Fórum Defesa Brasil

FOXTROT escreveu:Assim os Yanques tratam seus aliados.

American brothers

Aug 13th 2010, 11:31 by The Economist online | SÃO PAULO


OTHER Latin Americans think of Brazilians a bit like the rest of the world thinks of Americans: loud, flashy and rich. This is as it should be, because a strong argument can be made that Brazil is actually is the United States—just disguised beneath a Carmen-Miranda-style fruit hat.

Sounds a stretch? Think of two continent-sized countries built on gold rushes and cowboys, on sugar and slaves. Think of the United States being the first country to recognise Brazilian independence. Above all, think of the two countries’ topographies. Both consist basically of big cities on the coast where most of the people live; a vast, spectacularly beautiful and largely empty wonder of the natural world in the deep interior (the Rockies for America and the Amazon for Brazil); and, in between, endless savannahs where all the food grows. In either place, it’s soyabeans as far as the eye can see. Looking down from an airplane as it traverses the flyover states, you would be hard pressed to know whether you were crossing South Dakota or Goias, Mato Grosso or the corn belt.

Perhaps Australia and Canada might say the same. So consider the people. Both the US and Brazil have similar collections of ethnic and racial groups. Each has big minorities of indigenous peoples, of blacks (because both had slavery until the second half of the 19th-century), and of immigrants from Italy, Germany and Asia (Chinese predominate in the US; Japanese in Brazil). São Paulo makes many of those hard-to-verify claims about itself: it is the largest Japanese city outside Japan, the largest Portuguese city outside Portugal, the largest Spanish city outside Spain and the largest Lebanese city outside Lebanon. In the same vein, New York is the world’s second-largest Jewish city, its second-largest Italian city, and so on. Parts of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, still look and sound German, rather as parts of Cleveland used to. Even the largest ethnic groups are of comparable scale. In Brazil, people of Portuguese descent make up just over half the population. In the US, whites are just under two-thirds, and heading downwards.

Then think about the cities. Obviously São Paulo is New York—the commercial, industrial and financial capital; a city that never sleeps; a 24-hour traffic jam; a gaudy megacity that works; “an oceanic sprawl” (to quote Norman Gall of the city’s Fernand Braudel Institute). Equally obviously, Brasília and Washington, DC are sisters under the skin; all boulevards which are too wide, public buildings which are too big, public spaces without grace and public life without liveliness. It’s true that many invented capitals plonked in the middle of nowhere—which was true of Washington when the site was chosen—could say the same.

But less obviously think of a coastal city of blazing sunshine and hedonism; of beaches and beach culture; a city that helped define the 1960s and then began to sink backwards into its problems; a city, therefore, also of drug gangs and brutal police. Rio de Janeiro or Los Angeles? Well, both: cities of God and the Angels.

And, last, think of New Orleans on the Gulf coast and Salvador de Bahia, in Brazil’s north-east. Both are the centres of black culture in their two countries. Both are the native places for some of the world’s best music—jazz in New Orleans; tropicalismo, afoxé and caribé in Salvador. Both have huge, celebrated carnivals, notoriously corrupt local politics and famous local cuisines based on ground-up shellfish (gumbo and crayfish in the Big Easy, vatapá and shrimp in Bahia). Separated at birth, it seems.

Obviously, the list of dissimilarities would be as long as your arm, or as Brazil’s coastline. But if this English blogger can be allowed one further indulgence, a big difference lies in the inheritance from the colonial power. Britain bequeathed to the United States a language; a legal system; a political elite (WASPs); a middle-class liking for commerce; a tradition of political liberalism (in the British sense); and a certain puritanical impulse. Portugal bequeathed Brazil the language and Catholicism. And that is about it. Brazil itself developed the rest. And it did so with something that most of the United States lacks: a Dionysian spirit, a happy sense that all the squalor and conflict will end—or at least be suspended—in a samba.

Marino escreveu:Brazil Seeking Security

By Stewart Patrick,
Council on Foreign Relations

In spring 2010, Brazil made a quixotic effort with Turkey to mediate
the West’s long-running conflict with Iran. Although this gambit failed
—“We got our fingers burned,” Foreign Minister Celso Amorim confided
toThe Financial Times—the affair underscored Brazil’s determination to
play on the global stage. Ironically, the ploy may also have harmed
Brazil’s chances for a UN Security Council seat.

