commentators like Charles Krauthammer to opine that the 

post-Cold War “unipolar moment” was on the verge of 

becoming a prolonged “unipolar era,” the international system seems to be moving toward a more diffuse 

distribution of power. The United States is widely (if 

perhaps debatably) assumed to be in relative decline; 

a range of second- and third-tier powers are jockeying 

for greater influence. It is now common to hear that 

the world is moving toward a “post-American” age, 

that we have reached the “end of American exceptionalism” or “the end of American hegemony”—the 

common themes in these assessments being the ebbing of U.S. supremacy and the rise of a new class of 

powers that will rival Washington for influence in the 

21st century.1

Few countries have experienced as remarkable an 

improvement in their international stature over the 

past decade as Brazil. Brazil has long had a reputation 

as a country with a great future—if only it could get 

there. As late as 2002, Brazil was wrestling with chronic financial instability, and the election of a president 

with a distinguished leftist heritage raised fears of 

macroeconomic collapse and resurgent political strife. 

Since then, however, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio 

Lula da Silva has won widespread praise for his economic and social initiatives. Building on the initiatives 

of his predecessor, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President Lula has sought to channel 

the growing national confidence derived from demo-
2

cratic consolidation and macroeconomic stability into 

a more forceful diplomacy. Brazil has become more 

active in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions; it has energetically promoted the India, Brazil, 

and South Africa (IBSA), and Brazil, Russia, India, and 

China (BRIC) forums as alternative centers of global 

power; it has forged economic and technological partnerships with France, Russia, China, and other key 

countries; it has put forward a claim to a permanent 

seat on the UN Security Council; and it has promoted 

South American economic integration as well as new 

regional institutions like the Union of South American 

Nations (UNASUR) and the South American Defense 

Council (CSD). Underlying all this is a sense among 

Brazilian policymakers that their country has finally 

arrived on the global scene, and that it is destined to 

reap the benefits of the ongoing changes in the international system. In this spirit, President Lula has 

announced that Brazil will become a great power in 

this century, and Brazilian official discourse is infused 

with a sense of national strength and purpose. “Brazil 

must think big,” said Defense Minister Nelson Jobim 

in 2009. “This is the moment in which it’s necessary 

to be audacious in order to advance. . . . There is no 

longer any possibility of asking Brazil, on the international stage, to take positions that run contrary to its 

interests.”2

Purely by dint of its size and economic capacity, 

Brazil will exert a strong pull on regional and global 

politics in the coming decades. Even under the most 

optimistic projections, however, Brazil will not possess the economic or military capacity to compete 

with other major powers—namely the United States, 

China, and the European Union (EU)—for decades, 

if then. If Brazil is to achieve what political scientists 
3

call “systemic impact”—the ability to shape the global 

order in meaningful ways—it will have to do so not 

through the inexorable accumulation of geopolitical 

weight, but through the resourcefulness of its strategy and diplomacy. Accordingly, this monograph examines Brazilian grand strategy as it has developed 

under President Lula with an eye to illuminating its 

characteristics, prospects, and implications for the international system in general and the United States in 

particular. The present is a propitious time for such 

an undertaking; with President Lula set to leave office at the end of 2010, Brazilian grand strategy may 

be approaching an inflection point, making a proper 

understanding of the strategy pursued over the last 

8 years all the more important for Brazilian and U.S. 

observers alike.3

This monograph makes two principal arguments, 

one pertaining to the nature of Brazilian grand strategy, the second regarding its ramifications and chances 

for success. Under President Lula, Brazil has followed 

a multi-layered grand strategy that emphasizes a 

gradual and peaceful—yet nonetheless significant—

revision of the international order. While Brazilian officials recognize the benefits that their nation has derived from the Pax Americana, they still view the current 

order—characterized by U.S. military and strategic 

hegemony and the economic hegemony of the West—

as prejudicial to the development, commercial interests, and diplomatic influence of emerging countries 

like Brazil. The fundamental goal of Brazilian grand 

strategy has thus been to hasten the transition from 

the dominance of the developed world to a multipolar 

order in which international power balances and institutions are more favorable to the assertion of Brazil’s 

interests. Because Brazil still faces, and will continue 
4

to face, a relative deficit of economic and military 

might, President Lula has resorted to a strategy commonly used by “middle powers,” countries that rely 

on multilateralism, coalition-building, and other such 

methods to achieve systemic influence. At the global 

level, he has sought to strengthen international norms 

and organizations that can check American power, a 

classic soft-balancing technique. He has also forged 

overlapping webs of bilateral partnerships and multilateral coalitions designed to diversify Brazil’s commerce, improve its strategic flexibility, and augment 

its leverage in international negotiations. This has entailed embracing players from the entire spectrum of 

international actors, including countries—Iran being 

one notable example—that are deeply hostile to the 

United States. At the regional level, President Lula has 

committed himself to establishing Brazil as the recognized leader of a more united South America, with the 

aim of expanding his country’s power base and hitching its global ambitions to the aggregate geopolitical 

weight of its continent. 

This grand strategy has clearly benefited Brazil 

in the short term, raising the country’s international 

profile and creating an array of strategic, commercial, 

and diplomatic options that President Lula’s successors may pursue.4

 Yet Brazilian grand strategy also 

entails four key dilemmas that President Lula has not 

been able to resolve, which could obstruct or at the 

very least complicate the country’s geopolitical ascent. 

First, issues like poor infrastructure, rampant crime, 

and excessive taxation and regulation of the economy 

may impede Brazil from attaining the strong economic growth and social cohesion necessary to sustain 

such an audacious strategic project. Second, in dealing 

with South America, the Brazilian political class has 
5

not reconciled its desire for regional leadership with 

its unwillingness to share power or economic benefits 

with its neighbors. As a result, many of these countries perceive Brazil’s diplomacy to be domineering 

and its trade policies to be narrowly self-interested, 

and they have thus refused to support President Lula’s bid for regional preeminence. Third, at the global 

level, the long-term usefulness of President Lula’s 

various “strategic partnerships” and alliances is open 

to question. The IBSA and BRIC forums are much less 

cohesive—and thus less diplomatically effective—

than they appear at first glance, and pursuing close 

relationships with countries like Iran may ultimately 

hurt Brazil’s democratic image and create more problems than opportunities. Fourth, while President Lula 

has maintained good relations with Washington, his 

grand strategy unavoidably entails a growing risk of 

conflict over issues like Iran, trade policy, and the U.S. 

diplomatic and military role in Latin America. If not 

managed carefully, these frictions could eventually 

push U.S.-Brazil relations in a tenser, less productive 

direction, impairing the interests of both countries. 

Looking ahead, the efficacy of Brazilian grand strategy—and its consequences for U.S. interests—will be 

contingent on how President Lula’s successors address these dilemmas.

The remainder of this monograph consists of four 

sections. The first discusses Brazil’s strategic culture, 

the issues that have traditionally frustrated its desires 

for global influence, and the factors underlying the 

growing assertiveness of its foreign policy since the return to democratic rule in 1985. The second describes 

President Lula’s worldview and details the military, 

diplomatic, and commercial components of his grand 

strategy. The third evaluates this grand strategy, not-
6

ing its accomplishments but also emphasizing the four 

key dilemmas mentioned above. The fourth discusses 

implications for U.S. and Brazilian policymakers and 

offers some brief concluding remarks. 

BRAZILIAN STRATEGIC CULTURE AND THE 

QUEST FOR GREATNESS

When President Lula proclaimed in 2003 that Brazil was ready to “assume its greatness,” he expressed 

a deeply held tenet of Brazilian national ideology and 

strategic culture. Since the formation of the Republic 

in 1889, a variety of factors—Brazil’s continental dimensions, its commanding economic and strategic 

position within South America, its relative lack of territorial threats, and its sense of exceptionalism within 

the Latin American context—have inspired a belief 

that the country belongs among the global elite. “We 

possess all the conditions that enable us to aspire to 

a place among the world’s great powers,” said Carlos de Meira Mattos, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the 

Armed Forces, during the 1970s.5

This belief was at the core of Brazilian diplomacy 

for much of the 20th century. During World War II, 

Brazil was the only Latin American country to contribute ground forces to the Allied cause, deploying 

an entire division to Italy. Following the coup against 

João Goulart in 1964, the military governments that 

ruled for the next 21 years touted the notion of O 

Brasil Grande (Greater Brazil). The ideological underpinnings of authoritarian rule—a collection of concepts developed at the Escola Superior de Guerra and 

known as National Security Doctrine—emphasized 

geopolitical thinking and the projection of national 

power. These administrations pursued a firmly anti-
7

communist foreign policy within South America, but 

simultaneously sought to expand Brazilian influence 

in Lusophone Africa and the Third World and thereby 

break out of the bipolar framework dominated by the 

superpowers. Brazil, announced Foreign Minister Antônio Azeredo da Silveira in 1975, must achieve “an 

outstanding position in the world,” free from “the 

paths of hegemonic construction of the past.”6

 Prominent international observers shared this high opinion 

of Brazil’s potential. Henry Kissinger privately predicted that “in 50 years Brazil should have achieved 

world power status,” and George Kennan labeled Brazil one of several “monster countries” that might exert 

a decisive influence on the global scene.7

Until recently, however, ambition continually outpaced reality. Brazil’s regional rivalry with Argentina 

and its condescending attitude toward its neighbors 

prevented it from establishing a strong power base 

within its home continent (and these two factors continue to loom as obstacles to Brazilian strategy today). 

Political instability absorbed the attention of the Brazilian elite; authoritarian rule between 1964 and 1985 

drained Brazilian credibility abroad. Under the military governments that ruled during this period, Brazil 

was something of a pariah state, as these regimes’ human rights violations and refusal to renounce nuclear 

weapons left the country isolated in international 

forums. Recurring economic crises, most notably the 

hyperinflation and massive debt burdens of the 1980s 

and 1990s, further sapped Brazilian strategic potential. 

These difficulties often made Brazil seem more like a 

basket case than a rising power, and in some international economic circles, there remains skepticism as to 

the country’s long-term trajectory.8

Over the past 20 years, however, Brazil has steadily increased its international role, first under three 
8

democratic presidents in the 1990s, and then more 

rapidly under President Lula since 2003. In one sense, 

this activism was born of necessity. As Brazil opened 

its economy during the 1980s and 1990s, it became 

more sensitive to patterns of globalization forged by 

the leading developed countries and institutions like 

the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the General 

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As a result, 

the only way to protect Brazilian interests and promote Brazilian development was to take a more active 

part in shaping the norms, rules, and organizations 

that governed the global economy and international 

relations more broadly. As President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) put it, the policy of “autonomy through distance” pursued by the military 

dictatorships must be replaced by one of “autonomy 

through participation, within a changing international 

reality.”9

 Brazil took a more participatory attitude toward numerous international institutions, contributed to several peacekeeping missions under UN mandate, and led the formation of regional groupings like 

Mercosul (Common Market of the South) as a way of 

increasing its bargaining power in international economic negotiations.10

What has enabled and sustained these initiatives 

is Brazil’s relatively high degree of recent economic 

and political progress. The consolidation of a stable, 

multiparty democracy has calmed the political vicissitudes that previously intruded upon foreign policy 

and has given Brazilian leaders greater credibility in 

interacting with a world where democratic rule has 

advanced dramatically since the 1970s. In the same 

vein, the fact that Brazil has restored macroeconomic 

equilibrium and made gradual progress in addressing 

widespread poverty through conditional cash transfer 
9

(CCT) programs like Bolsa Familia has permitted its 

diplomats to take a more vocal role in global debates 

on poverty and development. As Marco Aurélio Garcia, one of President Lula’s chief advisers on foreign 

affairs, acknowledges, “Without the successes of his 

social policy, President Lula would not be as respected internationally.”11

Moreover, while macroeconomic growth has been 

anemic in recent decades, factors like improved economic stability, growing purchasing power for the 

poor and middle class, and the development of both 

internal and external markets have allowed Brazil 

to crack the top 10 in rankings of the world’s largest 

economies (as measured in gross domestic product 

[GDP] at purchasing power parity).12 Prominent commentators, including Goldman Sachs, predict that the 

country may climb as high as fifth in this ranking in 

the next 40 years.13 A thriving biofuels program combined with aggressive offshore drilling has addressed 

Brazil’s internal fuel needs and increased its international economic influence amid concerns about the 

long-term cost and availability of petroleum supplies, 

and the exploitation of the offshore Tupi oil field will 

likely make Brazil a major player in the hydrocarbon 

market.14 These developments have not only increased 

Brazilian economic power and diplomatic standing; 

they have also raised national self-confidence after the 

trials of the 1980s and 1990s and allowed the foreign 

policy community to argue that progress at home justifies and requires expanded ambitions abroad. President Lula alluded to this dynamic when he declared 

that “Brazil is ready, Brazil is mature, Brazil is aware 

of the game which has to be played.”15 Understanding 

how President Lula has played this game requires a 

closer examination of his worldview. 
10

GRAND STRATEGY UNDER PRESIDENT LULA

Brazilian grand strategy under President Lula 

has been rooted in a deeply ambivalent view of the 

international system. In one sense, Brazil has benefited enormously from “public goods” that the United 

States and its Western partners provided during the 

postwar—and now the post-Cold War—era. The liberalization of global economic and financial flows has 

been a boon to Brazilian development, especially as 

that country has opened its own economy over the 

past 2 decades. For all of Brazil’s complaints about 

the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World 

Bank, these institutions have provided development 

assistance and a financial safety net of which Brazil 

has more than once availed itself. The long-standing 

U.S. defense umbrella over the Western Hemisphere 

has afforded Brazil a degree of free security from external threat. Similarly, Washington’s policing of the 

global commons has allowed Brazil to trade around 

the world without building a Navy capable of protecting that commerce. In this sense, Brazil is very much a 

“winner” in the Pax Americana.16

Nonetheless, the prevailing global order still 

strikes many Brazilians as fundamentally inequitable. 

The UN Security Council is controlled by the five 

permanent members (P-5), even though this arrangement distorts current geopolitical realities and keeps 

latecomers like Brazil, India, and Japan from rising to 

the top echelon of international politics. “The geography of 2009 is different from the geography of 1948 

when the UN was created,” President Lula has pointedly noted.17 The unipolarity of the current system is 

also troubling. There is no meaningful counterweight 
11

to the “unilateral” exercise of American power, a fact 

that became quite clear in the run-up to the Iraq war. 

These issues inform a strong undercurrent of anxiety 

in Brazilian geopolitical analysis. “We live in a world 

in which intimidation threatens to trample common 

sense underfoot,” said Strategic Affairs Minister Roberto Mangabeira in 2008.18

International trade and financial arrangements appear similarly ossified from a Brazilian perspective. 

