Latin America is the region of the globe where the leftist ideas, under its many forms, are more deeply rooted. There is not a revival by itself. The election of leftist governments reflects mainly the weakening of the United States’ influence and a reaction to the neoliberal policies applied throughout the 1990s that only but fostered the problems in the region.

Brazil was never “a minor power of the South American subcontinent”. A country with the territorial dimensions of Brazil, 8.5M km2, a great demographic and economic landscape, it cannot be spoken of as “a minor power of the South American subcontinent”. According to Roberto Simonsen, until the mid XVIII century, the Brazilian economy, whose territory consisted of one of the four biggest and continuous geographical areas of the planet, was much larger than that of England, even from and industrial standpoint (an industry almost considered superior to its agricultural phase), and substantially larger than the economy of the thirteen colonies that would later on become the United States of America. Only in terms of sugar industrial production and exports, Brazil surpassed a total of £3 millions per-year, for regular periods in time, na amount never reached by England. It would be important for you to read the chapter I wrote about “King João VII and the build-up of the Brazilian State”, in the book compiled by Professor Kenneth Light, intitled “A Transferência da Capital e Corte para o Brasil, 1807-1808. Lisboa: Tribuna da História, 2007, pp. 291-299.

After breaking apart from Portugal, and although it was not a world power, Brazil was in the mid XIX century a great regional power, as you can read in my book whose 4th edition will be out in June, called “A expansão do Brasil e a formação dos Estados na Bacia do Prata”, also with an edition translated into Castellan, in Argentina, dated beginning of 2006. Argentina was only consolidated as a national State after the War of the Triple Alliance (1964-1970), what it built a regular Army and ocurred, in 1980, the federalization of Buenos Aires and Aduana.

Brazil does not look up for that acknowledgement. Brazil has always been recognized as a regional power by all of the US Presidents and Richard Nixon publicly declared, in 1971, that “wherever Brazil goes, it’ll take all of Latin America with it”, a statement that had major repercussions and offended many neighbors. The US, in 1976, signed an advisory deal with Brazil that led Henry Kissinger himself to declare in Congress:
“(...) This agreement does not make Brazil a world power. Brazil has a population of 100 million, vast economic resources, a very rapid rate of economic development, and it does not need our approval to become one, and its our obligation in the conduct of foreign policy to deal with realities that exist”. (Kissinger, Henry. Does America Need a Foreign Policy? New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Brazil and Argentina are the two most developed and important countries in South America, despite the assymetry. And without a clear understanding between Brazil and Argentina, as the Baron of Rio Branco highlighted in the begining of the XX century, it is fundamental for the stabilization of South America and its relation with the remaining regional blocs in world politics.

There was a rivarly between Brazil and Argentine, interrupted by periods of cooperation. But the rivarly was definately put aside by President Raul Alfonsin (Argentina) and José Sarney (Brazil), with the Declaration of Uruguay in 1986, thus starting the integration process that led to Mercosul. There can be sometimes divergences between Brasília and Buenos Aires and this is only but common, as it also happens with the European Union. But we cannot speak of rivalry anymore.

There are other various aspects that I could comment, but I want to focus on the nuclear issue, that in Brazil began precisely in 1952-53, when the government of Getúlio Vargas hired physicians Wilhelm Groth, from the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the University of Bonn, Konrad Beyerle, from the Max Planck Society for the Progress of Science, and Otto Hahn, responsible for nuclear fission, all from Western Germany. The process involved the building of three ultracentrifuges through a perfected method they worked on, that had the purpose of installing in Brazil a factory to seperate isotopes, that is, to enrich uranium, a decisive phase to master the technology, which would allow the production of an atomic bomb.

There was for some time competition between Brazil and Argentina as far as the nuclear issue was concerned, but this was eventually overcomed with the deals between João Figueiredo (Brazil) and Rafael Videla (Argentina) in 1979, and it was definately solved with the negotiations between Presidents Alfonsin and Sarney, in 1976-77, when both countries stroke a deal concerning some safeguards and cooperation. A great sign of such diplomatic success, Sarney visited in 1987 the factory of Pilcaneyou and, in 1988, President Raul Alfonsin participated in the inauguration of the project factory Almirante Álvaro Alberto, at the Experimental Center of Aramar, Municipality of Iperó (São Paulo), the first module for the production of enriched uranium.

The Nuclear Agreement between Brazil and Germany of 1975, looked for the implementation of a whole cycle of nuclear technology in Brazil, from research and treatment of uranium, until its enrichment, production of fuel elements and reprocessing, besides the construction of reactores enriched uranium-based. The whole process would be progressively nationalized, with a total transfer of technology to Brazil. Its program, whose running was under the responsibility of a Brazilian state enterprise – Nuclebrás, formally linked to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and a German private company, a Kraftwek Union (KWU), subsidiary of Siemens, that also intended the construction of another factory to produce enriched uranium. The latter would use a process of centrifuge jet, still under development in Germany, and eight other termonuclear factories, each with a 1.2 million kW capacity. But the Armed Forces did not comply with the safeguards imposed by IAEA, under the pressure of the US, to sign the Nuclear Deal with the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, they opted for a Parallel Nuclear Program, 1979 onward, that did not suffer any interruption with the end of the authoriatian regime, in 1985. That being said, President Sarney officially announced in September, 1987, the complete mastership of enriched uranium technology, through the ultracentrifugation process, highlighting that that event would have positive reflexes on its foreign policy.

Accordingly, Brazil showed that it had the capacity to fabricate, within few years, its own nuclear powered submarines, as well as its nuclear bombs.

Brazil hence progressed considerably more than Argentina, that used a system of heavy water that until today, for many reasons, they cannot master the whole process of enriching uranium. I analyse the whole issue more carefully in many of my books, like: Presença dos Estados Unidos no Brasil, Brasil-Estados Unidos: A Rivalidade Emergente and O Milagre Alemão e o Desenvolvimento do Brasil (1949-1994).