After two decades of galloping growth, Brazil has joined the top
rank of emerging powers, just behind China and India. Its diplomatic
ambitions have kept pace. Under flamboyant President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, Brazil has flexed its muscles within the BRIC coalition,
barged into Middle East diplomacy, secured a place in the G20, shaped
global climate and trade negotiations, and demanded greater clout
within the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

But one prize eludes Brasilia—permanent membership in the UN
Security Council. Sixteen years after Amorim formally declared its
candidacy, Brazil’s campaign remains stalled by resistance from the
permanent five and regional rivals in Latin America. Brazil currently
occupies one of the council’s rotating, two-year seats—for a record
tenth time—but this has been a poor consolation prize.

Brazil’s meteoric rise presents a quandary for President Obama, who
is committed to renovating global institutions to harness rising
powers. “The international architecture of the 20th century is
buckling,” his new National Security Strategy declares. “International
institutions must more effectively represent the world of the 21st
century, with a broader voice—and greater responsibilities—for
emerging powers.”

Obama’s reform agenda presumably includes enlarging the UN Security
Council, the world’s most important (and arguably outdated)
institution. And yet, U.S. officials remain wary of opening this
Pandora’s box, given the hurdles to securing an actual Charter
revision and fears that new members will dilute U.S. influence and
weaken council enforcement.

The biggest wild card in council expansion is how new permanent
members will behave. Ideally, rising powers would assume new
responsibilities and cast off outdated ideologies. But Brazil’s
unpredictable behavior suggests that emerging powers may not sing from
Washington’s sheet music, even if they are democracies.

Brazil’s candidacy has been a bone of contention since World War II,
when the Big Three debated who should join them as veto-wielding
permanent members. Churchill ultimately won agreement on liberated
France, which Stalin had dismissed as “charming but weak.” Roosevelt
secured support for Chiang Kai-shek’s China, on the grounds that they
needed at least one Asian member.

Roosevelt also lobbied hard for Brazil. Beyond rewarding the country’s
participation in the war, he was impressed by its massive size,
resources and potential. He worried that a council without a permanent
Latin American member would undermine hemispheric solidarity, and that
a dissatisfied Brazil might quit the UN altogether—just as it had left
the League of Nations when denied a seat on the League Council.

Other U.S. officials were skeptical. Brazil was in no way a great
power, and treating it as one would undermine the council’s
credibility. Moreover, Brazil’s selection would antagonize its Spanish-
speaking neighbors, while emboldening other regional powers to make
similar claims. Despite Roosevelt’s support, Brazil’s bid was
ultimately thwarted by London and Moscow.

A lifetime later, these historical debates—over Brazil’s great-power
status, relationship to Latin America, potential contributions to
global security and likely behavior as a permanent member—remain
relevant.

Brazil is still not Latin America’s natural representative. Lula has
pursued regional diplomacy, but few South American countries recognize
Lusophone Brazil as their leader. Brasilia got little hemispheric
support for its energetic council bid in 2004–2005, and Argentina,
Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela will surely oppose any future efforts.
More fundamentally, the issue of regional representation is more
appropriately addressed in the council’s elected membership, leaving
permanent status to great powers able to guarantee global order.

The question remains, however, whether Brazil is a great power. Brazil
has obvious strengths, ranking fifth globally in area and population,
and eighth in the size of its economy (which has world-class
agriculture, aerospace and biofuels sectors). Recent discoveries place
it in the top ten in proven oil and gas reserves, and it has amassed
huge foreign-exchange holdings. Its environmental assets include
massive mineral deposits, rich biodiversity and the largest renewable
freshwater resources on earth. Despite the economic crisis, Brazil
will probably grow 5 percent in 2010.

And then there are Brasilia’s enviable “soft power” resources. An
open, vibrant and multiethnic democracy, Brazil is widely admired as a
champion of the developing world and equitable globalization. The
Itamaraty, the country’s sophisticated diplomatic corps, speaks with
pride of Brazil’s “diplomatic GDP,” and the country has expanded its
global presence by opening scores of embassies and consulates since
the turn of the century.

What is striking about Brazil’s great-power claims is that they are
framed almost entirely in economic (and, to a lesser degree, cultural)
terms. Whereas the other BRICs have invested in hard power, Brazil has
traditionally devalued its military, instead emphasizing multilateral
cooperation within international institutions. This posture is partly
a happy accident of geography, which left Brazil the biggest player in
a peaceful U.S. sphere of influence. Insulated from the Hobbesian
aspects of global anarchy, Brazil was long free to focus on
development at home and conflict resolution abroad.

Brasilia’s military power is growing but remains modest. It has nearly three hundred thousand military personnel, ranking fifteenth globally.
Its $15.3 billion military budget represents only 2.65 percent of U.S.
defense spending. Although it has one aircraft carrier, Brazil has
limited capacity to project force abroad. This low military profile
seems inconsistent with the responsibilities of a permanent member.