Because organizations like the IMF, World Bank, and 

WTO are still dominated by the developed Western 

countries, Brazilian officials frequently complain that 

the policies of these institutions are slanted against 

the interests of the developing world. This impression 

has been reinforced by the persistence of U.S. and European agricultural subsidies that inhibit the export 

of Brazilian commodities. These subsidies, President 

Lula argued at the UN General Assembly in 2006, 

“are oppressive shackles that hold back progress and 

doom poor countries to backwardness.”19 President 

Lula particularly objects to the 54-cent per gallon U.S. 

tariff on ethanol imports, and since 2003, Brazil has 

refused to allow the Doha Round of the WTO negotiations to proceed until its concerns on agricultural 

subsidies are addressed.20 Brazilian discomfort with 

prevailing international economic structures became 

starkly evident in a series of comments made by toplevel officials in 2008 and 2009. Foreign Minister Celso 

Amorim compared U.S. trade representatives to Nazi 

propagandists, and President Lula asserted that the 

world financial crisis was caused by “the irrational 

behavior of white people with blue eyes.”21

Brazilian strategic analysis thus features a pervasive sense of danger—a fear that the strictures of the 

current global order might impede Brazil’s develop-
12

ment or otherwise limit its potential. But it is also 

characterized by a sense of opportunity. Brazilian 

officials acknowledge that the United States remains 

the dominant player in the international system, but 

they view it as unlikely that Washington can maintain 

this position indefinitely. As early as the 1990s, a highranking official in the Defense Ministry commented 

on “the visible imbalance between its military hegemony and its worrying economic situation, with its 

huge domestic and external debt and the technological and administrative competition from other world 

powers.”22 Since then, other officials have openly 

opined that the United States is in relative decline. As 

American power ebbs, the global system will gradually approach a point of greater geopolitical flexibility, 

an opening that rising nations like Brazil can exploit 

to attain greater influence and freedom of maneuver. 

“If we know how to work in the 21st century,” said 

President Lula early in his presidency, “this will be 

the century of the so-called emerging countries, like 

India, Brazil, South Africa, China, Mexico, and Russia, 

hitherto considered second-class nations.”23

Under President Lula, the chief aim of Brazilian 

grand strategy has been to work for what Minister 

Amorim calls “a certain reconfiguration of the world’s 

commercial and diplomatic geography”—that is, to 

hasten the transition to a multipolar order in which 

international norms and institutions no longer favor 

the developed world at Brazil’s expense.24 Along these 

lines, President Lula has defined Brazilian foreign policy as an “assertive” project rather than a “subaltern” 

stance that would imply “acceptance of the guidelines 

set by the big power blocs, the U.S. and Europe.”25 In 

a speech in September 2003, President Lula outlined 

this diplomatic philosophy in dramatic terms: 
13

We no longer accept participation in international 

politics as if we were Latin American wretches; a 

Third World country of no account; a worthless country with homeless children; a minor country whose 

people only know how to play soccer and dance the 

samba. . . . There is no interlocutor anywhere in the 

world who respects another who bows his head and 

acts as an inferior.26

During his time in office, President Lula has pursued a multi-layered strategy for asserting Brazilian 

interests and increasing its global power. 

Hard Power and Military Capabilities.

One element of this strategy involves accumulating 

traditional hard-power capabilities. “Realists” such as 

John Mearsheimer predict that rising powers will seek 

to increase their influence and challenge the global hegemon by amassing greater military might, and President Lula has indeed laid much stress on strengthening 

Brazil’s armed forces.27 Military spending increased 

from $9.23 billion to $23.9 billion between 2003 and 

2009, permitting major technological upgrades.28 Brazil has purchased attack helicopters from France and 

Russia, combat aircraft and military transports from 

European suppliers, as well as four French-made 

Scorpene submarines. There are also plans to develop a 

nuclear attack submarine in cooperation with France, 

and Brazilian officials have arranged to purchase or 

develop short-range missiles, night vision equipment, 

and thermal and electronic sensors.29 Beyond all this, 

the government has presided over the completion 

and deployment of the Amazon Surveillance System 

(SIVAM), an extensive network of satellites, ground 
14

sensors, and radars that can monitor not only Brazil’s 

vast Amazonian hinterland but also parts of Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and other 

neighboring countries.30

Brazil is not simply purchasing equipment; it is also 

negotiating agreements that will allow it to develop its 

military-industrial base and eventually eliminate any 

dependence on foreign suppliers. “We are not engaging in a shopping festival,” says Minister Jobim, “but 

in a festival of national technical improvement based 

on the transfer of technology.” Brazilian representatives have emphasized joint partnerships between 

Brazilian firms and their foreign counterparts and told 

European suppliers that they are only interested in 

purchases that involve no-strings-attached technology transfers. Given the eagerness of European suppliers to satisfy Brazil’s appetite for advanced weaponry, 

it has not been difficult to negotiate a range of joint 

projects that will result in the construction of fighter 

aircraft, attack helicopters, and, perhaps most notably, 

the aforementioned nuclear submarine.31

These acquisitions are part of a broader shift in 

Brazilian military strategy and doctrine. Brazil is 

moving away from its traditional defense posture, in 

which the majority of its forces were deployed in the 

southern part of the country, to a newer stance that 

focuses on securing internal portions of the country 

from criminal urban guerrillas and protecting conflictprone border regions in the Amazon. This latter goal 

derives from not simply the need to avert instability 

along Brazil’s frontiers, but also an exaggerated fear 

that foreign powers, particularly the United States, 

covet geopolitical space and natural resources in the 

Brazilian Amazon. Along the same lines, defense officials have broached the possibility of patrolling the 
15

South Atlantic and called for measures to protect the 

country’s offshore hydrocarbon resources.32 There are 

also plans to develop an asymmetric warfare capability geared toward frustrating attacks by larger powers, as well as a greater emphasis on rapid national 

mobilization in crises. Brazil’s armed forces, one planning document states, must be organized “around a 

military culture hallmarked by flexibility, imagination, and daring, [with] the capacity to surprise and 

overwhelm.”33

President Lula’s military policy is meant to serve 

multiple purposes, several of which have more to do 

with domestic politics than global ambitions. At the 

level of national strategy, however, this buildup is 

clearly linked to the drive for greater autonomy and 

influence. In planning documents and comments by 

high-ranking officials, the nation’s growing military 

capabilities are frequently characterized as a means of 

shaping events in Brazil’s neighborhood and a “defense shield” against meddling by hegemonic powers. 

Just as important, the buildup serves as a symbol of 

growing national power and a signal to both regional 

and global observers that Brazil intends to pursue a 

serious geostrategic role. In 2008, the Chief of Staff of 

Brazil’s Navy told an interviewer, “Those who have 

nuclear submarines sit on the United Nations Security 

Council. All permanent members have the technology, 

which none of them give up. We have to develop our 

own.”34 In this same spirit, Brazil has participated in 

numerous UN peacekeeping missions since the 1990s, 

and President Lula’s government eagerly took the 

lead in commanding the UN stabilization mission deployed to Haiti in 2004. As Minister Jobim explained 

in 2008, “What we want is to have voice and vote in 

the international arena, and this only goes to countries 
16

that have a defense structure to deter and to express 

national power.”35

President Lula has clearly not neglected the military foundations of international influence. Even so, 

Brazilian officials do not perceive grand strategy primarily in hard-power terms. Military spending as a 

percentage of GDP still lags compared to many countries in South America, and even with recent technological upgrades, Brazil will not be able to project 

significant military power outside its immediate environs for decades, if then.36 In a broader strategic sense, 

American military and technological superiority is 

so pronounced that even if Brazil desired to compete 

militarily with the United States (and there is little indication it does), any attempt to do so would be futile 

and counterproductive. Nor will this power deficit 

change anytime soon. Military power is ultimately 

derived from economic power, and even the most optimistic forecasts of Brazilian growth over the next 40 

years still place that country far behind other centers 

of global economic power like the United States, China, and the EU.37 If Brazilian foreign policy is to satisfy 

President Lula’s grand ambitions, military capabilities 

will have relatively little to do with it.

Middle Power Strategies: Soft Balancing, 

Coalition-Building, and Region Formation.

This challenge is a common one for middle powers. According to international relations theorists like 

Robert Keohane, middle powers are states that reside 

on the periphery of the global elite. They frequently 

harbor great-power ambitions and may exert significant influence within a certain area or region, but they 

lack the material capabilities to confront the hege-
17

monic power (or powers) or to play a central role in 

shaping the international system. For middle powers, 

achieving global influence thus necessitates punching above their own weight, generally through astute 

multilateral diplomacy. A middle power might forge 

diplomatic alliances with other rising nations as a way 

of magnifying its own influence; it might use international norms and organizations to restrain the behavior of the hegemonic power; it might seek to establish 

itself as the leader of a distinct geographic region and 

thereby harness its ambitions to the combined geopolitical weight of its neighbors. As Keohane writes, 

middle powers “cannot act alone effectively, but may 

be able to have a systemic impact in a small group 

or through an international institution.”38 In short, a 

“middle power strategy” is effectively one of coalition-building and soft balancing.39

Brazilian officials are keenly aware of their status as a middle power—as well as the strategic imperatives that flow from that status. Samuel Pinheiro 

Guimarães, Secretary General of the Ministry of External Relations (Ministério das Relações Exteriores, or 

Itamaraty) under President Lula, argued that “Brazil 

has to articulate political, economic, and technological alliances with peripheral states of the international 

system to defend and protect its interests.”40 Such a 

strategy plays to Brazil’s strengths. Itamaraty is the 

best diplomatic service in Latin America, and its representatives receive rigorous professional and linguistic training. (In recognition of this strength, President 

Lula’s government decided to expand Itamaraty by 

several hundred diplomats in 2006.) Efforts at multilateral coordination are also facilitated by President 

Lula’s charisma and his credibility—especially among 

the developing countries—in addressing issues like 
18

poverty and governance. At the broadest, systemic 

level, a middle-power strategy naturally appeals to 

other nations that are uncomfortable with some aspect 

of American hegemony.41

During President Lula’s presidency, Brazilian diplomacy has featured at least three pronounced characteristics of a middle-power grand strategy. The first 

of these involves fortifying international norms and 

institutions that can act as a brake on American power. Conscious that U.S. negotiating power is diluted 

when Washington has to deal with its trading partners 

through international forums rather than bilateral settings, Brazilian officials have placed great importance 

on broadening the basis of world trade and financial 

negotiations. President Lula has diligently lobbied for 

the G-8 to be replaced by the G-20, a larger group that 

includes emerging countries like China, Brazil, India, 

and Mexico. Similarly, his government has relied on 

WTO rules and procedures to restrain what it views 

as unfair trade behavior by the United States and other developed countries, and Brazil has increasingly 

looked to this organization as a forum for articulating its economic interests vis-à-vis the West. This has 

taken the form of positive action, as when President 

Lula’s representatives led the charge for concessions 

on the licensing of AIDS drugs, but it has also taken 

the form of obstruction, as when Brazil used the WTO 

framework to rally opposition to Western agricultural 

subsidies and block the Doha Round negotiations. 

“The strengthening of the multilateral trading system 

is essential to those with less political and economic 

leverage,” Minister Amorim explained in 2007.42

This same approach has governed President Lula’s 

views on the UN and the use of force. Alarmed by 

recent instances of “unilateral” U.S. military action, 
19

Brazilian officials have responded by seeking to deny 

international legitimacy to such endeavors. In March 

2003, President Lula spoke out strongly against the 

impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying that it “disrespects the United Nations” and “doesn’t take into account what the rest of the world thinks.”43 Since then, 

a central rhetorical trope of Brazilian diplomacy has 

been a dogged insistence that the unilateral offensive 

use of force is inherently illegitimate, and that military 

intervention is warranted only when carried out under the sanction of international institutions like the 

Security Council. “We reject the view of an international order which favors the use of force and regards 

multilateralism as just one among many options on 

the menu, to be selected when it suits the objectives 

of the powerful,” says Minister Amorim.44 The Brazilian government has lent substance to this discourse by 

voting against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, while 

also participating in Security Council-sponsored 

peacekeeping missions in East Timor, Haiti, and elsewhere. President Lula has frequently used bilateral 

and multilateral communiqués to call for a revitalization of the Council’s collective security functions.45 All 

this indicates a classic soft-balancing technique, one 

meant to set a high threshold for the legitimacy of U.S. 

military action and thereby raise the diplomatic costs 

should Washington decide to employ its overwhelming military might.

A close corollary to this effort has been President 

Lula’s bid to win Brazil a permanent seat on the Security Council. This desire owes mainly to hardheaded 

calculations of national prestige and influence; a permanent seat would serve as a symbol of Brazil’s arrival on the global stage and permit it to shape debates 

on international diplomacy and the use of force. Even 
20

so, President Lula has shrewdly framed this quest as 

part of a broader, more altruistic campaign to make 

the international order more consensual and its governing bodies more representative. The need, he said 

in 2009, is “to build a new international order that is 

sustainable, multilateral and less asymmetric, free of 

hegemonies and ruled by democratic institutions.” 

Along these lines, Brazil has played a key role in coordinating the activities of the G-4, an arrangement in 

which Brazil, India, Japan, and Germany have agreed 

to support one another’s bids for permanent seats on 

the Security Council.46

President Lula’s reliance on the G-4 as the vehicle 

for his Security Council ambitions indicates a second 

aspect of Brazil’s middle-power strategy. This aspect 

involves building coalitions that offset the diplomatic 

and economic asymmetries of a unipolar system and 

serve as force-multipliers for Brazilian influence. 

President Lula has cultivated “strategic partnerships” 

with a wide range of countries, including developed 

middle-powers like Russia and France, as a means to 

this end. Yet the foremost emphasis of his coalitionbuilding strategy has been on expanding cooperation 

with other “Southern,” or developing countries.47

According to President Lula and his top advisers—

namely Minister Amorim, Marco Aurélio Garcia, 

and Guimarães—the strategic interests of Brazil and 

other major developing countries are fundamentally 

convergent. Because Brazil is geographically removed 

from countries like China and India, it need not fear 

them as rivals; because these nations share Brazil’s 

interest in replacing unipolarity with a more flexible 

international order, they might well be its natural 

diplomatic partners. “Despite the differences between 

Brazil and other large peripheral states,” Guimarães 
21

argued in 1999, “inasmuch as they share common 

characteristics and interests and are far away from one 

another, they do not have direct competitive interests 

and are therefore able to construct common political 

projects.”48 If Brazil can give impetus to these projects, 

it can increase its geopolitical leverage and position 

itself as the voice of the Third World in its dealings 

with the West.

The imperative of “South-South” cooperation has 

given rise to a wide array of bilateral and multilateral initiatives. On the bilateral front, President Lula 

has been more attentive than any of his predecessors 

to the potential benefits of a closer relationship with 

China, which could eventually serve as the core of an 

extremely powerful Southern diplomatic or economic 

bloc. Trade with China increased 12-fold between 

2001 and 2009, making that country Brazil’s largest 

commercial partner, and Brazil will become a major 

source of oil for Beijing once the Tupi field reaches full 

production. There is also a growing degree of technological and military cooperation between the two 

countries, which complements the deals that President Lula has struck with Russia and France.49

A more controversial bilateral initiative is President Lula’s vocal support for the Islamic regime in 

Iran. President Lula welcomed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil only a few months after 

the allegedly fraudulent June 2009 elections in Iran, 

and he has pointedly refused to condemn Iran’s nuclear program or support a move toward UN sanctions. 

