Brazil's rise - Stratfor

Evaluating Brazil's Rise
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

“For Brazil to gain the respect that it seeks from the Western industrial states, it has to match its rhetoric with action in the three pillars of geopolitics: economic, political and military might.”

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim launched a barrage of criticism against the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Monday, asserting that the Council “no longer reflects the political reality” of today, but rather that of 64 years ago. Amorim also criticized the UNSC for neutralizing a Brazilian-Turkish nuclear fuel swap proposal with Iran with a fresh sanctions resolution, the details of which Amorim claims were not available to the non-permanent Council members in a reflection of how the UNSC has “zero transparency at the technical level.” Amorim’s critique of the UNSC came a day after he announced that Brazil would no longer play an active role in mediating the Iranian nuclear dispute since “we got our fingers burned by doing things that everybody said were helpful and in the end we found that some people could not take ‘yes’ for an answer.”

As far as Amorim is concerned, all Brazil is asking for is a little respect from the world powers. In the eyes of Amorim and his countrymen, Brazil is already well on its way to global power status and shouldn’t have to fight to be taken seriously by its peers in the international community. Even if some like the United States are uneasy about having another power rise in the Americas, there is growing consensus in the world that Brazil will be a country to be reckoned with in the years to come. What countries like Brazil, Turkey and India have difficulty internalizing, however, is that there are no shortcuts to geopolitical stardom. For Brazil to gain the respect that it seeks from the Western industrial states, it has to match its rhetoric with action in the three pillars of geopolitics: economic, political and military might.

Despite not having been dealt the most suitable geography for internal development, Brazil scores strongest in economics. For a country to be considered a true geopolitical success story, it must have both inland transportation systems and maritime transport options to internally develop the country and drive down the cost of doing business. Brazil may have the second-longest river in the world, but the Amazon is no Mississippi when it comes to navigability. Cutting through jungle is not exactly conducive to business development.

Without a functional inland water system, Brazil has had to rely on artificial transportation systems, such as roadways, railways and airlines, to develop and connect its rural interior with the cosmopolitan coast. And to take advantage of its huge Atlantic coastline, Brazil has to build up ports to support its maritime trade with the outside world. Such infrastructure takes a lot of time and money to build, but after years of economic tumult, Brazil has found itself in a stable enough position to make the necessary investment to feed its industrial base and avoid falling into a resource-extractive economic pit like many of its South American neighbors.

While Brazil’s economic foundation is standing strong, the real icing on Brazil’s $1.58 trillion economy can be found off the Brazilian coast, where some $70 billion to $110 billion of crude oil reserves are sitting in a pre-salt layer beneath the ocean floor. Brazil, a country that has already achieved self-sufficiency in energy, is putting the bulk of its effort these days into readying itself for the challenge of extracting this hard-to-reach oil, realizing that within the next decade the country has a realistic chance of adding another trillion dollars worth of geopolitical clout to its bank account. In short, Brasilia’s economic future is blindingly bright.

Brazil doesn’t score as well on the political scale, but is showing progress. Brazil is by far the heavyweight on the South American continent, but has lived a largely insular life thanks in large part to its dense Amazonian shroud and an array of internal issues that has kept Brasilia’s hands tied for decades. Consequently, Brazil doesn’t have much ability to influence the behavior of its neighbors beyond the buffer states of Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, that Brazil uses to keep a lid on Argentina, a country that — fortunately for Brazil — has economically self-destructed enough for Brasilia to not have to worry about a credible threat emanating from the southern pampas any time soon.

Internally, Brazil suffers from severe socio-economic inequalities — a legacy inherited from the country’s colonial past when the Portuguese created a tiny land-owning elite that relied heavily on the African slave trade for labor to compete with the Spanish powerhouses of Mexico and Peru. This socio-economic divide manifests itself in a number of ugly ways, from deep corruption to violent crime. It can also be seen in the stark difference in political culture between the country’s socialist-leaning north and capitalist-leaning south. Whereas the north needs the state to survive, the south largely views the state as a hindrance to its growth. Nonetheless, the debate over whether or not Brazil should be ruled by a democratic regime ended a quarter of a century ago. Even in preparing legislation to manage Brazil’s future energy wealth, the country is exhibiting notable signs of political maturity. Brasilia will have to maneuver its way through a web of domestic constraints before it can develop an attention span to deal with issues abroad (and these internal impediments really cannot be underestimated), but the country’s political trajectory is heading in the right direction.

When it comes to military prowess, Brazil gets the weakest score. Despite having 10 neighbors, Brazil’s surrounding geography provides the country with enough insulation to keep the country sheltered from most external threats. And with Argentina currently out of the game, Brazil has simply lacked the urgency to build up its military might. But as Brazil is realizing its own economic and political potential, it is also realizing the need to modernize its military. Whereas Brazil’s economic tumult in the 1980s and 1990s led the state to slash funding for the military, Brasilia is now looking to build up the country’s military-industrial complex to enhance Brazil’s military posture and at the same time create another industrial sector to fuel Brazil’s economic growth.

But the country is also struggling to come up with the right guiding imperatives to focus its modernization efforts. For example, the navy appears more focused on building nuclear-powered submarines — a long-range offensive tool — rather than the more conventional submarines and surface combatants that will actually have utility in defending its offshore oil wealth, not to mention the replenishment capability to deploy its ships further afield should Brazil develop the capability to engage in peacekeeping missions far from home.

At the same time, Brazil has also revealed strategic thinking in its long-term military-industrial development. For example, in trying to cut its dependency on foreign military suppliers, Brazil has made technology transfer and indigenous assembly key considerations in its search for a new combat fighter jet. Still, Brazil is realizing that if it hopes to use its military as a foreign policy tool one day, it will need to build up the muscle to match its rhetoric. That vision is going to take decades to become a reality.

Though Brazilian strengths vary widely in the political, economic and military domains, there is no question that the country has immense geopolitical potential and is showing definitive signs of realizing that potential. But for Brazil to graduate from regional hegemon to global player and command the respect of its global peers, it’s going to need to demonstrate the ability to project real power beyond its borders. Speeches can be made anywhere, any time, but real Brazilian power — that is, words backed up with action — will not come fast, cheap or easy.