Peacekeeping is Brazil’s most visible contribution to world security.
Nearly one thousand three hundred Brazilian troops are deployed in
Haiti, where it leads the MINUSTAH mission. Still, Brazil ranks only
fourteenth among UN troop contributors, well behind India, Nigeria,
Egypt and others. It provides less than 1 percent of the UN’s regular
budget—and only 0.2 percent of its peacekeeping budget. In sum,
Brazil’s investments in international security are useful, but not
impressive.

As important as what Brazil brings to the table is how it would behave
as a permanent member. Would it be a stalwart champion of
international security? Or would it be an unreliable partner that
plays to the galleries? The answers to date are not necessarily
comforting.

As Brazil emerges on the world stage, it is increasingly whipsawed
between its dual identity as a major global player and as a card-
carrying member of the Group of 77. Lula aspires to contribute to
global peace, but his attachment to South-South solidarity makes him
reluctant to back effective enforcement actions that are a cornerstone
of world order.

This duality has some potential advantages, allowing Brazil to broker
compromises on issues like climate change between the global North and
South. But this split personality raises fundamental questions about
whether Brazil, as a permanent member of the Security Council, would
be willing to make hard decisions on core matters of peace and
security.

Most damaging to Brazil’s Security Council bid is a growing perception
in Washington that Lula’s foreign policy is driven by anti-
Americanism. To be sure, Brazil and the United States have never been
bosom buddies, as Brazil has sought to insulate itself from U.S.
hegemony. But the Lula government has adopted a revisionist global
agenda often antithetical to Washington’s own. This confrontation runs
counter to the long-term interests of both parties, which are far more
aligned than opposed.

Also problematic is Brazil’s absolutist position on the principle of
nonintervention. Under Lula, Brazil has repeatedly invoked the mantra
of state sovereignty to resist U.S.-supported enforcement action
against governments that commit gross human-rights abuses like Burma,
Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Lula’s public embrace of Iran as a “great partner” is particularly
worrisome. Brazil’s misadventure—and its recent vote against a fourth
round of UN sanctions—has increased doubts about Brazil’s
determination to prevent nuclear proliferation. (This is somewhat
ironic, as Brazil is a member in good standing of all major nuclear
regimes, it is a party to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which prohibits
nuclear weapons in Latin America, and it is prevented by its
constitution from developing an atomic arsenal.)

Before spearheading movement on council enlargement, Washington must
be confident that any new permanent members will behave as responsible
stakeholders. “Permanent,” after all, is quite a long time. Brazil
today seems more comfortable with being a global power than assuming
the mantle of a global leader.

In six months, Lula and his outsized personality will be gone. This
transition will give his successor the opportunity to chart a less
erratic foreign-policy course.

“Brazil is not a serious country,” Charles de Gaulle once cruelly
said. If it is serious about UN Security Council reform, Brasilia will
need to take a more vigorous line against violators of UNSC
resolutions, including those guilty of gross human-rights violations
or nuclear proliferation. Brazil will also have to reconsider is
historic support for state sovereignty and noninterference in light of
the UNSC’s troubling docket.

Stewart Patrick is a senior fellow and director of the Program on
International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on
Foreign Relations.

Hader escreveu:Serginho meu filho,

"A nova orientação da política externa obedece a um diagnóstico segundo o qual o tema dos direitos humanos é manipulado pelas grandes potências ocidentais. Ninguém o exprime melhor do que Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães. Para o ex-segundo homem do Itamaraty e hoje ministro de Assuntos Estratégicos, a defesa dos direitos humanos "dissimula, com sua linguagem humanitária e altruísta, as ações táticas das grandes potências em defesa de seus interesses estratégicos". O alvo da crítica são, principalmente, os Estados Unidos, cuja hegemonia no sistema internacional representaria um dos principais obstáculos, se não ameaça, à projeção do Brasil na cena global, como se lê em seu livro Desafios Brasileiros na Era dos Gigantes. Ou seja, a defesa dos direitos humanos, assim como a defesa da não-proliferação nuclear, presta-se, na prática, ao congelamento do poder mundial tal como hoje se distribui. O resto seria retórica, mal ou bem-intencionada."

Isto é uma verdade cristalina. Um diplomate que não vê isso é um asno de pai e mãe. Ao fazer este papel para o grande público você passa a imagem, para quem é do ramo, que não passas de um embuste travestido de diplomata... E tem bobinhos que acreditam nesta turma de vendilhões. Tanto a retórica dos direitos humanos quanto a ambientalista é usada como justificativa para proteção do status-quo e para a projeção de poder. Instituto FHC...

[]'s

Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães.

Carlos Mathias escreveu:

Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães.

Sou fã desse cara.