In May 2010, President Lula joined with Turkish diplomats in brokering a nuclear agreement that would 

allow Tehran to ship only a portion of its uranium 

abroad for enrichment, a move widely seen as an effort to help Iran avoid the imposition of a new round 
22

of sanctions by the Security Council. While this stance 

has occasioned criticism from Brazilian conservatives 

and U.S. observers, President Lula appears to see good 

relations with Tehran as a way of asserting Brazil’s autonomy vis-à-vis Washington, making itself a player 

in Middle Eastern politics, and potentially positioning 

itself as a mediator between Iran and the West—all of 

which fit nicely with Brazil’s broader middle power 

strategy. As Minister Amorim puts it, Iran is “the new 

geographic partner in our country’s policy.”50

With respect to multilateral arrangements, President Lula’s focus on South-South diplomacy first captured global attention at the Cancun summit, part of 

the Doha Round of WTO talks, in late 2003. When the 

United States and the EU pressured the developing 

countries to accept the “Singapore Package” (a raft 

of measures pertaining to investment, competition, 

trade, and transparency in government procurement, 

which together constituted the core of the Doha agenda), President Lula seized the opportunity to organize 

a Third-World revolt. Brazil led more than 20 developing countries in demanding that any progress on 

the Singapore Package be accompanied by a rollback 

of agricultural subsidies in the United States and Europe. Taking this position lent political cover to the 

smaller members of the group, and after U.S. efforts 

to break this front failed, the meeting ended without 

agreement. More than that, the stalemate created by 

Brazil’s opposition led to the breakdown of the Doha 

Round, with the major participants unable to agree 

even on a framework for continuing the negotiations. 

(Discussions eventually resumed a year later, but the 

core dispute underscored by the failure of the Cancun summit has not yet been resolved.) This deadlock 

hardly benefited Brazil economically and it effectively 
23

stymied the world trade agenda, but it raised President Lula’s global profile and allowed him to act as 

a champion of developing-country interests in subsequent trade meetings. Afterward, President Lula and 

his advisers regularly referred to the Cancun summit 

as a watershed in Brazilian diplomacy. “The world 

saw that Brazil was able to say no,” Minister Amorim 

later recalled.51

Since 2003, Brazilian officials have worked to 

formalize South-South cooperation through several 

overlapping initiatives. While the BRIC forum is not 

technically a club of developing countries due to Russia’s inclusion, it embodies the peripheral-state ethos 

at the heart of Brazilian grand strategy. President Lula 

and Minister Amorim have stated on numerous occasions that they view BRIC as an emerging trade bloc 

that will eventually constitute an alternative to the 

Western-dominated system led by the United States 

and the EU, and bilateral commerce between Brazil 

and the other members has risen dramatically over 

the past several years. Making BRIC a more formal 

partnership is central to increasing its internal cohesion and overall geopolitical weight, and Brazilian officials have played a key role in establishing regular 

ministerial meetings, summits, and working group 

discussions.52

For all the attention BRIC has received, the IBSA 

Dialogue Forum may be the most important piece of 

Brazil’s South-South diplomacy. Founded by Brazilian 

initiative in 2003, IBSA represents an explicit attempt, 

as one communiqué put it, to “amplify the collective 

voice of the South.”53 The group includes three of the 

largest democracies in the developing world, boasting 

a combined population of over 1.4 billion and an aggregate GDP of over $3 trillion, and its leaders have 
24

laid out an audacious program for strengthening IBSA 

and increasing its international reach.54 IBSA aims to 

increase trilateral trade within the group to $25 billion by 2015 and it has established nearly 20 working 

groups on everything from commerce and investment 

to the environment.55 The forum sponsors development projects in Guinea-Bissau and Haiti as a form of 

outreach to poorer Third-World countries, and in 2008 

a joint naval exercise raised the prospect of an eventual IBSA military capability. “I don’t think that a group 

of sociologists meeting in a room causes such attention,” said Minister Amorim, “but a group of boats 

assembling with their flags causes attention.”56 The 

members have also pledged to support one another’s 

Security Council ambitions and advanced common 

positions on issues like nonproliferation and nuclear 

energy. Brazilian officials argue that IBSA carries extra legitimacy because its members are all developing, 

multicultural democracies, and comments by President Lula and Minister Amorim leave no doubt that 

they view the group as an emerging axis of geopolitical and economic power. IBSA, said Minister Amorim 

in 2007, is one of the tools that “can improve our negotiating capacity and help build a multi-polar world.”57

The third element of Brazil’s grand strategy takes 

place at the regional rather than the global level. According to international relations theorists, middle 

powers may augment their influence through a process known as “region formation,” whereby they simultaneously define their region as a distinct geopolitical entity and claim leadership status within that 

entity. Doing so allows the middle power to act as 

an acknowledged regional leader in global forums, 

thereby improving its diplomatic credibility and negotiating capacity.58 If region formation leads to mean-
25

ingful economic or political integration, it can bring 

about the pooling of resources and a corresponding 

increase in the aggregate geopolitical strength of both 

the region and its leading power. This was the strategy followed by Charles de Gaulle when he sought 

to make France the leader of a united, independent 

Europe, and the same spirit has animated European 

integration schemes since the early Cold War. Under 

President Cardoso, and more so under President Lula, 

Brazil has followed this same general template. Brazilian officials have spoken of creating a “solid regional 

space” in South America, and Marco Aurélio Garcia 

has advanced the notion that the continent must become an autonomous power center—presumably under Brasilia’s leadership. “We are marching toward a 

multipolar world,” he said in 2009, “and South America will be one of those poles.”59

The imperative of asserting Brazilian leadership 

has become all the more important in view of the contested geopolitical environment in South America. 

Recent U.S. policy toward Latin America has arguably 

been one of benign neglect, but Washington has nonetheless signed free trade agreements and strengthened 

relations with key countries like Chile, Colombia, and 

Peru. More pressing still is the issue of Venezuela, 

which under President Hugo Chávez has staked its 

own claim to regional leadership. Through projects 

like PetroCaribe and the Bolivarian Alliance for the 

Americas (ALBA, formerly the Bolivarian Alternative 

for the Americas), extensive aid to populist politicians 

in other countries, and the acquisition of advanced 

weapons systems from Russia and other suppliers, 

President Chávez has shown that he intends to make 

Venezuela the dominant power in South America. In 

public, Brazilian officials insist that they do not view 

President Chávez as a threat, but in private, they 
26

seem to recognize that his bid for regional leadership 

places Brazil in a difficult position. Openly confronting President Chávez would polarize the ideological 

and diplomatic climate in South America, destroying 

any chance for a more unified—and thus more influential—region. Yet taking too passive a stance risks allowing President Chávez to accumulate influence and 

isolate Brazil.60

Brazil has therefore taken an indirect approach 

to containing President Chávez. In public, President 

Lula has placated the Venezuelan leader and sought 

to mediate his disputes with Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe 

and other conservative leaders. More quietly, Brazil 

has attempted to consolidate its position in the region 

by strengthening ties with a range of countries, including those that make up President Chávez’s core 

diplomatic constituency. President Lula has called 

for a “strategic partnership” with Argentina, a longstanding rival that has traditionally viewed Brazilian 

influence with suspicion. Likewise, his government 

has expanded counternarcotics assistance to Bolivia, 

donated decommissioned airplanes or helicopters to 

Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador, and used a SIVAM 

surveillance aircraft to help Peru resolve a hostage 

crisis in 2003. As part of an initiative begun prior to 

President Lula’s presidency, Brazil has also made a 

virtue of its reliance on natural gas imports. Brazil cosponsored construction of a gas pipeline running from 

Bolivia to Brazil, ensuring that the Bolivian gas industry has become dependent on the Brazilian market, 

and President Lula acquiesced in the nationalization 

of Brazilian-owned gas assets in Bolivia in 2006. The 

list of initiatives goes on; efforts to balance President 

Chávez and expand Brazilian influence have given 

President Lula’s regional policy a hyperactive quality.61
27

As this diplomacy indicates, Brazil is aiming for 

what one scholar calls “consensual hegemony.”62 Brazilian officials seek to portray their country’s diplomacy as a benign, unthreatening project so as to avoid 

reviving traditional fears of a hegemonic Brazil and 

thereby driving South American countries toward Caracas or Washington. (How successful they have been 

in doing so is open to dispute.) Accordingly, for Brazil 

to achieve effective regional leadership, it will have to 

forge consensual arrangements that provide its neighbors with economic and political benefits while drawing them deeper into the Brazilian orbit.

This strategy has driven the central thrust of Brazilian regional diplomacy under President Lula—his 

unceasing emphasis on South American integration. 

Regional integration is the keystone of consensual 

hegemony—forging deeper political and economic 

ties with South American countries will create a more 

powerful continental bloc, while binding these nations 

more closely to the most powerful member of that 

bloc. Early in his presidency, President Lula called regional integration “a strategic option to strengthen the 

insertion of our countries in the world, increasing their 

negotiating capacity,” and Brazilian officials have frequently invoked the EU as an example of what they 

aim to accomplish.63

The centerpiece of this effort has traditionally been 

Mercosul, the trade and customs pact originally established with Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay 2 

decades ago. When President Lula came to power, he 

said that fortifying Mercosul would be a top priority. 

Since then, his government has broached various options for deepening economic ties within the pact and 

called for broadening its membership and responsibilities. Mercosul now has working groups to deal with 
28

organized crime, terrorism, and other security issues; 

it has taken on observers (Mexico) and associate members (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru); 

and Venezuela was granted full membership in 2006 

(pending approval by the Paraguayan and Brazilian 

legislatures). This latter decision was highly controversial, but President Lula’s government deemed it necessary to increase the share of South American trade 

commanded by the agreement, harness the influence 

provided by Venezuelan oil reserves, and hopefully 

moderate President Chávez’s efforts to undercut Brazilian diplomacy. President Lula has high hopes for 

Mercosul; he has pushed for a free trade agreement 

between Mercosul and the EU and worked to defeat 

rival projects like the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area 

of the Americas (FTAA).64

Due to frictions within Mercosul (discussed in 

greater detail below), President Lula has also pursued 

parallel integration projects. The Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) project 

features a web of transportation corridors, energy conduits, and other projects designed to facilitate flows of 

goods and people across the continent’s rugged terrain. While President Chávez has been very active in 

promoting this project, Brazilian officials appear to 

calculate that his enthusiasm will simply defray the 

cost of an initiative that will inevitably redound to the 

benefit of the continent’s largest economy. Complementing IIRSA is the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a relatively new body that Brazilian 

diplomats view as a forum for dispute resolution and, 

eventually, cooperation on a range of political and 

security issues. UNASUR is particularly attractive to 

Brasilia because it offers a multilateral forum for managing President Chávez’s intermittent outbursts and 
29

provocations, and because it excludes Washington 

and thereby makes Brazil the dominant player.65

Brazilian officials thus envision integration as a 

multistep, multilevel process that will eventually encompass political and security issues as well as economic and commercial affairs. “The first stage is commercial integration,” said one Defense Ministry official 

in 2004. “After that comes the macroeconomic one, 

and the military stage will be the roof of the edifice.”66

Brazilian officials portrayed the UN stabilization mission in Haiti as an embryo for South American defense 

cooperation, and President Lula was the driving force 

behind the creation of the South American Defense 

Council (CDS). The CDS is a still-nascent project that 

may eventually lead to more military-to-military contacts, more combined exercises, more collaboration on 

drug trafficking and other common threats, and less 

U.S. influence in South American defense affairs. “The 

geopolitical stance [the region] confronts,” Minister 

Jobim said in March 2008, “whether we admit it or 

not, is the set of old continental concepts emanating 

from the U.S.” Just as important, Brazil sees CDS as a 

first step toward creating a regional defense industry. 

Combined with Brazil’s growing technological capabilities, progress on this front will allow Brasilia to become a major supplier to South American militaries, 

with all the influence that entails.67

EVALUATING BRAZILIAN GRAND STRATEGY: 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND DILEMMAS 

President Lula’s grand strategy has thus featured 

a sophisticated, multipronged approach to international affairs. It has also featured a seemingly unshakeable confidence that the geopolitical scales are 
30

tilting sharply in Brazil’s favor. Brazil was not “born 

to spend its whole life as an emerging country,” said 

President Lula in 2003. “I am not going to throw away 

this chance.”68

Certainly, Brazil’s geopolitical position is much 

stronger than that of just a decade ago, and President 

Lula’s diplomatic activism has had much to do with 

this. His efforts to coordinate Third World positions in 

the WTO have made Brazil an increasingly powerful 

player in that body, allowing it to block trade measures deemed disadvantageous to its interests and win 

concessions on issues such as licensing of AIDS drugs. 

The G-20 has effectively replaced the G-8 as the primary forum for international economic discussions, 

and President Lula’s outspoken participation in these 

debates is a chief reason why Brazil is set to translate 

its growing economic power into a larger voting share 

in the IMF and World Bank in 2011. In addition, closer 

attention to relations with China, France, and other 

“strategic partners” has helped diversify Brazilian 

commerce and enabled upgrades in Brazil’s military, 

technological, and defense-industrial capabilities.

Brazil’s international image has also undergone a 

striking transformation. A decade ago, it was highly 

implausible that Brazil would soon be recognized as 

an emerging great power. In the time since, President 

Lula has positioned Brazil as a leading moderate critic 

of U.S. hegemony, raised his country’s profile through 

participation in forums like BRIC and IBSA, and used 

Brazil’s status as a democratic developing country to 

accrue significant diplomatic capital. Through his frenetic diplomacy and cultivation of numerous strategic 

relationships, President Lula seems already to have 

achieved what many past Brazilian leaders aspired 

to—general recognition that their country is a key 
31

player in the international balance. “Who today could 

imagine solving the problems of the world without 

Brazil?” asked France’s Nikolas Sarkozy in 2008. 

Similarly, in 2008 then-U.S. assistant secretary of state 

Thomas Shannon commented that in the 21st century, 

“how we work with Brazil is going to be as important 

as how we work with China and how we work with 

India.” Given Brazil’s longstanding quest for stature, 

these comments represent no mean achievement on 

President Lula’s part.69

Finally, President Lula’s diplomacy has created a 

web of relationships that his successors may be able to 

exploit. At the regional level, the creation of UNASUR 

and CSD and the expansion of Mercosul have, at the 

very least, provided the institutional basis for future 

integration under Brazilian auspices. At the global 

level, the IBSA and BRIC forums provide settings for 

the potential consolidation and expansion of SouthSouth ties, and President Lula’s various strategic 

partnerships offer avenues for strengthening relations 

with other middle powers and emerging nations. If 

nothing else, President Lula will leave the presidents 

that come after him with a wide array of possibilities 

and significant diplomatic flexibility. 

Yet a sober evaluation of President Lula’s policies 

must deal with their weaknesses as well as their accomplishments. While Brazilian foreign policy has 

seemingly gone from success to success over the past 

several years, over the medium and long term, the 

country faces four potent grand strategic dilemmas 

that could compromise its influence or otherwise complicate its ascent. 
32

Economic, Social, and Political Constraints.

The first of these dilemmas has less to do with 

the particularities of President Lula’s grand strategy 

than with the internal dynamics—political, social, and 

economic—required to sustain a forceful, effective diplomacy. Macroeconomic strength, internal cohesion, 

and a political system capable of producing these attributes are base-level conditions for generating national 

power in the global system. In certain respects, Brazil 

seems well positioned to meet this challenge over the 

long term, especially when compared to other middle 

powers and emerging states. Unlike China or Russia, 

Brazil has a genuine, multiparty democracy. Unlike 

India, its society is not blighted by persistent communal or religious violence. While Brazil cannot compete 

economically with China or the United States, the last 

two Brazilian presidential administrations have done 

quite well in maintaining economic stability, lowering 

poverty through targeted social spending, and enabling greater domestic consumption. The validity of 

the Brazilian economic model seemed to be confirmed 

in 2008-09, as several studies showed that the middle 

class had grown to encompass roughly half the population. More recently, Brazil was one of the last nations 

to go into recession as a result of the global financial 

crisis and one of the first to come out.70

Yet there is a compelling case to be made that Brazil has not yet achieved the strong, sustained growth 

necessary to match the expansive ambitions that have 

driven its grand strategy over the past decade. Since 

the debt crisis of the 1980s, Brazil has been an economic laggard in terms of overall growth rates. According 

to the World Bank, GDP grew at just 1.9 percent from 

1987-97 and 2.8 percent from 1997-2007, considerably 
33

slower than the average rate for Latin American countries and for the broader developing world.71 Brazilian 

growth rates improved in 2007 and 2008 and recent oil 

discoveries have fueled immense economic optimism, 

but the long-term trend lines are still unclear. Projections that Brazil will become the fifth-largest economy 

in the world by 2050 are based on the presumption 

that, through good policy and good fortune, the country’s economy will grow substantially faster than it 

has over the past 2 decades. According to Roopa Puroshothaman, whose 2003 paper popularized the term 

“BRICs,” “Brazil’s performance would have to improve quite significantly relative to the past” in order 

to meet this expectation.72

Brazil’s slower-than-desired growth is often attributed to high interest rates, which have remained 

elevated as a guard against inflation. The problem, 

however, runs much deeper than this. The Brazilian 

economy has traditionally been constrained by a maze 

of regulation and red tape, and even with recent reforms, there remain immense barriers to the sort of entrepreneurial activity that produces sustained growth. 

On nearly every major marker of entrepreneurial competitiveness—tax rates, time spent paying taxes, time 

spent dealing with government officials, the number 

of days and permits required to start a business, time 

required to clear direct imports and exports through 

customs, and many others—the Brazilian economy 

rates considerably worse than the Latin American 

average. Payroll taxes reach a stifling 60 percent, discouraging expansion and pushing many small and 

medium enterprises into the informal sector, where 

they are locked out of formal capital markets and do 

not contribute to the government’s fiscal base.73 The 

advantage of high tax rates is that they have allowed 
34

Brazil to mobilize a comparatively large chunk of GDP 

for government use; the downside is that these high 

costs and cumbersome regulations have restricted innovation and allowed the perpetuation of a bloated, 

inefficient bureaucracy. Additionally, Brazil’s longterm potential for growth is limited by the fact that 

educational reforms have not kept pace with other 

social programs, and so while more children are attending school, they are not necessarily acquiring the 

knowledge or skills that will allow them to become 

more productive than their parents.74

Infrastructural deficiencies pose an additional 

challenge. Brazil’s ability to export efficiently, as well 

as to develop its large internal market, is hindered by 

the immense difficulty of transporting goods across 

the country’s rough terrain. The rail system is underdeveloped, and as of 2004, only some 10 percent of the 

country’s 1.74 million kilometers of roads were paved 

(and more than half of that 10 percent were one-lane 

roads). The ports are outdated and over-saturated, 

despite the modernization program launched under 

President Cardoso, meaning that stocks often sit on 

the docks for 3 weeks or more before being shipped. 

All this deters export-oriented firms from expanding 

and thereby creating new jobs and greater prosperity.75

Economists generally agree that addressing these 

problems will require sizable investments in education and infrastructure and, more importantly, major structural reforms designed to spur innovation, 

decrease regulation, and lessen the burdens of doing 

business. Unfortunately, the current characteristics of 

the political system conspire against such measures. 

The electoral system over-represents small parties 

with parochial interests, making it all the more diffi-
35

cult to forge the broad coalitions necessary to support 

sweeping structural changes. Corruption remains 

rampant, as illustrated by two massive payoff scandals during President Lula’s first term, and powerful 

interests such as government bureaucracies and stateowned companies like Petrobras have a vested interest in preserving the status quo.76 All this has weakened the impetus for structural reform, and according 

to one leading survey, Brazil is actually getting worse 

in terms of economic competitiveness. Brazil fell from 

127th to 129th in “ease of doing business” from 2009 

to 2010, and it suffered similar declines with respect 

to “ease of paying taxes” and “ease of starting a business.”77 The macroeconomic consequences of this 

weakness have so far been mitigated by large government stimulus packages, but Brazil’s declining competitiveness and failure to implement the required 

reforms speak ill of its long-term economic prospects.

If Brazil cannot achieve and sustain higher levels of 

growth, it could eventually face several barriers to its 

geopolitical designs. Low growth rates would mean 

fewer resources for military modernization, development projects, and diplomatic initiatives abroad. They 

could also sap the national confidence that President 

Lula has tapped into, causing Brazilian politicians to 

argue that the country should concentrate on getting 

its own affairs in order. This may already be happening, in fact; José Serra, the presidential candidate put 

forward by the centrist Brazilian Social Democratic 

Party—PSDB—has argued for a more restrained foreign policy and greater attention to economic and 

political problems at home. Finally, because robust 

economic growth will be necessary to bring about 

additional reductions in poverty, a Brazil that lags in 

these categories could face resurgent class and social 
36

cleavages that might limit its internal cohesion—and 

thus its geopolitical potential.78 Oil money may ease 

some of these potential dislocations, but given price 

volatility, relying primarily on an expected petroleum 

windfall is a gamble, not a strategy.

The economy is not the only internal issue that 

could retard Brazil’s ascent. The country also faces a 

stern test of its domestic security capabilities in the 

form of the large, well-armed gangs that dominate 

huge stretches of major cities like Rio de Janeiro and 

Sao Paulo. These gangs generally have ties to the drug 

trade and a variety of illicit economic networks, and 

in many favelas they are so powerful that police, reporters, and other unwelcome visitors enter only at 

the risk of death. The potentially devastating impact 

of this insecurity came into sharp relief in May 2006, 

when hundreds of attacks by one such gang, the First 

Capital Command (PCC) of São Paulo, resulted in 

dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damages, 

and threw South America’s largest city into chaos. 

“The sad reality,” remarked one observer “is that the 

state is now the prisoner of the PCC.”79

Crime detracts from economic performance, because it forces both public and private institutions to 

channel resources to security-related initiatives rather 

than development-oriented endeavors. It also accentuates festering social divisions. The rich can afford 

protection—living in gated communities, hiring security guards, and bulletproofing their cars. The poor, by 

contrast, must live with insecurity and make accommodations with whatever criminal group dominates 

the neighborhood. All this reinforces deep-seated social inequities, lessens the prospects for greater social 

cohesion, and detracts from the legitimacy of the democratic state. If crime continues unchecked, it may be-
37

come more common to hear Brazilians ask why their 

country should worry about projecting power abroad 

when it cannot even control its territory or protect its 

citizens at home. This question will be even harder to 

answer if President Lula’s successors cannot resolve 

the other dilemmas his grand strategy entails.

Region Formation: Costs and Contradictions.

Perhaps the most important of these dilemmas 

involves Brazil’s region-formation efforts. For all of 

President Lula’s attempts to build a consensus behind 

the idea of Brazilian leadership in South America, 

bilateral disputes and a general sense of unease still 

pervade Brazil’s relations with many neighbors. There 

are recurring tensions with Paraguay over the Itaipú 

hydroelectric project, with Ecuador over Brazilian investments in that country, and with Bolivia over its oil 

and gas industries. Venezuela has continually sought 

to hijack the regional diplomatic agenda, sometimes 

through meetings of UNASUR and CSD, bodies that 

President Lula played a key role in creating. Even 

more revealing, key regional players like Colombia 

and Argentina have consistently opposed President 

Lula’s bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council, with the Argentine foreign minister calling Brazil’s 

position on this issue “elitist and not very democratic.”80 Brazilian officials may talk about forging “strategic partnerships” with their neighbors, but President 

Lula’s efforts to claim regional leadership still inspire 

more hostility than support.

Some of this resistance is simply a residue of longstanding diplomatic rivalries. Given Brazil’s history of 

predominance in South America, it is only natural that 

President Lula’s counterparts have been uncomfort-
38

able with his increasing assertiveness. Also, in light 

of President Chávez’s determination to claim regional 

leadership for himself, a degree of conflict between 

Caracas and Brasilia should be expected. 

Yet the travails of Brazil’s South American diplomacy also reveal a fundamental contradiction within 

President Lula’s region formation project—the fact 

that Brazil has so far been unwilling to pay the costs 

associated with achieving this objective. As several 

political scientists have noted, region formation is 

inherently an expensive and burdensome undertaking. For a middle power to be accepted as a regional 

leader, it must provide meaningful benefits to the 

smaller countries whose support it desires to enlist. 

These benefits can come in the form of public goods 

like military security, or they may be economic transfers to offset the asymmetries—the uneven accrual of 

gains to the larger members—that inevitably accompany economic integration projects. Additionally, to 

convince its neighbors that region formation is not 

simply domination in another guise, middle powers are generally well advised to surrender some of 

their own sovereignty to judicial or legislative bodies 

charged with resolving regional disputes. In its crudest terms, region formation is therefore a transactional 

relationship that imposes real costs—whether military, economic, or other—on the aspiring power.81

Under President Cardoso and President Lula, 

the Brazilian political class has refused to make this 

commitment. For all the talk of building relationships within South America, there remains a fear in 

Brazilian foreign policy circles that neighboring countries may exploit insecurity in the Amazon for their 

own ends. More important, because political elites 

are so focused on promoting and sustaining Brazil’s 
39

economic development, the majority have shown 

little interest in schemes that would divert Brazilian 

resources to fostering the development of neighboring countries. Brazil still offers much less in the way 

of economic aid or preferential trade deals than does 

Venezuela. Brazilian officials have also sought to 

keep the price that Brazil pays for Bolivian gas and 

Paraguayan hydroelectric power below market rates, 

despite the frustration this policy has produced in 

those countries. Even as Brazilian diplomats have 

called for closer commercial ties with South America, 

the industrial and manufacturing communities have 

resisted tariff reductions (within Mercosul as well as 

in bilateral trading relationships) that would open the 

economy to greater competition and thereby impinge 

upon their own interests. The net result of all this has 

been to ensure that even as President Lula argues that 

economic and political integration will be good for the 

region as a whole, many of Brazil’s neighbors remain 

unconvinced.82

This situation is most pronounced within Mercosul, where Brazil has strongly resisted demands for 

greater power sharing and a more equitable distribution of economic gains. Since its founding, Mercosul has been plagued by a fundamental asymmetry: 

Because Brazil’s economy dwarfs that of the other 

members, these countries run huge trade deficits with 

Brasilia. This “original sin” has long provoked discontent within the group, but Brazilian officials have 

been understandably loath to assuage these concerns 

if it means surrendering their country’s economic advantage.83 Brazilian industrialists decry any proposal 

to make trade concessions to other Mercosul members. A “convergence fund” known as the Fundo para 

a Convergência Estrutural e Fortalecimento Institucional 
40

do Mercosul (FOCEM) was recently created to pay for 

development projects within the bloc, but it is widely 

acknowledged to be inadequate.84 President Lula did 

take a meaningful step toward righting persistent 

economic asymmetries when he signed an agreement 

giving Paraguay a greater share of the benefits from 

the Itaipú dam, but it soon became clear that the Brazilian Senate had no intention of approving the pact. 

Nor has Brazil agreed to the establishment of strong 

arbitration mechanisms that would wield supranational authority over Mercosul members, something 

that Uruguay and Paraguay insist is crucial to ensuring a fairer distribution of trade and economic gains.85

When it comes to regional integration, President Lula’s diplomats talk in terms of the common good, but 

their actions bespeak a more parochial commitment to 

Brazilian self-interest.

As a result, Mercosul has hardly lived up to its 

billing as the centerpiece of President Lula’s regional 

diplomacy. With Brazil unwilling to take the lead in 

redressing inequities within the pact, there has been 

regress rather than progress in efforts to deepen regional economic integration. Nontariff barriers are on 

the rise and Mercosul members have carved out exceptions to tariff reductions to protect favored economic 

sectors. Paraguay refuses to do away with the “double 

charge” (charging a tariff on goods that entered the 

trade zone through another member country) because 

its leaders reason that Brazil and Argentina will not 

help them compensate for the loss of customs revenue.86 There is no effective mechanism for resolving 

intra-bloc disputes; Mercosul’s governing institutions 

are so weak that Argentina and Uruguay took a recent 

economic disagreement to the International Court of 

Justice for adjudication. Not surprisingly, dissatis-
41

faction with the pact is mounting among its smaller 

members. Uruguayan officials have openly discussed 

leaving Mercosul in favor of a free trade agreement 

with the United States, and Paraguayan commentators have called Mercosul “fat, useless, and interfering.” Argentina has also expressed displeasure with 

Brazilian trade policies.87 In concept, Mercosul may be 

the foundation for Brazil’s consensual hegemony project, but in practice, it is an increasingly fractious and 

hollow organization.

The same dynamic is playing out across the region, 

where there is a strong sense that Brazil is trying to 

establish a dominant position without providing anything in return. The leaders of Chile and Argentina 

voiced precisely this complaint when they quit a Brazilian-led summit in 2005. According to one account, 

“Argentine President Nestor Kirchner stormed away 

from the meeting room with loud complaints about 

Brazil’s unwillingness to shoulder the costs of leading.”88 Because Brazil is not seen to be contributing to 

the common good, South American officials tend to 

see its drive for greater international power as threatening rather than reassuring. Several countries along 

Brazil’s Amazonian frontiers have expressed concern 

with President Lula’s military buildup; Bolivian vicepresident Álvaro Garcia Linera said that it was Brasilia, 

rather than Washington, that posed the greatest threat 

to his country.89 Brazilian officials have exacerbated 

the bad feelings with a series of missteps, including 

accidental military incursions into Paraguay and the 

holding of a war game clearly meant to intimidate the 

Paraguayan government around the time of the Itaipú 

negotiations in mid-2009.90

Because Brazil has failed to bring its mooted South 

American constituency into line, it has struggled to 
42

defeat rival leadership projects in the region. While 

President Chávez is not well liked in many South 

American countries, discomfort with President Lula’s 

foreign policies has helped create a vacuum that the 

Venezuelan leader has been able to fill with his petroleum diplomacy. Bolivia and Ecuador have become 

members of ALBA, and President Chávez’s purchase 

of billions of dollars of Argentine debt has given him 

some influence with that country. On the other side 

of the political spectrum, a group of nations led by 

Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico is pursuing a project known as the Pacific Arc, which can be seen as an 

effort to balance against both Venezuela and Brazil.91

Many of these same countries—most notably Colombia and Peru—have also moved closer to the United 

States, and Uruguayan president Tabaré Vázquez sent 

a shock through Mercosul in 2006-07 when he indicated that he wished to sign an FTA with Washington (he ultimately settled for a trade and investment 

framework accord).92

In short, Brazilian officials can hardly claim that 

South America is united, much less that it is united behind Brazilian leadership. If President Lula’s successors do not make Brazil’s bid for regional hegemony 

more attractive to its neighbors, they too will find it 

difficult to establish a strong power base in Brazil’s 

backyard. 

Global Coalitions and Strategic Partnerships: 

Tensions and Limitations.

The third dilemma has to do with the strategic 

partnerships and global coalitions that President Lula 

has sought to establish. As discussed previously, the 

rationale for this activity has been that these groups 
43

will broaden Brazil’s strategic options, provide leverage in dealing with the United States and the West, 

and allow Brazilian officials to position themselves as 

spokesmen for the developing world. This strategy 

has racked up some initial successes over the past 

several years. Looking ahead, however, there are serious questions as to whether these partnerships will be 

cohesive or effective enough to serve as meaningful 

force-multipliers for Brazilian diplomatic influence. 

Consider, for instance, President Lula’s efforts to 

build international support for his Security Council 

campaign through a variety of bilateral and multilateral endeavors. Groups like the G-4 and IBSA have 

made Security Council reform a defining theme of 

their diplomacy, and individual countries like France 

and the United Kingdom have pledged their backing 

for Brazil’s candidacy. Yet Brazil still faces considerable challenges in achieving permanent membership, 

and not only because Security Council reform is inherently fraught with difficulty. Brazil’s bid lacks credibility due to the fact that major Latin American countries—Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia—oppose it, 

and President Lula has encountered foot-dragging 

and obstinacy from several of his strategic partners 

as well. The Russian government is loath to dilute its 

global influence by expanding one of the relatively 

few elite international clubs to which it still belongs.93

China is unalterably opposed to the program of the 

G-4, owing to Beijing’s long-standing antipathy toward Japan and its continuing rivalry with India. So 

far, Brazilian diplomats have failed to budge Beijing 

from this stance. When President Lula designated 

China a full market economy in 2004 in order to ease 

restrictions on Chinese imports, the expected payoff, 

Chinese support for Brazil’s Security Council bid, was 
44

not forthcoming. Solidarity among the rising powers 

is one thing; cold national interest is another.94

This split between Russia, Brazil, and China casts 

doubt on the notion that the peripheral powers are 

natural allies in their struggle against U.S. hegemony. 

It also touches on the limited cohesiveness of the BRIC 

forum. Although BRIC serves as an attractive academic paradigm for grouping several rising states, the 

frenzy of BRIC diplomacy and summitry over the past 

several years has in many ways obscured the fact that 

the group is beset by numerous fissures. Its members 

have widely divergent conceptions of governance and 

legitimacy, raising questions as to the compatibility of 

their long-term visions of the international order. The 

four economies are also less complementary than is often supposed.95 Brazilian manufacturers have already 

identified Chinese imports as an unwelcome source 

of low-priced competition, leading President Lula’s 

government to impose new restrictions on Chinese 

goods. Furthermore, Brazilian economic officials are 

finding that they face the same problem that has long 

bedeviled their American counterparts: that China’s 

efforts to keep its currency low hurt Brazilian exports 

and make it more difficult to Brazilian industries to 

compete with Chinese imports.96 As these frictions indicate, while bilateral trade between the various BRIC 

countries has risen substantially, the trade policies of 

these nations remain quite disparate. This being the 

case, predictions that the group is on its way to becoming a functioning trade bloc or an alternative center of economic gravity are premature.

Even if Brazil can maintain strong bilateral ties with 

Russia, China, and India—and as the above indicates, 

this outcome is hardly assured—the BRIC group as 

a whole will likely become more fractious over time. 
45

India, Russia, and China are natural rivals rather than 

natural partners, given their geographic proximity to 

one another, and competition within this subgroup is 

already on the rise. Many Russian strategists see the 

growing strategic, economic, and demographic challenge from China as more threatening than anything 

in Moscow’s relations with the United States.97 Indian 

officials are hardly sanguine about China’s search for 

a port on the Indian Ocean (especially given that this 

search is leading Beijing toward India’s rival, Pakistan, and its authoritarian neighbor, Myanmar) and 

the need to obtain oil supplies from Africa could soon 

emerge as another point of friction.98 As the individual 

BRIC countries—especially China and India—become 

more powerful, they will probably become more assertive in pressing their particular national interests, 

which may bode ill for intra-group harmony. Peering 

out over the next decade and beyond, BRIC looks like 

a shaky foundation upon which to base any coalitionbuilding strategy. 

In some ways, IBSA seems to be a more realistic 

option. Its members are all multicultural democracies, 

and the geographical distance between them dampens potential intragroup rivalries. Here too, rhetoric 

has outpaced reality in terms of both internal cohesion and concrete diplomatic or economic accomplishment. It is highly questionable whether IBSA can gain 

acceptance as the voice of the developing nations; 

calls to “democratize” international institutions ring 

hollow with many of the Third World countries that 

the group claims to represent. The prospect that the 

IBSA three might achieve permanent standing on the 

Security Council seems decidedly undemocratic and 

even threatening to countries like Nigeria, Pakistan, 

Argentina, and Colombia.99
46

On the economic front, trade between members 

has soared over the past decade, and there is room 

for greater cooperation on issues like energy and investment. There are also, however, high barriers to 

meaningful economic or trade integration. The dearth 

of transportation links between the three countries 

makes shipping expensive and lessens comparative 

advantage.100 While this issue can potentially be resolved over time, it may be more difficult to overcome 

the policy differences that separate the IBSA countries. India’s economy is protected by much higher 

tariff barriers than either Brazil’s or South Africa’s, 

and despite Minister Amorim’s claim that IBSA can 

“speak with one voice” on economic matters, India 

and Brazil have conflicting interests on issues like agricultural policy. This has already led to splits within 

the group, with these two countries coming down on 

opposite sides of the issue at the failed Doha Round 

trade talks in 2008.101

To its credit, IBSA has been able to minimize disputes over issues like nuclear energy and nonproliferation. These compromises give some hope that the 

group will be able to maintain its internal cohesion and 

focus on the overriding objective of diversifying the 

global power balance. As with BRIC however, there 

is a degree of long-term strategic divergence at work 

within IBSA. The current Indian government clearly 

calculates that a closer partnership with the United 

States is important to achieving India’s regional and 

global aims, as shown by the recent U.S.-India nuclear 

agreement and the subsequent tightening of relations 

with Washington. Moreover, as the breakdown in 

IBSA solidarity at the Doha Round talks in 2008 demonstrated, to the extent that these rising powers feel 

strong enough to stake out independent positions in 
47

international negotiations, they will probably feel less 

compelled to sacrifice their own interests in the name 

of Third-World cohesion. This does not mean that 

IBSA is doomed to irrelevance, but it does mean that 

solidifying this partnership will demand significant 

commitment and concessions from the three members.

As for President Lula’s burgeoning relationship 

with Iran, the putative benefits of this initiative—a 

greater voice in Middle Eastern diplomacy, an opportunity to serve as a mediator between Tehran and the 

West, a chance to strengthen Third-World solidarity 

and assert Brazil’s diplomatic autonomy vis-à-vis the 

United States—are more compelling in theory than 

in practice. It is hard to image that President Lula’s 

warm treatment of President Ahmadinejad will lead 

to greater Brazilian influence with the Sunni Muslim 

and Arab states that occupy the vast majority if the 

Middle East. Nor is this partnership good for Brazil’s 

image. The more President Lula defends the human 

rights practices and electoral legitimacy of the Iranian 

regime, the more he risks compromising the democratic credentials that have served him so well.102 Then 

there are the implications for what is still Brazil’s most 

important diplomatic relationship—its conflicted 

partnership with the United States. 

Brazil-U.S. Relations: Partnership or Rivalry?

Since the mid-20th century, U.S.-Brazilian relations have typically featured a mix of conflict and collaboration. During World War II, Getulio Vargas sent 

Brazilian troops to fight alongside the Allies in Italy, 

albeit after securing promises of U.S. economic aid as 

the price for doing so. In the 1960s and 1970s, the pronounced anti-communism of Brazil’s military govern-
48

ments (particularly that of Emilio Garrastazu Médici) 

conduced to a common interest in keeping the radical 

Left out of power in Latin America. “I wish he were 

running the whole continent,” Richard Nixon said of 

Médici in 1971.103 At the same time, Brazilian leaders were wary of being seen as Washington’s lackey, 

compelling them to put distance between themselves 

and their U.S. counterparts. They chafed at American 

efforts to interfere in Brazilian politics, especially criticism of the military governments, as well as Washington’s attempts to slow the postwar diffusion of global 

power. Brazilian governments refused to sign the 

nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty through the 1980s, 

resisted American pressure on human rights issues 

under the Carter administration, and found numerous 

other ways to assert their diplomatic autonomy.104

A similar ambivalence characterizes current U.S.-

Brazil relations. At the strategic level, the two countries have broadly congruent interests. Both Washington and Brasilia desire stability in Latin America and 

in the larger international arena. Both countries believe in the benefits of a liberal economic order, even if 

they differ on what exactly that order should look like. 

Both nations have democratic political systems, and 

both would be threatened should authoritarian states 

in Europe or Asia come to dominate the international 

order. With respect to the contemporary setting in 

Latin America, both Brazil and the United States have 

a vested interest in containing authoritarian populism 

and seeing that Chávez does not emerge as the preeminent regional statesman. 

These shared interests have led to bilateral cooperation—or at least accommodation—on several important issues. Collaboration on counterterrorism and 

organized crime issues has generally been good. In 
49

2007, Presidents Lula and George W. Bush signed an 

agreement to promote the development of a regional 

biofuels capacity as a counterweight to President 

Chávez’s petro-influence. Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of State Christopher McMullen pointed to President 

Lula’s administration as an exemplar of responsible, 

left-of-center governance in Latin America, calling it 

“a model for countries in the region” and a “natural 

regional leader and global partner.”105 For his part, 

President Lula has sharply criticized numerous aspects of U.S. policy in Latin America, but he has simultaneously worked to defeat the more radical positions 

taken by President Chávez and his allies. President 

Lula pushed hard for an end to the U.S. embargo 

against Cuba in the run-up to a regional summit in 

June 2009, for instance, but he ultimately helped broker a compromise that bridged the U.S. position and 

that of countries like Venezuela and Honduras.106 At 

the level of public diplomacy, President Lula has enjoyed warm personal relationships with both former 

President George Bush and President Barrack Obama, 

and U.S. officials have been at pains to emphasize the 

common interests that unite the two countries.107 Military cooperation has grown, with both countries providing students, visitors and lecturers to each other’s 

conferences and educational institutions.

Yet there is also a growing degree of conflict inherent in President Lula’s foreign policy and the growth 

of Brazilian power. At the most parochial level, the 

need to placate the more left-wing elements of President Lula’s Workers Party (PT) coalition has occasionally compelled the president to make anti-imperialist, 

anti-U.S. themes prominent in his public discourse.108

More substantively, many Brazilian observers believe 

that the current rules of international trade and finance 
50

are prejudicial to their country’s development, and 

that these rules are thus in need of revision. And in 

the broadest geopolitical sense, Brazil simply cannot 

achieve the increased influence it seeks—whether in 

South America or the larger global system—without 

weakening that of the dominant power in these environments. Ten years ago, Brazilian officials tended to 

make this point obliquely; under President Lula, they 

have made it more explicitly. In 2008, Ambassador 

Antonio Patriota told a U.S. audience that “the days 

of the Monroe Doctrine are over,” and other commentators have taken an even more confrontational 

tone. “Brazil is at war,” opined the Folha de Sao Paulo, 

a nationalist newspaper. “A diplomatic war, with a 

clear strategy and coherent tactics, against the unipolar world. Nothing personal against the United States, 

but entirely against a single power hovering above all, 

in every area.”109

Quietly but unmistakably, this strategic tension 

has moved to the center of U.S.-Brazil relations. As 

discussed above, Brazilian diplomats have emerged as 

foils for their U.S. counterparts in international trade 

forums, often serving as focal points for resistance to 

Washington’s proposals. President Lula seized the 

Iraq war as an opportunity to rally diplomatic opposition to U.S. hegemony, a project he has since continued through IBSA, BRIC, and other forums. At the 

bilateral level, President Lula continually proclaims 

the injustice of the U.S. tariff on ethanol imports, and 

this issue intrudes on virtually every encounter between high-level officials. As Brazil has become more 

confident, it has also become more defiant, and this is 

ineluctably causing friction with the United States.110

This same tendency is also apparent within South 

America, where the shared imperative of containing 
51

President Chávez has masked the increasingly competitive tenor of U.S.-Brazilian relations. President 

Lula’s opposition to the FTAA derived largely from 

the fear that the project would link South American 

countries to the U.S. economy and thereby break up 

the “solid, regional space” that his administration 

aimed to construct.111 Similarly, the creation of institutions like UNASUR and CSD must be seen as efforts 

to balance U.S. influence in South America by making 

Brazil, rather than Washington, the region’s dominant 

interlocutor on political and defense matters. Along 

these lines, Brasilia has worked to limit the U.S. defense presence in the region. President Lula sharply 

criticized the U.S.-Colombia basing deal signed in 

2009, and at a UNASUR meeting shortly thereafter, 

he led several countries in trying to limit the type of 

activities that could be carried out at the bases. “Dear 

friend Obama,” he remarked, “we don’t need U.S. 

bases in Colombia to fight drug trafficking in South 

America. We can take care of fighting drug trafficking 

within our borders and you must take care of your 

drug users.”112 The “reactivation” of the U.S. 4th Fleet 

in 2008 also caused a strong response, with President 

Lula speculating that American naval forces constituted a threat to Brazil’s offshore oil reserves.113 Brazil 

seeks to displace the United States as the dominant 

power in South America, and this objective brings 

with it an elevated risk of bilateral conflict. 

This budding rivalry has recently spilled over into 

Central America, even though Brazil has little hope of 

competing with U.S. economic and political sway on 

the isthmus. In 2009, President Lula took exception to 

what he perceived as Washington’s insufficient interest in reversing the coup against Manuel Zelaya in 

Honduras. Marco Aurélio Garcia criticized President 
52

Obama for declining to “put more pressure on the 

putschists,” and President Lula eventually assumed 

a key role in the crisis by permitting—perhaps reluctantly—Zelaya to take refuge in the Brazilian embassy 

in Tegucigalpa. U.S. officials believed that this decision simply complicated prospects for a negotiated 

settlement to the crisis, and the State Department issued a pointed—if elliptical—critique of Brazilian 

policy. Brazil subsequently refused to recognize the 

democratically elected government that took power 

following elections in late 2009, although the realization that this would do nothing to change the situation 

on the ground has since convinced President Lula to 

soften his stance.114

The divergence of U.S. and Brazilian policies is 

most evident with respect to Iran, which is rapidly 

becoming one of the more contentious issues in the relationship. U.S. officials do not view President Lula’s 

engagement strategy kindly and worry that Brazil is 

granting Tehran international legitimacy at a most 

inopportune time. Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), 

head of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee in the 

House of Representatives, gave voice to this worry, 

calling President Lula’s decision to play host to President Ahmadinejad in late 2009 “a gross error, a terrible mistake.” “It makes you wonder if Brazil is really 

ready for the new era of global relations it envisions,” 

he said.115 None of this has fazed President Lula. What 

is remarkable about the Brazilian president’s policy 

is not simply that he sees strategic value in relations 

with Iran, but that he apparently sees diplomatic or 

political value in snubbing Washington on this issue. 

President Lula has rebutted U.S. criticisms of Iran’s 

nuclear programs and post-election repression, and in 

March 2010, he denounced American efforts to impose 
53

UN sanctions on Tehran on the eve of a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.116 The nuclear agreement brokered by Brazil and Turkey in May 2010 was 

widely seen as an effort to frustrate U.S. efforts to rally 

international support for harsher sanctions against 

Iran, leading to further expressions of concern from 

American officials. 

These points of discord indicate the essential dilemma of U.S.-Brazilian ties—the fact that shared interests do not necessarily lead to cooperative or harmonious relations. For all the commonalities that bind 

Brasilia and Washington, the simple fact of growing 

Brazilian power, combined with the moderately revisionist grand strategy that President Lula has pursued, 

inevitably foster elements in which the two countries’ 

aims grate against one another. This does not mean 

that Brazil and the United States are headed for military conflict, which is almost unthinkable, or even 

outright diplomatic hostility. Yet it could eventually 

create a situation in which the United States sees Brazil more as a competitor than as a partner, while Brazil 

fears that the United States is trying to stunt its natural 

geopolitical growth. Such a development is less likely 

as long as President Chávez’s activities remind U.S. 

and Brazilian policymakers of how much they have 

in common, but should this variable be removed from 

the equation, a downward turn in the relationship 

would not be particularly improbable.

The drawbacks of such a scenario—for the United 

States and Brazil alike—are not difficult to imagine. 

Brazilian diplomats will find it extremely difficult to 

accomplish their major diplomatic goals—a more favorable world trade system, for instance, or Security 

Council reform—without the cooperation or at least 

the acquiescence of the United States. Similarly, if 
54

Washington sees Brazil as a rival, it could very well 

respond by lending additional support to Chile, Peru, 

Colombia, or other countries that remain aloof from 

President Lula’s bid for regional hegemony. For the 

United States, on the other hand, a productive relationship with Brazil will be central to ensuring a 

smooth passage from unipolarity to multipolarity and 

maintaining a balance of power that favors democratic norms and institutions. Within the Western Hemisphere, a strained relationship with a rising Brazil 

could badly complicate U.S.-Latin American affairs 

and could eventually raise the specter of a geopolitical 

challenge in Washington’s backyard. Beyond all this, 

the prospects for progress on a range of multilateral 

issues—from WTO talks to negotiations on climate 

change—hinge in substantial measure on productive 

dealings between the United States and Brazil. Over 

the next several decades, managing this relationship 

will therefore be a key diplomatic challenge for officials in both countries.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR BRAZIL AND THE 

UNITED STATES

What does the foregoing analysis mean for the 

officials charged with crafting Brazilian strategy after President Lula, and for the U.S. diplomats with 

whom they will interact? Four general propositions 

seem most relevant. First, the trajectory of Brazil’s 

ascent and the effectiveness of its grand strategy will 

depend on domestic policy as much as foreign policy. 

Over the past 25 years, and especially over the past 

15, Brazil has made significant progress in strengthening the domestic foundations of national power by 

restoring macroeconomic stability, reducing poverty, 
55

establishing a vibrant democracy, and grappling seriously with pervasive social problems. Indeed, it is this 

progress that has given the country the confidence to 

act so boldly in world affairs and provided President 

Lula with the credibility he enjoys in global forums. 

Yet this domestic consolidation is still lacking in many 

ways, and there are a variety of outstanding economic, political, and social issues that could delay or even 

potentially derail Brazil’s rise. 

Managing this danger will require sustained, creative engagement on several fronts: economic policies that remove obstacles to investment and permit 

higher levels of growth; social policies that improve 

the quality of primary and secondary education and 

provide greater access to essential services; holistic 

anti-crime measures that reduce citizen insecurity; infrastructure projects that facilitate commerce; and political reforms that mitigate corruption and encourage 

greater government responsiveness on the aforementioned issues. There already exist several promising 

initiatives designed to address certain of these issues: 

an Accelerated Growth Program that reduces tax and 

bureaucratic burdens for qualifying businesses, “participatory budgets” that reduce opportunities for corruption in local service provision, community policing 

strategies that mimic counterinsurgency in focusing 

on cultivating and protecting the population.117 Yet 

each of the internal questions listed above constitutes 

an immense policy challenge, and it is possible that 

meeting some of these challenges may require making 

trade-offs with respect to others. Wrestling with these 

issues will certainly be a long-term process, one that 

requires innovation and experimentation as well as 

an ability to resist the allure of measures that may be 

politically expedient but will exacerbate the structural 
56

problems the country still faces. Whether the political 

class rises to the occasion in dealing with these issues 

will go far in determining the range of possibilities 

open to Brazilian diplomats during the next decade 

and beyond.

Second, future governments will need to resolve 

the contradiction between Brazil’s grand aims for regional leadership and its relative stinginess in promoting this project. As long as South American countries 

believe that Brazil is working to further its own hegemonic ambitions rather than the common good, they 

are unlikely to provide Brasilia with the diplomatic 

support or broadened regional power base it desires. 

Brazilian domestic opinion has generally been hostile to increasing aid or the sharing of power with the 

neighbors. At some point, however, policymakers and 

opinion-shaping elites will have to come to grips with 

the fact that a less parsimonious policy will be crucial 

to improving Brazil’s image and dealing effectively 

with competing regional leadership claims. Initiatives 

like the decision to allow $21 million worth of Bolivian 

goods to enter the Brazilian market tariff-free in 2009 

represent useful gestures, but going forward, more 

substantive steps will be required.118

Perhaps the best arena for these measures would 

be Mercosul, which is both the core of the consensual 

hegemony project and the forum in which regional 

power asymmetries are most pronounced. In concept, 

FOCEM is designed to pay for infrastructure projects 

that will facilitate trade and increase the export competitiveness of its members; what is needed is for Brazil (and, to some extent, Argentina) to increase these 

convergence payments and focus them more, if not 

entirely, on the poorest members of the group—particularly Paraguay.119 Brazil should also dedicate itself 
57

to strengthening Mercosul’s governing organs, not 

simply by vesting greater powers in the parliament, 

but also by developing an effective supranational judicial institution from which the less powerful members can seek recourse in the inevitable event of intrabloc disputes. In the short term, taking these steps 

will mean surrendering some of Brazil’s sovereignty 

and national advantage. Over the long term, these 

measures will be essential to easing tensions within 

the group and building an attractive model of regional 

integration under Brazilian leadership.

Working toward this outcome will require a greater 

resource commitment, which leads to a third imperative of Brazilian strategy—the need for more systematic 

resource production and prioritization. As mentioned 

above, Brazil needs to mobilize more resources—both 

political and economic—to address its deep-seated 

internal problems. Additionally, although President 

Lula’s frenzied diplomacy has served its purpose of 

broadening Brazil’s geopolitical horizons and providing a measure of strategic flexibility, this scattershot 

approach to international diplomacy also runs the 

risk of dissipating Brazil’s limited economic and diplomatic resources. This problem is especially pressing 

given the need for more intensive engagement within 

Mercosul, the limitations of global partnerships like 

the BRIC forum, and the fact that some of President 

Lula’s diplomatic initiatives—his dealings with Iran, 

for instance—may ultimately bring more blowback 

than benefit.

This does not mean that President Lula’s successors should abandon forums like BRIC and IBSA 

rather than seeking to improve them, or that it should 

focus exclusively on cultivating a strong regional following. Doing so would simply squander the strate-
58

gic flexibility that these leaders will inherit. It means, 

rather, that President Lula’s successors should subject 

his myriad diplomatic projects to harsh scrutiny, so as 

to identify those that are most promising and essential. 

This could entail deemphasizing the bid to gain a permanent seat on the Security Council, which will only 

become feasible once Brazil gains greater acceptance 

as a regional leader, and may in any case be stymied 

by Russian or Chinese opposition. It could also entail de-prioritizing one tenuous multilateral partnership—BRIC, for instance—so that Brazilian diplomats 

can devote greater energy to making IBSA a more cohesive group. Regardless of the precise formula, what 

is essential is that President Lula’s successors choose 

carefully among the range of Brazil’s diplomatic options so as to avoid the dispersion of resources that 

will eventually result from his all-encompassing approach to foreign policy.

Fourth, both U.S. and Brazilian officials need to 

develop coherent approaches to manage bilateral tensions and preserve a constructive partnership. In part, 

this goal can be achieved by identifying and focusing the bilateral relationship on areas where the two 

countries have convergent interests. The biofuels deal 

signed in 2007 exemplifies this ethos; it furthers both 

countries’ objective of reducing Latin American energy insecurity and thereby limiting President Chávez’s 

regional influence. A civil nuclear energy agreement 

modeled on the U.S.-India accord could be similarly 

profitable, as could an expansion of security and military ties.120 For all the recent emphasis on constructing 

a “defense shield” against U.S. meddling, Brazilian security officials recognize the importance of joint projects to secure chaotic regions like the Tri-Border Area 

between Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and there 
59

is still considerable interest in military exchanges and 

exercises as well as reviving a training relationship 

that has eroded badly since the 1970s. (Indeed, what 

was widely ignored amid the diplomatic squall over 

the reactivation of the 4th Fleet was that this measure 

will give the United States a better ability to interact 

with the Brazilian Navy on issues ranging from training and joint maneuvers to patrolling the South Atlantic.121) Pursuing these and other such initiatives can 

broaden the range of measures on which the United 

States and Brazil collaborate, thereby encouraging a 

more cooperative bilateral norm.

In the same spirit, it would behoove Washington 

and Brasilia to exploit issues of asymmetrical interest; in other words, issues on which a concession 

costs one power relatively little but benefits the other 

a great deal. Two of these issues are particularly salient: ethanol and Iran. Maintaining the 54-cent per 

gallon ethanol tariff does the United States little good 

economically (this tariff survives solely for domestic 

political reasons), and abolishing or even lowering it 

would provide a significant economic and diplomatic 

boon for Brazil. Similarly, for Brazil to distance itself 

somewhat from President Ahmadinejad would entail 

only a minimal economic or diplomatic hardship (it 

might actually be beneficial for Brazilian diplomacy), 

and it would go far in convincing U.S. officials that 

Brasilia aspires to be a responsible stakeholder rather 

than a disruptive presence. Diplomatic give-and-take 

is necessarily a part of any relationship between major countries; focusing on these asymmetrical issues 

makes giving somewhat less painful.

Finally, while dialogue is not an end in itself, it 

would be useful to strengthen mechanisms for policy 

discussion and high-level bilateral communication. 
60

Poor communication was a factor in at least two recent bilateral disputes, those involving the Colombian 

bases deal in 2009 and the flap over the U.S. 4th Fleet 

a year earlier. Additionally, there is a broad range of 

issues that will require increased high-level consultation in coming years: climate change, trade disputes, 

the requirements of maintaining stability in Latin 

America, the changing global strategic panorama, 

and others. In 1976, Henry Kissinger and his Brazilian 

counterparts signed an agreement establishing just 

such a forum. The agreement lapsed amid the deterioration of U.S.-Brazilian relations under former President Jimmy Carter, but the current juncture offers a 

promising opportunity to revive the idea.122 Doing so 

will not prevent the frictions that are bound to occur 

between the United States and a rising Brazil, but in 

conjunction with the other steps outlined here, it may 

help mitigate these conflicts and maintain a productive climate in the relationship. 

CONCLUSION

Grand strategy is the relation of means to ends, 

the process by which nations harness and allocate resources in the service of their international objectives. 

Over the past 8 years, President Lula’s grand strategy 

has exploited Brazil’s moral credibility, diplomatic capabilities, and growing economic power to raise his 

country’s profile and diversify its strategic portfolio. 

Yet, as President Lula’s presidency comes to a close, 

there is still much to be done to make Brazil’s foreign 

policy equal to its lofty aspirations. Brazil must find 

the resources and political will to make its regional 

leadership bid more credible; it must become more 

discerning in its global partnerships and initiatives; it 
61

must work toward a sustainable modus vivendi with 

the United States; and, above all, it must marshal the 

resources, creativity, and commitment to attack tenacious internal problems. 

These are the tasks that fall to President Lula’s 

successors. Brazil is undoubtedly going to play a significant part in world politics over the next century; 

how significant—and how constructive—will hinge 

on how these policymakers address the key dilemmas 

of Brazilian grand strategy.

ENDNOTES

1. Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” 

National Interest, No. 70, Winter 2002, p. 17; Fareed Zakaria, The 

Post-American World, New York: Norton, 2008; Parag Khanna, 

The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, 

New York: Random House, 2008; Andrew Bacevich, The Limits 

of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, New York: Macmillan, 2008; Paul Craig Roberts, “The End of American Hegemony,” 

Electric Politics, October 2008, available from www.electricpolitics.

com/2008/10/the_end_of_american_hegemony.html.

2. “Brazil Must Think Big, Says Jobim,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, July 2009; “Lula Launches 

Preparations for Superpower Status,” Latin American Security & 

Strategic Review, September 2007.

3. As stated previously, some of the initiatives that have figured in President Lula’s grand strategy originated under his predecessors. Because President Lula has dominated Brazilian politics and foreign policy since 2003, however, and because he has 

pursued such an ambitious project to increase Brazilian power 

and influence, it makes sense to speak of “Lula’s grand strategy.”

4. For laudatory appraisals, see David Rothkopf, “The 

World’s Best Foreign Minister,” Foreign Policy Online, October 

7, 2009, available from www.foreignpolicy.com; Leticia Pinheiro, 

“Celso Amorim: Right Man, Right Place, Right Time,” World Poli-
62

tics Review, February 2, 2010, available from www.wpr.com; Kellie 

Meiman and David Rothkopf, The United States and Brazil: Two 

Perspectives on Dealing with Partnership and Rivalry, Washington, 

DC: Center for American Progress, March 2009.

5. The quotes are from Ronald Schneider, Brazil: Culture and 

Politics in a New Industrial Powerhouse, Boulder, CO: Westview 

Press, 1996, p. 215; Paulo Sotero and Leslie Elliott Armijo, “Brazil: To Be or Not to Be a BRIC?” Asian Perspective, Vol. 31, No. 4, 

Spring 2007, p. 54.

6. Lecture Delivered by Antônio F. Azeredo da Silveira, 

March 4, 1975, 20-BRA-1-3, Foreign Ministry Files, Library and 

Archives Canada.

7. Kissinger, quoted in Hal Brands, “Third World Politics in 

an Age of Global Turmoil: The Latin American Challenge to U.S. 

and Western Hegemony, 1965-1975,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 32, 

No. 1, January 2008, p. 130; George F. Kennan, Around the Cragged 

Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy, New York: Norton, 1993, 

p. 143.

8. Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs analyst who helped popularize the term “BRIC,” recalls that at one meeting with Latin 

American investors, the man who introduced him said, “We all 

know that the only reason the B is there is because without it, 

there is no acronym.” See Gillian Tett, “The Story of the BRICs,” 

Financial Times, January 15, 2010.

9. See Fernando Henrique Cardoso, A Arte da Política: A 

História que Vivi (The Art of Politics: The Story that I Lived), Rio de 

Janeiro, Brazil: Civilização Brasileira, 2006, pp. 604-606, 616-618. 

The Spanish-language acronym for the South American trade 

bloc is Mercosur, which is often the version used in the sources 

cited below.

10. As of December 2009, Brazil was involved in peacekeeping or stabilization missions in Haiti, Chad, the Central African Republic, Western Sahara, Cyprus, Liberia, Nepal, Sudan, 

East Timor, and Cote D’Ivoire. Information on these and previous commitments is available from www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

contributors/06-08.shtml.
63

11. Quoted in Jens Glusing, “Brazil Flexes Muscles over Honduras Crisis,” Der Spiegel Online, October 9, 2009. On the state of 

Brazilian democracy and social programs, see Martin Ravallion, 

“A Comparative Perspective on Poverty Reduction in Brazil, 

China, and India,” Washington, DC: World Bank Development 

Research Group, October 2009; Lourdes Sola, “Politics, Markets, 

and Society in Lula’s Brazil,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 2, 

April 2008, pp. 31-45. 

12. The World Bank ranks Brazil ninth in terms of GDP at 

purchasing power parity as of 2007. Other organizations have 

listed Brazil as high as eighth or as low as tenth. See World Bank, 

“Brazil Country Brief,” January 26, 2010, available from web.

worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/BRAZ

ILEXTN/0,,menuPK:322351~pagePK:141132~piPK:141107~theSite

PK:322341,00.html.

13. See Roopa Puroshothaman, “Dreaming with BRICs: The 

Path to 2050,” Goldman Sachs Economic Paper No. 99, October 

2003, p. 4; also “Brazil Can Reach Developed Country Status by 

2016,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, January 2010. Brazil’s economic prospects and their geopolitical implications are discussed further below. 

14. “Oil: Brazil’s ‘Second Independence,’” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, May 2009; “Brazil: Petrobras 

Euphoria Fades With Oil Price,” Oxford Analytica, December 11, 

2008.

15. “Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of the Federal 

Republic of Brazil,” Address to the Council on Foreign Relations, 

September 25, 2003; available from www.cfr.org/publication/6563/

mr_luiz_incio_lula_da_silva_president_of_the_federal_republic_of_

brazil.html.

16. On the global benefits of American hegemony, see Michael Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath: How America Works as the 

World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century, New York: Public 

Affairs, 2006.
64

17. “Brazilian President Seeks More Clout for Countries like 

His,” CNN.com, March 25, 2009; also see Secretaria de Assuntos Estratégicos, “Amorim destaca protagonismo internacional do Brasil” (“Amorim Emphasizes Brazil’s International Protagonism”), 

February 25, 2010, available from www.sae.gov.br/site/?p=2898.

18. “Taking Advantage of the 4th Fleet Syndrome,” Latin 

American Security & Strategic Review, August 2008; see also “Lecture by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador Celso Amorim, Given at the London School of Economics on 17 March 2004,” 

available from www.brazil.org/uk/press/speeches.

19. “Speech by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da 

Silva, at the Plenary Meeting of the 61st UN General Assembly in 

New York, September 19, 2006,” available from www.brazil.org.uk/

press/speeches.

20. Brazil’s role in obstructing the Doha Round is discussed 

in greater detail in the section on the components of Brazilian foreign policy.

21. Gary Duffy, “Brazil’s Lula Raps ‘White’ Crisis,” BBC News, 

March 27, 2009; Jamil Chade, “Amorim diz que ricos mentem 

como Goebbels” (“Amorim says that the rich lie like Goebbels”), 

O Estado de São Paulo, July 20, 2008.

22. “MINUSTAH and Its Significance,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, July 2003.

23. “Brazil’s Foreign Policy under Lula,” Latin American Special Report, May 2004.

24. “Lecture by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador 

Celso Amorim, Given at the London School of Economics on 

March 17, 2004.” 

25. “‘Assertive’ Bid to Change Power Balance,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, October 2003.

26. “Discurso do Presidente da República, Luiz Inácio Lula da 

Silva, em almoço oferecido aos formandos do Instituto Rio Branco” (“Speech by the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da 
65

Silva, at the lunch offered to the graduating students of the Rio 

Branco Institute”), September 18, 2003, available from www.mre.

gov.br/portugues/politica_externa/discursos.

27. See John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 

New York: Norton, 2001, chaps. 3-4.

28. “Brazil Must Think Big, Says Jobim.”

29. “France’s Sarkozy in Brazil,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil and Southern Cone, January 2009; “Brazil’s Pursuit of 

a Nuclear Submarine Raises Proliferation Concerns,” WMD Insights, March 2008, available from www.wmdinsights.com/I23/I23_

LA1_BrazilPursuit.htm.

30. E. Peter Wittkopf, “Brazil’s SIVAM: Surveillance against 

Crime and Terrorism,” International Journal of Intelligence and 

Counterintelligence, Vol. 16, No. 4, October 2003, pp. 543-560; “Amazonia, uma fronteira desguarnecida”(“Amazonia, An Ungarrisoned Border”), O Globo, April 20, 2008.

31. Jobim, quoted in “Arms Transfers as Instruments of Foreign Policy,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, October 

2009; “Paper: Argentina and Brazil Eye Nuclear Sub,” Business 

Week, February 25, 2008; “Aliança com a Russia” (“Alliance with 

Russia”), Defesa BR, available from www.defesabr.com/MD/md_

russia.htm.

32. “Brazil,” Jane’s World Armies, Issue 20, 2008, p. 92; Luiz 

Inácio Lula da Silva, Política de Defesa Nacional (National Defense Policy), June 30, 2005, available from www.defesa.gov.br/

mobilizacao/arquivos/decreto_politica_defesa_nacional.pdf;“Brasil 

prepara simulacro de guerra dirigido al Paraguay” (“Brazil Prepares Wargame Directed at Paraguay”), ABC Digital, November 

13, 2009. The threat posed by urban crime is discussed in Alvaro 

de Souza Pinheiro, Irregular Warfare: Brazil’s Fight against Criminal 

Urban Guerrillas, Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University, September 2009. 

33. Quoted in “Taking Advantage of the 4th Fleet Syndrome,” 

Latin American Security & Strategic Review, August 2008; also da 

Silva, Política de Defesa Nacional; “Interstate Conflict in Latin 
66

America: A Thing of the Past,” Latin American Special Report, April 

2007.

34. Xando Pereira, ““Precisamos de um Sivam Que Funcione 

no Mar” (“We Need a SIVAM that Functions in the Sea”), A Tarde, 

September 4, 2008, available from www.atarde.com.br/jornalatarde/

politica/noticia.jsf?id=953244.

35. The quotes are from “Taking Advantage of the 4th Fleet 

Syndrome”; Xando Pereira, “Precisamos de um Sivam Que Funcione no Mar” (“We Need a SIVAM that Functions in the Sea”), 

A Tarde, September 4, 2008, available from www.atarde.com.br/

jornalatarde/politica/noticia.jsf?id=953244; “Reviving the Idea of a 

Subregional Defense Council,” Latin American Security & Strategic 

Review, March 2008. 

36. On South American defense spending, see “Chile Per 

Capita Expenditure on Defense, the Highest of Latin America,” 

MercoPress, March 16, 2010.

37. On this point, consult Puroshothaman, “Dreaming with 

BRICs.”

38. Robert Keohane, “Liliputians’ Dilemmas: Small States in 

International Politics,” International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 2, 

Spring 1969, pp. 296-298.

39. For a discussion of soft balancing, see Robert Pape, “Soft 

Balancing against the United States,” International Security, Vol. 

30, No. 1, Summer 2005, pp. 7-45.

40. S. P. Guimarães, “Los tres años del gobierno del Presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva” (“Three Years of the 

Government of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva”), La Onda Digital, available from www.laondadigital.com/laonda/

laonda/201-300/277/recuadro2.htm.

41. On this latter point, see Pape, “Soft Balancing against the 

United States”; T. V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy,” International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1, Summer 2005, pp. 46-

71.
67

42. “Speech by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador Celso Amorim, at the G-33 Ministerial Meeting, Jakarta, 

March 21, 2007,” available from www.brazil.org.uk/press/speeches_

files/20070321.html; Daniel Flemes, Emerging Middle Powers’ Soft 

Balancing Strategy: State and Perspectives of the IBSA Dialogue Forum, Working Paper No. 57, Hamburg, Germany, German Institute of Global and Areas Studies, August 2007, p. 18. 

43. “Brazil: Iraq, U.S. Guilty of ‘Disrespect,’” Newsmax Wires, 

March 20, 2003.

44. “Lecture by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador 

Celso Amorim, Given at the London School of Economics on 

March 17, 2004”; also “Speech by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the General Debate of the 64th UN General 

Assembly, New York, September 23, 2009,” available from www.

brazil.org/uk/press/speeches.

45. For instance, “Cape Town Communiqué,” March 11, 2005, 

available from www.info.gov.za/speeches/2005/05031408451001.htm.

46. “Speech by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the Plenary Meeting of the 61st General Assembly; Flemes, 

Emerging Middle Powers Soft Balancing Strategy, p. 12.

47. Geographical imprecision aside, the developing world is 

often referred to as the “Global South.”

48. S. P. Guimarães, Quinhentos Anos de Periferia (Five Hundred 

Years on the Periphery), Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil: Editora da Universidad Contraponto, 1999, p. 141; also “India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, Sixth Trilateral Commission Meeting Ministerial Communiqué,” September 1, 2009, available from www2.

mre.gov.br/ibas/2009_09_01_Brasilia_VI_Comista.pdf.

49. Malcolm Moore, “China Overtakes the US as Brazil’s 

Largest Trading Partner,” Telegraph, May 9, 2009; “Brazil, China to 

Postpone Joint Satellite Launching to 2011,” People’s Daily Online, 

February 11, 2010; John Lyons, “Brazil Turns to China to Help 

Finance Oil Projects,” Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2009.
68

50. “Iran and Latin America,” Latin American Special Report, 

December 2009; Ariel Farrar-Wellman, “Brazil-Iran Foreign Relations,” January 26, 2010, available from IranTracker.org; “Brazil 

and Iran: An Unlikely Partnership,” Stratfor, November 25, 2009.

51. “Amorim destaca protagonismo internacional do Brasil” (“Amorim Emphasizes Brazil’s International Protagonism”); 

“Trade Blocs in Latin America: The State of Play after Cancun,” 

Latin American Special Report, July 2004. 

52. Rothkopf, “The World’s Best Foreign Minister”; “Geopolitical Diary: The Birth of BRIC,” Stratfor, June 16, 2009. 

53. “India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, Sixth Trilateral Commission Meeting Ministerial Communiqué.” 

54. “Brazil, India, S. Africa Demand G-20 to Fulfill Commitments,” Global Times, September 2, 2009.

55. “IBSA Leaders Agree to Form Coordinating Mechanism to 

Deal with Global Financial Crisis,” Thai Indian, October 15, 2008.

56. “IBSA Naval Exercise No Precursor to Treaty,” Thai Indian, May 13, 2008. 

57. “Speech by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador 

Celso Amorim, at the Meeting of the Ministerial Commission of 

the IBSA Forum, New Delhi, India, July 17, 2007,” available from 

www.brazil.org.uk/press/speeches_files/20070717.html.

58. This discussion of region formation is drawn from Thomas Pederson, “Cooperative Hegemony: Power, Ideas and Institutions in Regional Integration,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 

28, No. 4, Fall 2002, pp, 677-696; Daniel Flemes and Thorsten Wojczekwsi, “Contested Leadership in International Relations: Power 

Politics in South America, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa,” 

Paper No. 121, Hamburg, Germany: German Institute of Global 

and Area Studies, February 2010. For a variation on this idea, see 

Andres Rivarola Puntigliano, “Global Shift: The U.N. System and 

the New Regionalism in Latin America,” Latin American Politics 

and Society, Vol. 49, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 89-112.
69

59. “‘Assertive’ bid to change power balance”; Jens Glusing, 

“Brazil Flexes Muscles over Honduras Crisis,” Der Spiegel Online, 

October 9, 2009. See also “Entrevista Ministro das Relaç�es Exterores, Embaixador Celso Amorim, ao jornalista Boris Casoy, no 

Programa Passando a Limpo” (“Interview given by the Minister 

of Foreign Relations, Ambassador Celso Amorim, to the journalist 

Boris Casoy, on the program Passando a Limpo”), October 4, 2003, 

available from www.mre.gov.br/portugues/politica_externa/discursos/

discurso_detalhe3.asp?ID_DISCURSO=2214.

60. Brazilian concerns are discussed in Sara Miller Llana, 

“Brazil, Venezuela Vie for Energy Clout,” Christian Science Monitor, August 10, 2007; “Gas Has Become the Pivot of Brazil’s Moves 

to Neutralize Hugo Chávez,” Latin American Security & Strategic 

Review, May 2006; Sean Burges, “Building a Global Southern Coalition: The Competing Approaches of Brazil’s Lula and Venezuela’s Chávez,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 7, October 2007, 

pp. 1343-1352.

61. Sean Burges, “Consensual Hegemony: Theorizing Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War,” International Relations, Vol. 

22, No. 1, April 2008, p. 78; “Arms Transfers as Instruments of 

Foreign Policy,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, October 2009; “‘Assertive’ Bid to Change Power Balance.”

62. Burges, “Consensual Hegemony,” pp. 65-84.

63. “Brazil’s Foreign Policy under Lula,” Latin American Special Report, May 2004. This idea goes back several administrations 

prior to Lula’s, although his has advanced it most diligently. See 

Rubens Antonio Barbosa, “O Lugar do Brasil no Mundo” (“Brazil’s Place in the World”), Política Exterior, Vol. 5, No. 2, September 

1998, pp. 69-82.

64. María Regina Soares de Lima and Mónica Hirst, “Brazil 

as an Intermediate State and Regional Power: Action, Choice, 

and Responsibilities,” International Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 1, January 

2006, p. 34; “Brazil’s Foreign Policy under Lula”; J. F. Hornbeck, 

Mercosur: Evolution and Implications for U.S. Trade Policy, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, August 23, 2006, pp. 

1-5; “Mercosur Agrees on Concessions to Paraguay, Uruguay, as 

Chávez Casts Cloud over Summit,” Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest, July 11, 2007.
70

65. Burges, “Consensual Hegemony,” pp. 76-77; Flemes and 

Wojczewski, “Contested Leadership in International Relations,” 

p. 12.

66. “Mercosur Defense Chiefs Disagree with U.S. on Obsolescence of Conventional Forces,” Latin American Security & Strategic 

Review, September 2004.

67. “Reviving the Idea of a Subregional Defense Council,” 

Latin American Security & Strategic Review, March 2008.

68. “Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of the Federal 

Republic of Brazil,” Address to the Council on Foreign Relations.

69. Shannon quoted in “Brazil, Buoyed by Oil and Agriculture, Becomes a Global Power,” Latin America News, September 

19, 2008; Sarkozy quoted in “France’s Sarkozy in Brazil,” Latin 

American Regional Review: Brazil & Southern Cone, January 2009.

70. Nilson Brandão Junior and Marianna Aragão, “Miséria 

no Brasil Cai 27,7% no 1o Mandato de Lula” (“Poverty in Brazil 

Falls 27.7% in Lula’s First Term”), O Estado de Sao Paulo, September 20, 2007; “Brazil: Half the Nation, a Hundred Million Citizens 

Strong,” Economist, September 13, 2008, pp. 43-44.

71. World Bank, “Brazil at a Glance,” September 24, 2008, 

available from devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/bra_aag.pdf.

72. Puroshothaman, “Dreaming with BRICs,” p. 12.

73. World Bank Group, “Featured Snapshot Report,” 2009, 

available from www.enterprisesurveys.org/ExploreEconomies/?econ

omyid=28&year=2009; PBS NewsHour, “Brazil’s Economic Boom 

Marred by Social Inequalities,” June 9, 2008, available from www.

pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june08/brazil_06-09.html; 

Thomas Kenyon and Emerson Kapaz, “The Informality Trap: Tax 

Evasion, Finance, and Productivity in Brazil,” Public Policy for the 

Private Sector, Note No. 301, World Bank, December 2005, pp. 1-3.

74. Sotero and Armijo, “To Be or Not to Be a BRIC,” pp. 66-68; 

World Bank, “Brazil Country Brief”; Irineu Evangelista de Carv-
71

alho Filho, “Household Income as a Determinant of Child Labor 

and School Enrollment in Brazil: Evidence from a Social Security 

Reform,” IMF Working Paper WP/08/241, Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2008, p. 5. 

75. Paulo Prada and Kenneth Rapoza, “Stuck at the Crossroads: A Wobbly Road Network and Weak Railways Could Kill 

Brazil’s Export Book,” Latin Trade, October 2004, available from 

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BEK/is_10_12/ai_n7579928/pg

_5/?tag=content;col1.

76. On these issues, see Peter Meyer and Clare Ribando Seelke, Brazil-U.S. Relations, Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, August 18, 2009, pp. 4-6; “Another Political Reform Project Bites the Dust,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, June 2009; “Oil: Brazil’s Second Independence.”

77. “Brazil,” available from Doing Business 2010, www.doingbusiness.org.

78. The relationship between stronger growth and poverty reduction is discussed in Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Phillippe G. Leite, 

and Martin Ravallion, “Poverty Reduction without Economic 

Growth? Explaining Brazil’s Poverty Dynamics, 1985-2004,” Policy Research Working Paper No. 4431, Washington, DC: World 

Bank, December 2007. On Serra, see “Lula’s Optimistic Claims for 

UNASUR,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, 

September 2009.

79. Stephanie Hanson, “Brazil’s Powerful Prison Gang,” 

Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder, September 26, 2006, 

available from www.cfr.org/publication/11542/; Samuel Logan, 

“Riots Reveal Organized Crime Power in Brazil,” International 

Relations and Security Network, May 18, 2006; William Langewiesche, “City of Fear,” Vanity Fair, April 2007, available from www.

vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/langewiesche200704.

80. Rafael Bielsa quoted in “Strategic Realignment Redefined,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, May 2005. A 

number of non-Latin American countries, including the United 

States, Russia, and China, have also been cool to Brazil’s Security 

Council bid.
72

81. See Pederson, “Cooperative Hegemony”; Flemes and 

Wojczekwsi, “Contested Leadership in International Relations.” 

During the Cold War, for instance, the United States constructed 

an “empire by invitation” by providing military protection to its 

European allies and overseeing a relatively open economic system. See Geir Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation? The United 

States and Western Europe, 1945-1952,” Journal of Peace Research, 

Vol. 23, No. 3, September 1986, pp. 263-277.

82. On these issues, consult “La renegociación sobre Itaipú se 

reanuda hoy” (“Renegotiation on Itaipú Resumes Today”), ABC 

Digital, January 31, 2010; Burges, “Consensual Hegemony,” pp. 

78-79; Joshua Goodman, “Brazil: The Global Power Looking for 

a Backyard,” SAIS Review, Vol. 29, No. 2, Summer-Fall 2009, pp. 

7-9; “Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo” 

(“Foundation for International Relations and Dialogue”); “IBSA: 

An International Actor and Partner for the EU?” Working Paper 

63, July 2008, p. 12.

83. The phrase “original sin” is used in G. Calfat, R. G. Flores, 

M. F. Granato, and A. Rivas, “Dealing with MERCOSUR Asymmetries: Criteria for Allocating Regional Fund Resources,” Washington, DC: InterAmerican Development Bank, September 30, 

2009, p. 2.

84. Ibid., p. 30; also, “Mercosur Summit Fails to Advance in Internal Trade Issues,” MercoPress, December 9, 2009; Ministerio de 

Hacienda, “¿Qué es Focem?” (“What is Focem?”), available from 

www.hacienda.gov.py/sseei/index.php?c=268.

85. “La renegociación sobre Itaipú se reanuda hoy” (“Renegotiation on Itaipú Resumes Today”); “Mercosur Reform,” Latin 

American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, June 2009. 

86. “Mercosur Summit Fails to Advance in Internal Trade Issues,” MercoPress, December 9, 2009; Roberto Bouzas, “The Politics and Economics of Mercosur: Old Challenges, New Approaches,” University of Miami, Center for Hemispheric Policy, March 

19, 2008, pp. 2-4; Hornbeck, Mercosur, pp. 5-7.
73

87. “Brazil Finds a Role for the Mercosur,” Latin American Regional Report: Brazil & Southern Cone, August 2009.

88. Burges, “Consensual Hegemony,” p. 75.

89. “Brazil Finds a Role for the Mercosur.”

90. “Brasil prepara simulacro de guerra dirigido al Paraguay” 

(“Brazil Prepares Wargame Directed at Paraguay”). 

91. “Brazil and Chile Lead Strategies to Contain Chávez without Isolating Him,” Latin American Security & Strategic Review, 

September 2007; “Arco del Pacífico abrirá el comercio” (“Pacific 

Arc will unlock commerce’), El Comercio, September 11, 2007.

92. “Uruguay: Pese a la oposición interna, Vázquez firma el 

Tifa” (“Uruguay: Despite Internal Opposition, Vázquez Signs the 

TIFA”), Informe Latinoamericano, February 2, 2007.

93. Oleg Shchedrov, “Russia’s Medvedev in Brazil, Aims to 

Double Trade,” Reuters, November 25, 2008.

94. “Brazil Recognizes China’s Full-Market Economy Status,” 

People’s Daily Online, November 14, 2004.

95. “The Birth of BRIC,” Stratfor, June 16, 2009.

96. Sebastian Mallaby, “Brazil’s China Headache,” Washington Post, December 14, 2009; Seth Kugel, “China-Brazil Economic 

Alliance May Be Exaggerated,” Global Post, May 27, 2009; China 

Brief, “The Panda Hugs the Tucano: China’s Relations with Brazil,” Jamestown Foundation, May 15, 2009.

97. “China’s Creeping Expansion Poses Threat to Russia’s Far 

East,” Stratfor, February 28, 2001; Andrei Piontkovsky, “China’s 

Threat to Russia,” Guardian, August 27, 2007.

98. Vikas Bajaj, “India Worries as China Builds Ports in South 

Asia,” New York Times, February 15, 2010; “Round 2: China and 

India Back in for Ghana’s Oil,” China Africa News, July 2009.
74

99. See Ruchita Beri and Prasanta Kumar Pradhan, “IBSA Dialogue Forum: Problems and Prospects,” New Delhi, India: Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, October 15, 2008, available 

from www.idsa.in. 

100. Lakshmi Puri, “IBSA: An Emerging Trinity in the New 

Geography of International Trade,” United Nations Conference 

on Trade and Development, Policy Issues in International Trade 

and Commodities, Study Series No. 35, 2007, pp. 28-29.

101. “Speech by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador 

Celso Amorim, at the Meeting of the Ministerial Commission of 

the IBSA Forum, New Delhi, India, July 17, 2007”; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “Emerging Powers: India, 

Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and the Future of South-South 

Cooperation,” Special Report, August 2009, p, 3; Mario Osava, 

“IBSA Summit—Will South-South Cooperation Regain Clout?” 

IPS News, September 23, 2008, available from ipsnews.net/news.

asp?idnews=43974.

102. John Lyons, “Brazil’s New Standing Threatened by Ahmadinejad Visit,” Wall Street Journal, November 23 2009.

103. Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 2010, chap. 5.

104. Discussed and quoted in Ibid.; also Matias Spektor, Kissinger e o Brasil (“Kissinger and Brazil”), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Zahar, 2009.

105. Monte Reel, “U.S. Seeks Partnership with Brazil on Ethanol,” Washington Post, February 8, 2007; Christopher McMullen, 

“U.S.-Brazil Relations: Forging a Strategic Partnership,” October 

17, 2007, available from merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/ARA/State/94355.

pdf.

106. “Lula pede a Obama un novo gesto de abertura em relação a Cuba” (“Lula asks Obama for a New Gesture of Openness in 

Relation to Cuba”), O Globo, April 17, 2009; “OAS Summit Debates 

Five Proposals on the Cuban Issue,” MercoPress, June 3, 2009.
75

107. In early 2009, Obama said of Lula, “I love this guy.” See 

“Obama: Lula is ‘Most Popular Politician on Earth,’” Huffington 

Post, April 2, 2009.

108. This point is discussed in Paulo Roberto de Almeida’s, 

“Uma política externa engajada: a diplomacia do governo Lula” 

(“A committed foreign policy: The diplomacy of the Lula government”), Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, Vol. 47, No. 1, 

June 2004, pp. 162–84.

109. Ambassador Antonia Patriota, “Brazil-U.S. Relations: 

The Bilateral, Regional and Global Agendas,” Providence, RI: 

Watson Institute, Brown University, February 15, 2008, available 

from www.watsoninstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=1064; “Lula 

Strikes ‘Strategic Alliance’ with France,” Latin American Security 

& Strategic Review, February 2008.

110. On ethanol and agricultural subsidies, see “Brazil’s Lula 

Presses Obama on Doha,” Bridges Weekly Trade News, March 18, 

2009; “Speech by the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 

at the Special Meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council 

(ECOSOC) on the World Food Crisis, New York, May 20, 2008,” 

available from www.brazil.org/uk/press/speeches.

111. Quoted in “‘Assertive’ Bid to Change Power Balance.” 

112. “Brazil-U.S. Rows Building over Colombia, Biofuel, 

Trade: FM,” Agence France Presse, August 2, 2009; “UNASUR 

Agrees to Condition Foreign Military Presence,” Latin American 

Security & Strategic Review, November 2009. 

113. “New Fleet May Mean U.S. Covets Brazil’s Oil: Lula,” 

Reuters, September 18, 2008.

114. “Brazilian Faults Obama’s Handling of Honduran Coup,” 

Latin American Herald Tribune, October 21, 2009; “Brasil espera 

una actitud más firme de EEUU contre el golpe” (“Brazil Expects 

a Firmer U.S. Attitude Against the Coup”), EFE News Service, August 4, 2009; Glusing, “Brazil Flexes Muscles over Honduras Crisis”; Andre Soliani and Iuri Dantas, “Lula to Mend Honduras Ties 

as Brazil Seeks More Clout,” Bloomberg News, February 22, 2010.
76

115. Engel quoted in Lyons, “Brazil’s New Standing Threatened by Ahmadinejad Visit”; and “Iran and Latin America.”

116. “Clinton Fails to Win over Brazil on Iran,” New York 

Times, March 3, 2010.

117. Brian Wampler and Leonardo Avritzer, “The Spread of 

Participatory Democracy in Brazil: From Radical Democracy to 

Participatory Good Government,” Journal of Latin American Urban Studies, Vol. 7, Fall/Winter 2006, pp. 37-52; Joshua Partlow, 

“To Rid Slums of Drug Gangs, Police in Rio Try War Tactics,” 

Washington Post, January 6, 2009; “Brasil: infraestructuras, menos 

impuestos y bajos intereses, ejes del plan de Lula” (“Brazil: Infrastructure, Less Taxes and Low Interest, Central Ideas of Lula’s 

Plan”), Infolatam, January 23, 2007.

118. Eliot Brockner, “Brazil Buys Bolivian Textiles: When the 

Value of a Dollar is Worth So Much More,” Americas Quarterly 

Online, September 2, 2009, available from www.americasquarterly.

org.

119. This case is made persuasively in Calfat, Flores, Granato, 

and Rivas, “Dealing with MERCOSUR Asymmetries,” pp. 30-31.

120. Report by the Trade Advisory Group, “Building the 

Hemispheric Growth Agenda: A New Framework for Policy,” 

Washington, DC: Americas Society, January 13, 2009, p. 11.

121. See “The Return of the 4th Fleet,” Stratfor, April 25, 2008.

122. Robert Chase, Emily Hill, and Paul Kennedy, The Pivotal States: A New Framework for U.S. Policy in the Developing World, 

New York: Norton, 1999, p. 194.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Gregg F. Martin

Commandant

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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

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Author

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Director of Publications

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Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil