brazil soft power da
notes
Brazil’s influence in the Latin American region is dominant in the the status quo – economists show that
it is somewhere between the 6th and 9th largest economy in the world, surpassing countries such as India
and Russia, it’s becoming increasingly involved in regional and global institutions such as the United
Nations, UNSAUR, and possibly opec, plus the government is a successful democracy, pursuing a nuclear
program and is making big investments both domestically and abroad to bolster institutions and gain
worldwide prominence.
A history of distrust and regional competition between the United States and Brazil has generally led to
issues of distrust. Several instances including U.S. tariffs to Brazilian ethanol, blockage of FTAAs, and
creation of regional institutions separate from the U.S. prove that influence is zero-sum, or more likely
that Brazil considers this to be true, or at the very least U.S. encroachment in the region distracts from
Brazil pursuing broader objectives.
There is even an argument to be had that increased Venezuelan or Mexico influence could have a
negative impact on Brazilian leadership, which would be an additional link for certain Affs, with the
former being more likely, but this is going to be a bit harder to win. I think “Cuba crowds out” is a less
winnable argument though.
Through these international institutions, economic power, democratic structuring Brazil has the ability
to play a large rule in proliferation, power balancing, democratization, climate change, economic
growth, and a litany of other issues that can lead to terminal impacts.
**NEG**
top-level
1nc’s
1nc – generic
Brazil controls Latin American influence—increased US presence disrupts regional power balances
Bethell, 10 - English historian, university professor, and Brazilianist who specialises in the study of 19th
and 20th Century Latin America, emphasizing on Brazil in particular, PhD in History at the University of
London (Leslie, “Brazil and “Latin America”,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Studies, page 467-485,
Volume 42 / Issue 03 / August 2010,
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022216X1000088X)//HAL
Brazil and South America since the End of the Cold War¶ There is one final twist to this story of Brazil’s
relationship with ‘Ame´rica Latina’/‘Latin America’. As a result of the end of the Cold War, the profound
changes in world politics that followed, the intensification of the process of globalisation and, not least,
fundamental political and economic change in Brazil itself, Brazil’s presence and influence in the world
has grown significantly, especially under¶ the presidencies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2003)
and Luiz Ina´cio Lula da Silva (2003–10). Brazil has played an increasingly important role in North–South
and South–South relations and has been a key player in discussions on a whole range of global issues,
including trade, reform of multilateral institutions and climate change. Brazil is considered
internationally, along with China and India, as one of the ‘emerging global powers’ in the first half of the
twenty-first century. At the same time, there has been a major development in Brazil’s relations with
the other states in its region. Brazil has continued to support the work of the Organisation of American
States, founded in 1948 at the ninth Pan- American Conference in Bogota´, and its presidents have
attended all five Summits of the Americas held since December 1994, while resisting the US agenda for
the economic integration of the western hemisphere. Brazil has attended the annual meetings of the Rio
Group of Latin American and Caribbean states, founded in 1986, and is now giving its support to the¶
proposed creation of a community of all 32 Latin American and Caribbean states. But Brazil has also, for
the first time in its history, actively pursued a policy of engagement, both economic and political, with its
immediate neighbours in South America. This was a conscious decision deliberately taken in 1992–3,
reinforced by the fact that in 1994 Mexico joined the United States and Canada in ‘North America’.
President Cardoso hosted the first summit of South American presidents in Brası´lia in 2000. At the third
summit¶ held in Cusco in December 2004, during the Lula administration, a South American Community
of Nations was formed. It consisted of 12 nations, including Guyana and Suriname. At the summit held in
Brası´lia in May 2008¶ the community became a Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). Improved
relations with its South American neighbours and, indeed, the economic and political integration of
South America has been the principal¶ focus of Brazilian foreign policy under President Lula. Also for the
first time, and with a good deal of hesitancy, uncertainty and ambivalence, Brazil has begun to think of
itself as a regional power, not only in its long-term economic and strategic interests but because, it is
argued in Itamaraty, regional power is a necessary condition for global power. The region in question,¶
however, is South America, not Latin America.66
U.S. influence directly tradesoff with Brazil influence in the region
Crandall 11 – Associate Professor of International Politics at Davidson College; Principal Director for
the Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2009; Director for Andean Affairs at the
National Security Council in 2010-11 (Russell Crandall, May-June 2011, Foreign Affairs “Post-American
Hemisphere: Power and Politics in an Autonomous Latin America,” 90.3,
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora90&div=49&g_sent=1)//JES
POWER PLAYS Latin America's economic growth and political stability are driving an unprecedented
power shift within the region. Countries are reassessing their interests and alliances, and the more
confident among them are flexing their muscles. Instead of looking to Washington for guidance, Latin
American countries are increasingly working among themselves to conduct diplomacy, pursue shared
objectives, and, at times, even spark new rivalries. Brazil's emergence as a serious power is a direct
result of the increasing absence of U.S. influence in the region . Sensing an opportunity to gain the
regional stature that has long eluded it, the country has begun to act more assertively. But complicating
Brazil's power play is the reaction from its fellow Latin American nations. Colombian, Mexican, and
Peruvian officials, among others, talk privately about their dislike of Brazil's arrogant diplomacy. In
some quarters, Brazil's responses to developments such as Chavez's ongoing assault on Venezuela's
democracy and even the 2009 coup in Honduras have undermined its credibility as a serious leader.
(Brasilia's reluctance to speak out for hemispheric democracy is particularly inexcusable for a
government that includes many officials who suffered under the successive military regimes of the
1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.) Many Latin American officials quietly reveal that they are not eager to see
Brazil replace the United States as the hemisphere's hegemon. As one diplomat recently put it, "The
new imperialists have arrived, and they speak Portuguese."
Brazil regional power key to a laundry list of extinction impacts
Cervo, 10 – a historian Brazilian author of several books, focusing mainly on the country's foreign
policy, It PhD in History by University of Strasbour (Amando Luiz, “Brazil's rise on the international
scene: Brazil and the World,” vol.53 no.spe Brasília Dec. 2010,
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0034-73292010000300002&script=sci_arttext)//HAL
Global governance Brazil is a firm believer in multilateralism. A rules-based international order is
indispensable for a more just and democratic world. This is true as much for peace and security as it is
for climate change or trade. The G-20 of the WTO - a group of emerging countries (Brazil, India,
Argentina, South Africa and others), which came to include China and at least one LDC, Tanzania - was
formed with a view to ensure that the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) would not be another
unfulfilled promise and would effectively bring the development dimension into the trade negotiations.
More specifically, these countries rebelled against a proposed agreement that would not address the
main issues concerning agriculture reform and its impact on international trade. Agriculture had always
been considered as a part of the unfinished business of the Uruguay Round and constituted one of the
central aspects of the DDA. At later stages, it came to be recognized not only by Brazil and other
developing countries, but also by the US herself, that agriculture was the locomotive (sic) of the Doha
Round. Former USTR Robert Portman expressly agreed with me on this point, during an informal
ministerial meeting sponsored by the OECD in May 2005. Until that moment, the WTO negotiations
followed the same informal procedure that used to be the norm of its predecessor - the GATT. All crucial
questions were sorted out by a small group of countries - the Quad, constituted by the US, the European
Commission, Japan and Canada. The rebellion of developing countries - by the way, with the support of
a number of LDCs and smaller countries - not only prevented a bad result in Cancun, but also led to a
new pattern in the decision-making process in the WTO. Since then, Brazil and India have been meeting
with the US and the EU (and, on occasion, with other rich countries, such as Japan and Australia, later
joined by China) in the so-called G-4, which eventually replaced the Quad. Most of the progress made
from Cancun until the July Package of 2008 was produced in G-4 meetings. The ability of the G-20 to
articulate its positions with other group of developing countries was fundamental for progress made
during the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of December 2005, which decided that the export subsidies
for agriculture must be eliminated by 2013. It was not the first time developing countries tried to
articulate a common position, but, unlike what happened on previous occasions, in which they had
essentially a defensive - although justifiable - posture, this time, developing nations were able to
advance a constructive agenda based on forward-looking proposals. It was, for example, the G-20
negotiations that became - with adjustments, of course - the architecture for agricultural negotiations.
In Cancun, Brazil was fighting two parallel battles: one was at the negotiating table, against the
perpetuation of asymmetries in trade negotiations. Another battle was for winning the "hearts and
minds" in a time when the media was selling (or being sold) a totally distorted version, according to
which Brazil and her G-20 partners were blocking a deal out of plain obstructionism. Besides, the
participation of developing countries (including the poorer ones) gave the whole process more
legitimacy. The change in global governance became all the more evident during the financial crisis. As a
response to the turmoil in the markets, which almost brought the world into a depression as severe as
that of the thirties, a new G-20 sprung up. It is hard not to relate those two groups which carry the same
denomination, even though there is no causal relationship between their respective creations. The fact
that the G-20 of the WTO had been successful in enabling developing countries to have a greater say in
matters of international trade may have been in the back of the minds of some decision-makers at the
time of the consolidation of the Financial G-20 as a high-level forum. The Financial G-20, thus upgraded,
became the leading forum for macroeconomic coordination. It replaced the G-8 (in reality, the G-7, since
the presence of Russia in the group had more to do with her nuclear status then with her economic
weight). When I said, in a conference at the Science-Po in Paris in mid-2009, that the G-8 was dead, this
was seen by many, especially in Brazil, as a manifestation of hubris. Soon after that, the Pittsburgh
Summit confirmed the G-20 as the premier forum for economic and financial matters. Brazil has also
been a fundamental player in the negotiations concerning the most critical matter of our time: climate
change. Brazil is firmly attached to the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities", which
takes into account the rich countries' historic share in global warming and recognizes the right of poor
countries to develop. Nevertheless, we made an ambitious offer of emission cuts at the 15th Conference
of the Parties in Copenhagen, in December 2009, which actually helped push others, especially among
the so-called "emerging nations", to do the same. With her bold proposal, and unlike other countries,
including some of the rich ones, Brazil chose not to hide behind other countries' reluctance. At the same
time, we did not allow anyone to hide behind Brazil. In a situation in which the survival of mankind was
at stake we decided to preach by example. Unfortunately, the Copenhagen Summit did not reach a
consensus. The feasible alternative was the so-called "Accord". Although circa thirty countries were
included in the discussions, the crucial negotiation of the Accord was to take place between US
President Barack Obama, on one side, and the leaders of the "BASIC" group - President Lula of Brazil,
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and Prime Minister Wen
Jia-Bao of China - on the other. This again points to the changes in global governance already underway.
In the event, all this effort came to naught, partly because the Accord was in itself insufficient (on
finance and on reduction commitments by some countries, most notably the US), partly because the
method to conduct the meeting left some countries excluded and justifiably resentful. On another
theme more directly related to the survival of mankind, i.e., disarmament and non-proliferation, Brazil
has renewed her engagement with the struggle for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Brazil
chaired the 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and gave a strong push for
the positive outcome of the 2010 Review Conference, which reaffirmed the "thirteen steps to
disarmament", adopted in 2000, but which had fallen into oblivion. These steps were based on the
proposals made by the New Agenda Coalition, a group composed by developed and developing
countries of different regions, committed to a world free of nuclear weapons.
uniqueness
brazil leadership high
2nc wall
Brazilian hegemony on the rise now --- exerting power on an international scale
Shifter, 12 (Michael, President of the Inter-American Dialogue, Adjunct Professor of Latin American
Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, “The Shifting Landscape of Latin American
Regionalism,” Current History, Volume 111, Issue 742, February 2012, pg. 56-61, Proquest, Tashma)
For such a significant regional power and emerging global player - today it has the world's sixth largest
economy - Brazil was notably delayed in promoting regional organizations in South America. Although
Mercosur was set up in the early 1990s, it was not until 2000 that then-President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso of Brazil convened the first meeting of South American leaders. But Brazil's sheer size and
economic and political power made such a turn toward greater engagement with the region highly
plausible.¶ Over the past dozen years Brazil's approach toward its neighbors has been substantially
shaped by two connected objectives: the desire to keep things under control in its immediate sphere of
influence, and its pursuit of global aspirations. One of Brazil's main priorities has been to secure a
permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. It was that aim - more than any regional goals that led Brazil to play a leading role in the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti starting in 2004. The
country has also sought a significant voice in other global arenas. It has actively participated in the
World Trade Organization, and has been a serious, respected player in the Group of 20 in the context of
the recent economic crisis.¶ Moreover, Brazil has emphasized alliances with other emerging powers
more than with other Latin American countries. As one of the so-called BRICS (along with Russia, India,
China, and South Africa), Brazil has strengthened relationships that are aimed at enhancing its leverage
with traditional powers, particularly the United States. Brazil has for the most part preferred to deal
with the United States bilaterally, and has been wary of any hemisphere-wide - and presumably US-led arrangements, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a proposal that emerged from the
first Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994.¶ During the Lula era - and particularly its final years, when
the country witnessed remarkable economic vitality and growing influence in global affairs - Brazil
became increasingly active in social development efforts in Africa, and also tried its hand in Middle
Eastern diplomacy. Its boldest move came in 2010 with a joint proposal developed with Turkey to deal
with Iran's nuclear program. Brazil's accommodating approach differed sharply from Washington's more
hard-line posture, reflecting mutual irritation that has been alleviated somewhat during the current
Rousseff administration.¶ At the same time, Brazil has developed more expansive economic and political
roles within the region. The Lula government devoted considerable attention to building the Union of
South American Nations (UN ASUR), which evolved from a fairly loose, amorphous grouping. Today
UNASUR has a formally organized structure with a permanent secretariat that was initially headed by
the former Argentine president Néstor Kirchner. Although other leaders responded to the Brazilian
initiative with varying degrees of enthusiasm - Peruvian President Alan García showed little interest and
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was notably resistant - the exclusively South American organization
appears to have taken hold.
Brazil controls Latin American influence—increased US presence disrupts regional power balances
Bethell, 10 - English historian, university professor, and Brazilianist who specialises in the study of 19th
and 20th Century Latin America, emphasizing on Brazil in particular, PhD in History at the University of
London (Leslie, “Brazil and “Latin America”,” Journal of Latin American Studies, Studies, page 467-485,
Volume 42 / Issue 03 / August 2010,
http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0022216X1000088X)//HAL
Brazil and South America since the End of the Cold War There is one final twist to this story of Brazil’s
relationship with ‘Ame´rica Latina’/‘Latin America’. As a result of the end of the Cold War, the profound
changes in world politics that followed, the intensification of the process of globalisation and, not least,
fundamental political and economic change in Brazil itself, Brazil’s presence and influence in the world
has grown significantly, especially under the presidencies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2003)
and Luiz Ina´cio Lula da Silva (2003–10). Brazil has played an increasingly important role in North–South
and South–South relations and has been a key player in discussions on a whole range of global issues,
including trade, reform of multilateral institutions and climate change. Brazil is considered
internationally, along with China and India, as one of the ‘emerging global powers’ in the first half of the
twenty-first century. At the same time, there has been a major development in Brazil’s relations with
the other states in its region. Brazil has continued to support the work of the Organisation of American
States, founded in 1948 at the ninth Pan- American Conference in Bogota´, and its presidents have
attended all five Summits of the Americas held since December 1994, while resisting the US agenda for
the economic integration of the western hemisphere. Brazil has attended the annual meetings of the Rio
Group of Latin American and Caribbean states, founded in 1986, and is now giving its support to the
proposed creation of a community of all 32 Latin American and Caribbean states. But Brazil has also, for
the first time in its history, actively pursued a policy of engagement, both economic and political, with its
immediate neighbours in South America. This was a conscious decision deliberately taken in 1992–3,
reinforced by the fact that in 1994 Mexico joined the United States and Canada in ‘North America’.
President Cardoso hosted the first summit of South American presidents in Brası´lia in 2000. At the third
summit held in Cusco in December 2004, during the Lula administration, a South American Community
of Nations was formed. It consisted of 12 nations, including Guyana and Suriname. At the summit held in
Brası´lia in May 2008 the community became a Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). Improved
relations with its South American neighbours and, indeed, the economic and political integration of
South America has been the principal focus of Brazilian foreign policy under President Lula. Also for the
first time, and with a good deal of hesitancy, uncertainty and ambivalence, Brazil has begun to think of
itself as a regional power, not only in its long-term economic and strategic interests but because, it is
argued in Itamaraty, regional power is a necessary condition for global power. The region in question,
however, is South America, not Latin America.66
-- generic
Brazilian influence high – oil power, clean tech, social structures, and diplomacy
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
Outside the Western Hemisphere, as Latin America’s rising oil power, it not only commands the globe as
a top ranked country in clean energy but it is also leading by example in gender equality with the
appointment of a woman to head the nation’s thriving energy industry. President Dilma Rousseff herself
is an example of the progress that women have achieved in Brazil. Despite the limitations of social
inequality and violent crime, the “B” in the BRICS exults as the world’s 6th largest economy. As it affirms
its economic clout as one of the BRICS nations and seeks a permanent seat on the United Nations
Security Council, Brazil’s successful execution of its current public diplomacy efforts, specifically in the
realm of sports diplomacy and aid diplomacy , could be an important selling point .
Brazil’s global influence is high and increasing – opec, foreign investments, and regional and
international forums
Zedillo, et al 08 - Commission Co-Chair for the Brookings Institute Report on the Partnership for the
Americas and former President of Mexico (Ernesto Zedillo, Thomas R. Pickering, Mauricio Cardenas,
Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, etc, November 2008, The Brookings Institution “Rethinking U.S.–Latin American
Relations: A Hemispheric Partnership for a Turbulent World - Report of the Partnership for the Americas
Commission”
November
2008,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2008/11/24%20latin%20america%20partn
ership/1124_latin_america_partnership.PDF)//JES
Some Latin American countries are investing abroad on an unprecedented scale. In 2006, for example,
Brazil invested more abroad ($28 billion) than it received in foreign direct investment ($19 billion). In
Chile, private pension funds and the government have become active international investors. Surpluses
have allowed Venezuela to inject billions of dollars into other countries, particularly through subsidized
oil exports. Many Latin American multinationals—such as Brazil’s Vale, Gerdau, and Odebrecht; and
Mexico’s CEMEX, America Movil, and Grupo FEMSA—have become global corporate giants. The current
crisis may no doubt affect the relative magnitude of these investments, but economic relationships in
the hemisphere will continue to diversify as the world economy recovers. The third change is that the
LAC countries are diversifying their political and diplomatic relations. The most notable example is Brazil,
which has opened thirty-two new embassies in the past five years. Together with Venezuela, Brazil is
playing a more active political role in the region through the Union of South American Nations, which is
already active at the presidential level and is expected to become a key forum for the discussion of
defense issues. Mexico and Brazil are also playing prominent roles in international forums and
organizations, including the finance ministers’ Group of Twenty and the trade ministers’ Group of
Twenty. Brazil has announced its intention to join the Organization of the Petroleum-Exporting
Countries and the Paris Club. Chile and Brazil are expected to become members of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the not-too-distant future. Mexico, Peru, and Chile
are active members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In sum, this diversification of
political and economic relations reflects many LAC countries’ new confidence in their capacity to chart
their own course in the world.
Brazil’s global influence high – expanding economics and incorporation in international forums
Bridges, 08 studied digital journalism @ Harvard; twice Pulitzer Prize winning team; 13 years as a
reporter for the Miami Herald, a foreign correspondent based in South America; covered politics for
seven years at The Times-Picayune (Tyler Bridges, November 12th, 2008, The Seattle Times “Brazil on
conquest to becoming a major world player”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008380151_brazil12.html)//JES
For years, critics said that Brazil was long on potential and short on performance. Not anymore. This
massive country has become one of the world's biggest democracies and an economic powerhouse.
Now Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants his nation to have a bigger role in world affairs.
He'll press his case when leaders from the major industrial and developing nations convene Saturday at
the G-20 summit in Washington. Before the meeting, Lula has called on wealthier nations to overhaul
the global finance system and give a bigger say to developing countries such as Brazil. "We need new,
more inclusive governance, and Brazil is ready to face up to its responsibilities," Lula said last Saturday at
a meeting of finance ministers and central-bank presidents in São Paulo. "It is time for a pact between
governments to build a new financial architecture for the world." In the short term, Brazil wants the
smaller G-7 group of industrialized countries to expand to include Brazil and other developing countries,
said Amaury de Souza, a political analyst in Rio de Janeiro. "We want a permanent G-14," de Souza said,
saying that Russia, China, Mexico and India should be among the additions. Brazil also wants developing
nations to have a greater voice at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United
Nations. "Global power structures were frozen in the aftermath of World War II," de Souza added.
"Excessive latitude of action was given to European countries." Only a few years ago, Brazil's president
wouldn't have dared to demand a greater role. Hyperinflation, a roller-coaster economy and political
instability plagued Brazil in the 1990s. The country's stock market plummeted after Lula was elected in
2002. Investors feared the longtime leftist leader, a former auto-factory worker who hadn't graduated
from high school. However, Lula has promoted business investment while putting more money into the
hands of the poor. The economy has boomed for three years. With the world's 10th-biggest economy,
Brazil has surpassed the United States as the biggest producer of iron ore and coffee. It's become the
world's biggest exporter of beef, poultry, biofuels and orange-juice concentrate, and is rapidly gaining in
soybeans, corn and pork. Brazil also has accumulated $200 billion in foreign reserves, almost as much as
the rest of Latin America combined. That money will help cushion the global meltdown. Now, Brazil
wants to be recognized for its fiscal track record and to avoid the risks that come with a global economic
crisis. "Brazil has new standing in the world," said Rubens Barbosa, a private consultant in Brazil who's
served as the ambassador to the United States. "We think we can contribute more." Quietly, Brazil
already has become the most powerful country in Latin America. Brazilian companies are expanding
Caracas' subway system, constructing a massive hydroelectric dam in Ecuador and building a highway in
Peru that will give Brazilian companies better access to Peru's ports. Brazil also has been flexing its
diplomatic muscles throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It leads the main United Nations
peacekeeping mission in Haiti, where it has 1,200 soldiers. Without fanfare, Lula has undercut the
ambitions of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in South America, providing an important
counterweight in the eyes of U.S. policymakers. Lula has undermined Chávez's dreams of building a
5,000-mile gas pipeline connecting Venezuela and Brazil and has stymied Chávez's plan for the Bank of
the South, meant to provide an alternative to the World Bank. Now Brazil wants a reward for all its
efforts. "Brazilians view the current economic crisis as something of an opportunity," said Jeffrey Cason,
a political-science professor and Brazil expert at Middlebury College in Vermont. "They think they can
increase the interest of developed nations in giving them a seat at the table and place Brazil in a
leadership position on behalf of poor countries."
-- united states
Brazil’s influence is high – laundry list of reasons prove it’s comparatively surpassing the United States
Biden ’13 – Vice President of the United Swag of America; A.K.A. Joe Bling (Joe Biden, May 29, 2013th,
White House Press Office “Remarks by the Vice President on U.S.-Brazil Relations, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/29/remarks-vice-president-us-brazil-relationsrio-de-janeiro-brazil)//JES
Brazil has long since taken its place as one of the world’s great democratic economic powers. You’re the
seventh largest economy in the world -- larger than India; larger than Russia. The story of your journey
is truly remarkable in the last 20 years. In 20 years in the making, you built upon the most important
resource that this great country has -- your human capital. You broke the back of inflation. You lifted 40
million people out of poverty to the middle class, which is now 100 million strong. Your democratic and
social innovations; your Zero Hunger Program; your bolsa familia; your homeownership programs -they’re studied and copied around the world. They’re studied and copied around the world, from
Guatemala to Ghana. You’re tapping your enormous natural resources, but also getting a greater share
of your energy from clean and renewable energy sources than any other country in the world. The rest
of the world looks at you with envy, at the progress you’ve made. The hemisphere has much to learn
from your experience. But I believe the most important lesson is not any of the specific economic
formulas that you’ve employed to raise the living standard of all your people or any social program that
is being replicated. You taught something to the rest of the world, and this hemisphere in particular,
that the United States has strongly believed from our inception. You demonstrated that there is no
need for a nation to choose between democracy and development. You have demonstrated there is no
need to choose between market-based economies and smart social policy. That is a debate raging in
other parts of the world. But you, Brazil, have demonstrated that it is not the false choices that are
being offered in other countries in this hemisphere and other countries around the world. And the
world has begun to recognize your contribution. The bad news for you all is the world has recognized
your contribution. You can no longer claim, we are a developing nation. You have developed. And I can
tell you from experience, the bad news with that is, what goes with that is worldwide responsibility to
speak, to speak out. But the world has also recognized -- we were talking with the President -- the World
Cup in 2014, the Olympics in 2016, as they say in the southern part of my country, y’all are doing
something right. (Laughter.) It’s pretty remarkable. The millions of visitors who come to Brazil, many
through this very port, marvel at all these cranes and construction and all that’s going on, all the activity.
You immediately get a sense when you debark and/or land in Brazil that your country has incredible
dynamism. You can feel it. You can taste it. But what I suspect many don’t understand is that that
dynamism, although happening more here than anywhere else, is also happening outside of Brazil. It’s
happening up and down this hemisphere. It’s happening from Colombia to Peru to Chile. It hasn’t
reached the level that you have, but it’s happening. It’s happening. And for those of you who may have
read the accounts of the demise of America, the United States, as I said to then-President Hu in the
Great Hall of the People in China when he was empathizing with telling me that he was sure we’d come
back, I would point out -- it’s never been a good bet to bet against the United States of America. Never.
And what’s happening in my country, which is coming back from the deepest recession it’s had since the
Great Depression -- we’ve added back $16 trillion in wealth, much of which had been lost to our
population as a consequence of the crisis. We’ve had -- from the time we’ve taken office, the fifth
month in -- every month, consecutive months of job growth. Not as strong some months as we wanted,
but consecutive.
Brazil’s soft power is increasing – economy, BRIC, and social institutions
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
¶ GREAT EXPECTATIONS¶ ¶ The excitement surrounding Brazil is largely based on its economic
achievements and natural resources. Macroeconomic stability, inflation targeting, a floating currency,
manageable debt, ample dollar reserves, rapid growth, and a climate of political stability catapulted
Brazil in the global psyche from just another Latin American debtor nation to an economic
powerhouse . The breathlessness about Brazil's potential picked up speed after 2003, when Goldman
Sachs coined the term "bric" to describe the four emerging markets-Brazil, Russia, India, and China-that
will make up almost half of the world's gdp growth by 2020. Brazil seized the bric moniker and used it to
amplify its leadership role on issues from climate change and food security to global trade .¶ ¶
Brazilians have coalesced around what one Brazilian pollster described as the "material basis for
consensus": a broadbased agreement to invest government revenue in people on the margins. This
investment has produced a rapid expansion of a domestic consumer class, which, however, remains
neither civically empowered nor adequately educated. Initiatives such as Bolsa Familia, a conditional
cash-transfer program linked to school attendance and regular medical checkups for children; subsidized
loans for housing; and an increase in the minimum wage have reduced poverty by approximately 24
percent since 2003. Brazil is still the third most unequal country in Latin America, but almost 13 million
Brazilians have escaped from poverty, and 12 million from extreme poverty, in the last eight years. To
date, the rich in Brazil have given up a little wealth, and they may be poised to give up more through
what is-for Latin America and much of the developing world-an uncharacteristically robust, yet still
regressive, system for collecting and paying taxes. Brazil's impressive social gains have become the envy
of the developing world, turning Brazil into a laboratory and model for globalization with a social
conscience.
-- regional influence
Brazil soft power expanding – regional influence and organizatinos
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
¶ Brazil and Its Region¶ ¶ By far the largest country in South America— in terms of land mass, population,
and economy— Brazil borders ten of the continent’s twelve other countries. One of the last countries in
South America to transition from a monarchy and to abolish slavery, Brazil did not experience a
convulsive anticolonial revolution (against, in its case, the Portuguese crown). With an atypical history
and different identity from its neighbors, Brazil hesitates to characterize itself as Latin American,
emphasizing instead its status as a South American nation. At the same time, the region is often
reluctant to accept the Portuguese-speaking giant as one of its own. Growing interdependence between
Brazil and its neighbors further complicates the distinctions and asymmetries, which are reflected in
relationships at once characterized by ambivalence, indifference, tension, and deference.¶ ¶ Brazil is
escalating investment and trade throughout the region. The growing Brazilian economy depends on
further infrastructure and energy integration across the continent. Given Brazil’s nine-thousand mile
border and its own rising drug consumption and export problems, the country has a mounting interest
in working with its neighbors to address transnational illegal traffic of drugs, people, and counterfeit
goods. Brazilians are increasing their physical presence in South America as well: for example, more than
thirty thousand Brazilians reside in Bolivia and control as much as 40 percent of Bolivia’s soybean
production. 37 Brazilians are also buying up farmland across the Paraguayan border; the tens of
thousands of Brazilians in Paraguay have come to be known as Brasiguayos.¶ ¶ Brazil encourages greater
cooperation in South America within organizations like Mercosul and Unasul, under cautious Brazilian
leadership designed to be as free of friction as possible. Indeed, Brazilian officials actively shirk the label
of regional leader so as not to antagonize its neighbors and to maintain good relations in the region. The
rest of South America depends increasingly on trade with and investment from Brazil. But Brazil’s
smaller neighbors worry about depending too heavily on Brazil— economically and as a global
interlocutor for the region. Some South Americans are wary that Brazil, a new potential hegemon with
its sights set on global power, may not have the region’s interests at heart.¶ ¶ Brazil is proud of a long
tradition of nonintervention in the internal affairs of its neighbors. But as Brazil has looked to exercise its
power and influence beyond the region, it is legitimate to ask what role Brazil strives to play closer to
home, beyond the economic sphere. Mindful of its own history of military rule, Brazil has acted to
repudiate military coups in the region: Paraguay in 1996, Ecuador in 2000, and Honduras in 2009.
However, Brazil has been less vocal on issues of democratic erosion, preferring quiet diplomacy to public
condemnation, or alleging that questionable conduct is a matter of sovereign authority or to be
addressed multilaterally. President Rousseff, who was arrested and tortured by the military regime for
her underground activities, has the potential to be a powerful voice for human rights and democratic
values in Latin America, helping ensure that its neighborhood is populated with stable democracies that
will in turn bolster Brazil’s economic positioning.
Brazilian soft power is on the rise and key to UNASUR
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
The efficacy of Brazil’s soft power in its continuing rise as an emerging global power has been the
source of some controversy in the news over the past month, which showcases the ups and downs of
the country’s most recent public diplomacy efforts. While the world’s unwavering attraction to Brazil is
largely owed to its effortlessly exotic culture, there is much more to Brazil’s soft power than Carnaval,
samba, and skimpy swimwear. Brazil’s regional and global influence is a testament to this fact.¶ On the
regional level, Brazil has emerged as Latin America’s standout global power . This authority is evident
in Brazil’s 2008 creation of the Union of South American Nations ( UNASUR ), developed with the goal of
forging deeper economic and political integration in South America by integrating two existing customs
unions: Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN).
Brazilian soft power in Latin America is expanding now, particularly Cuba – Successful engagement is
critical to global Brazilian soft power
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
Brazil is a stable democracy and a world leader when it comes to creating and exporting innovative
ways to alleviate poverty . In recent years, Brazil has provided billions of dollars to aid to of Latin
America. As Brazil takes on a greater role in the hemisphere in terms of aid and finance, it will find that
its soft power has the potential to reach new heights. President Rousseff’s closer engagement with
Cuba is the latest example of Brazil’s plan of action to expand its regional influence by affording
subsidized loans to developing nations. The President’s offer of closer economic cooperation to Cuba
not only represents Brazil’s highest-profile advance to parlay its growing economic muscle into
diplomatic leadership in Latin America, but it also holds a symbolic purpose – by reaching out to Cuba,
Brazil is really drawing attention to its new role of regional leader. Moreover, nowhere is the fierce
competition between Brazilian and Venezuelan leadership in the Americas more acute than in Cuba. If
Brazil’s influence were to gradually shift Cuba toward an ideological social democratic direction - similar
to that found in Brazil - then it would be a major public diplomacy success.
-- econ
Brazilian soft power has hit a high – continued success is key to solve AIDs, poverty, the environment,
and the European debt crisis – that solidifies Brazilian efforts to rise in the UN and IMF
Gómez, 12 – Assistant Professor, Public Policy, Rutgers University at Camden (Eduardo J., March 20,
2012, “Brazil's European Dream,” Foreign Policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/20/brazils_european_dream?page=full)//Hensel
The news that Brazil has overtaken Britain to become the world's sixth largest economic power is being
touted as a sign that that the longtime "country of the future" has finally arrived. While the celebrations
have been somewhat muted by concerns over slowing GDP growth and the country's still-heavy
dependence on high energy and food prices, Brazil is heading into the coming global showcases of both
the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics with more than its usual swagger .¶ ¶ But this
emerging economic prominence is raising the question of just what kind of actor Brazil will be on the
world stage. In the past 20 years, Brazil has become well known for turning crisis situations into
geopolitical opportunities, becoming a leading voice in international forums devoted to AIDS , poverty ,
and even the environment . And now, it is doing it again with a challenge that Brazilians understand all
too well: a debt crisis .¶ ¶ Only this time, it's Europe in need of a helping hand, not the former
Portuguese colony in Latin America. At an EU-Brazil summit held in Brussels last October, President
Dilma Rousseff told European leaders, who had asked for assistance: "You can rely and count on us." As
an initial strategy, Rousseff and her finance minister, Guido Mantega, considered using their foreign
exchange reserves -- estimated at $352 billion -- to purchase debt through treasury bonds. However,
after consulting with her BRIC colleagues at a meeting in Washington last November, Brazil decided that
buying EU bonds would be too financially risky, and proposed instead to indirectly assist Europe by
donating an estimated $10 billion to the International Monetary Fund.¶ ¶ There is a grander strategy at
work here beyond seeking to help Europe in its hour of need. The IMF contributions stem from
Rousseff's intention to maintain a tradition that began under her predecessor, President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, of using foreign assistance as a means to strengthen Brazil's international reputation and
influence. Yet another example is Brazil's annual contributions to the World Bank, which have averaged
$253 million from 2004 to 2009. Brazil was the first nation to contribute -- $ 55 million -- to the World
Bank's Haitian Reconstruction Fund. From 2003-2007, Brazil also gave approximately $340 million to
fund the U.N.'s operations. Lula also increased Brazil's contribution to the U.N.'s World Food Program
from $ 1 million in 2009 to $ 27 million in 2011.¶ ¶ There's also the satisfaction of seeing the tables turn.
Because of Brazil's recent economic success and reputation, the IMF has approached Brasília for help for
the first time. Back in 1998, it was the Brazilian government, under President Fernando H. Cardoso, that
was running to the IMF for assistance. Brazil was trying to recover from a capital flight of roughly $30
billion dollars, triggered by a lack of foreign investor confidence due to exorbitant debt and recession. To
help quell investor speculation that Brazil would default (like Russia did months earlier), the IMF
provided a bailout package of $41 billion on the condition that Cardoso prune government expenditures
by 20 percent and reform the pension system.¶ ¶ Then in 2001, after a steep decline in foreign
investment, currency depreciation, and a debt crisis in neighboring Argentina, Brazil essentially begged
the IMF to help avoid a default on its external debt. This time the government received $15 billion in
exchange for reducing federal expenditures and maintaining a primary budget surplus of approximately
3.75 percent through 2005.¶ ¶ Today, Brazil seems to be relishing the opportunity to impose conditions
on the IMF: Last October, Brasília made it crystal clear that it will not help the IMF should it decide to
continue imposing austerity measures on European states. Much to Brazil's chagrin, however, last
month the IMF and the EU provided a bailout package of 130 billion euros to Greece with stiff austerity
measures attached, grudgingly passed by Greece's parliament -- a slight that may explain Brazil's
delayed assistance to the IMF. What's more, Finance Minister Mantega has told the EU that Brazil will
only provide IMF support as long as the EU strengthens its Central Bank and if other European nations
contribute to the European Financial Stability Facility, the special relief fund set up provide a firewall for
heavily indebted economies.¶ ¶ Rousseff also wants an expanded role for Brazil within the IMF, along
with the other BRICS, mainly through increased quota shares and voting rights. She has joined her
colleagues from China, India, Russia, and South Africa in emphasizing that the IMF needs to recognize
the importance of the world's largest emerging economies and allow for opinions and recommendations
from nations that have overcome their economic hurdles and that more accurately represent the
developing world.¶ ¶ Despite the IMF Governing Board's agreement in 2008 to increase the BRICS' quota
and vote shares, and despite the Board deciding to shift more than 6 percent of the quota shares to
them and other nations last December, these recommendations have yet to be officially adopted and
ratified into the Articles of Agreement. What's more, analysts and the BRICS believe that these changes
are insufficient, especially in light of the US and Europe's substantially higher quota shares, voting rights,
and the BRICS' growing importance to the global economy. Mantegna and Rousseff hope that the Euro
crisis will be an opportunity to address this imbalance. ¶ ¶ Europe's crisis has also accelerated the
shifting power dynamics between Brazil and its former colonial power, heavily indebted Portugal.
Rousseff has not only proposed to buy Portuguese treasury bonds, but she has also considered the
possibility of early buybacks of Brazilian bonds held by the Portuguese government, which would help
reduce Portugal's debt by retiring bonds at a discount while stabilizing the bond market. While Mantega
has expressed his reservations, given Portugal's potential inability to repay and the legal limitations on
using Brazil's foreign reserves for buying debt, Rousseff still seems firmly committed to these options,
stating that she will do "everything to help" and pledging to lend a hand. Rousseff views Portugal's
recession as an opportunity to strengthen bilateral political and economic ties, helping overturn years of
jealousy and envy over Brazil's success. And she has often invoked simple gratitude as a motive,
referring to Portugal's past assistance in Brazil's time of economic crisis.¶ ¶ But cultural affinity and
altruism can only explain so much. Several Brazilian companies have invested in Portugal in recent years,
with a total investment of $ 65 million in 2008, increasing to $ 310 million in 2009. Rumor has it that
Petrobras, Brazil's state-owned oil company, is planning to purchase 33 percent of Galp, Portugal's
leading petroleum company. Portuguese businesses have also invested heavily in Brazil. And in January
2011, Portugal's Telecom acquired 25 percent of Brazil's biggest land-line phone company, Oi, for $5
billion. Last year overall, Portugal's investments ranged from the energy sector, to tourism and
construction, tallying approximately 25 billion euros.¶ ¶ Of course, engaging with Europe carries risks at a
time when Brazil's own economic future -- generally attributed to high tax rates, inflation, an overvalued
currency, and high public sector deficits -- isn't exactly guaranteed. The government projects the
country's economic growth will not exceed 3.4 percent this year -- it was 2.7 percent last year, down
from 7.5 percent in 2010 -- so Brasilia may not have very much cash to spare come 2013.¶ ¶ Despite
these economic risks, Rousseff's European strategy is a smart move. By providing financial support in
time of need, Brazil can strengthen its partnership and economic relationship with several European
countries , as well as with the IMF. And by lending a hand, Rousseff may be able to garner more
European support as she strives to boost Brazil's influence within the U.N. system and the IMF. Through
these calculated endeavors, Rousseff can signal that Brazil isn't just arriving on the international scene,
it's here to stay.
Brazil’s global soft power is growing now – that solves global inequality
The Guardian, 12 (The Guardian, June 10, 2012, “Brazil: a Bric to build with,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/10/brazil-bric-build-with-editorial)//Hensel
Brazil, which hosts the Earth summit this month and a World Cup and an Olympics in the next four
years, has been enjoying something for which you would look for in vain across much of the world:
sustained leadership . First came Cardoso, the sociologist-statesman who brought the economy under
control. Next was Lula, the best reincarnation yet of Franklin Roosevelt. Emerging from his shadow as a
pragmatic reformer with edge is the current president, Dilma Rousseff.¶ Brazil rose with China, feeding it
soybeans and iron ore, and now has a larger total GDP than the UK. Lula likened himself to a street
peddler, hawking commodities everywhere; Ms Rousseff's challenge is to unlock productivity and
establish a more advanced economy. Since Brazilians are already much richer than the Chinese or
Indians, it would be hard to approach their growth rates, but there is a possibility of massive investment
in infrastructure and, most important, education. Ms Rousseff will need to transfer her popularity and
managerial skill into a command of congress to set the pace.¶ Though leading the world in inequality ,
Brazil also leads in effectively addressing it. Its justly famous social programmes, an advert for activist
government, have helped lift 20 million people out of poverty and create an internal market. Long
receiving economic lectures of mixed quality, Brasilia has no wish to start giving them, but watches with
apprehension European attempts to reduce debt in the absence of growth. All this has given Brazil the
credibility to assume its long-coveted role as a global power.
-- cuba
Brazil is challenging US influence in Cuba now—doctors
Sandy 13 – The Independent Writer (Matt, “Brazil to fill doctor shortage with Cuban imports,”
BYLINE: MATT SANDY, The Independent, LexisNexis)//HAL
Brazil has announced its intention to hire up to 6,000 Cuban doctors to make up for a shortages of
medics in the South American nation's vast countryside. The plan, which has drawn the ire of Brazilian
doctors, is the latest cooperation between the two countries, and follows Cuba sending 30,000 doctors
to Venezuela. The government intends for the doctors to work in areas where current provisions are
poor or non-existent. Most Brazilians doctors are based in large cities and are reluctant to transfer
to Brazil'sunderdeveloped north-east and Amazon regions. Brazil's Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota,
has revealed negotiations are under way with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to allow
the Cuban doctors to practice in Brazil.He told a press conference the plan would strengthen ties
between Cuba and Brazil that have expanded since the left-wing Worker's Party won the country's
presidency a decade ago. "Cuba is very proficient in the areas of medicine, pharmaceuticals and
biotechnology and Brazil is considering receiving Cubans doctors in talks that involve PAHO," he said.
The announcement follows negotiations that lasted more than year, after Brazilian president Dilma
Rousseff visited Havana for talksin 2012. But Brazilian medical associations have opposed the plan,
arguing that the standard of medical training in Cuba is not equivalent to that given to doctors in Brazil.
The Federal Medical Council said the proposals were "irresponsible" and "electioneering". The plans
echo the agreement between Cuba and the late Hugo Chavez's Venezuela to send 30,000 doctors to
serve in poor areas of that country in exchange for cheap oil. While Brazil's government is much more
centrist than Venezuela's, the move will be seen as a further attempt to extend its influence in a
continent long dominated by the US.
New Brazil-Cuban trade ties now
Ribeiro 10 – Latin American Analyist of SN Operations in Latin American Logistics (Stenio, "Lula's Visit
Could Make Feasible one dollar Billion Worth of Business Deals for Brazilian Companies in Cuba",
February 25th, 2010, BBC Monitoring International Reports, LexisNexis)//HAL
Brasilia - Executives from seven Brazilian firms are in Cuba this week for rounds of business talks with
officials of that Caribbean island, the purpose being to strengthen bilateral trade relations. The mission,
organized by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brazil), made the trip to
coincide with the official visit by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who spent today (the 24th) in the
capital, Havana. In addition to Lula's intention, which is to see that the two countries increase the flow
of trade - it totalled 330.620m dollars last year, with a favourable balance of 223.839m dollars forBrazil the Brazilian businessmen, who have been on the island since last Sunday the 21st, are expressing a
willingness to generate deals in that country of up to 1bn dollars in the form of long-term contracts. The
trade mission is the result of an initiative by the Brazil-Cuba Task Force, which was established in 2008
for the purpose of mapping out opportunities and difficulties in bilateral trade relations so as to develop
mechanisms facilitating the promotion of exports between the two countries. It should be recalled that
the flow of bilateral trade reached 571bn dollars in 2008 but dropped sharply in 2009 because of the
global financial crisis that began in September 2008. But according to Mauricio Borges, ApexBrazil's director of trade, "we are going to take advantage of President Lula's presence in Cuba to
strengthen that positive trade partnership, promote the signing of new deals, and encourage the
establishment of Brazilian firms in Cuba. All the companies accompanying us on this mission are already
at an advanced stage of talks with their Cuban counterparts," Borges explains.
Brazilian engagement with Cuba is increasing now
Xinhua News, 13 (Xinhua, May 9, 2013, “Cuba, Brazil in more diplomacy for closer economic ties,”
Global Times, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/780410.shtml#.UeMSOI2siSr)//Hensel
¶ Cuba and Brazil are engaged in more diplomatic activities this week seeking to expand economic
cooperation, with top officials exchanging visits to each other.¶ ¶ Brazil's Minister of Tourism, Gastao
Vieira, who was in Havana Wednesday to attend Cuba's annual travel trade fair, urged the two countries
to boost cooperation in tourism and said they are experiencing a defining moment in the sector.¶ ¶ Trade
Minister Fernando Pimentel was also in Havana for a brief visit.¶ ¶ On Monday, he signed with his Cuban
counterpart Rodrigo Malmierca a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at financing a project to
expand and modernize Cuba's airports.¶ ¶ Brazil plans to offer Cuba 176 million US dollars in credit to
modernize the airports in Havana, Santa Clara, Holguin, the resorts of Cayo Coco and Cayo Largo, and
key tourism destinations. The credit line is being studied by Brazil's state-run National Bank for
Economic and Social Development (BNDES).¶ ¶ According to Brazilian sources, the airports project will be
carried out by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which is also in charge of the 900 milliondollar Mariel port project, funded in part by the BNDES. The bank funnelled 680 million dollars.¶ ¶ In
Havana, Pimentel also met Cuban leader Raul Castro. Both of them praised the excellent state of the
bilateral relations and reaffirmed their mutual willingness to continue strengthening them.¶ ¶ As
Pimentel visited Havana, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez travelled to Brazil and held talks
Monday with President Dilma Rousseff and his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota.¶ ¶ Patriota and
Rodriguez studied the possibility of having some 6,000 Cuban doctors work in Brazilian areas lacking
health care through a deal involving the Pan American Health Organization.¶ ¶ Patriota said recruiting
Cuban doctors would contribute to enhancing cooperation between the two governments.¶ ¶ Rodriguez
expressed his country's interest in learning more about Brazil's experience in credit and tax policies for
small and medium companies as Cuba tries to modernize its economy and encourage private
enterprises.¶ ¶ Brazil is Cuba's sixth largest trading partner, its biggest food supplier and a major client of
Cuban biotech drugs and vaccines.¶ ¶ According to official data, bilateral trade between Cuba and Brazil
grew sevenfold between 2003 and 2012, and from 2010 to 2012 alone, Brazilian exports to the
Caribbean island rose 36.9 percent.
Brazil is expanding economic influence in Cuba in response to US Cuban policies
Glickhouse, 12 – Graduate from George Washington University, where she studied Latin American
Studies and Spanish at the Elliott School of International Affairs. She studied abroad in Buenos Aires,
Argentina and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. She spent two years living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
after graduating in 2007 (Rachel, “Rousseff Extends Brazil’s Regional Influence in Cuba and Haiti,”
February 2nd, 2012, http://www.as-coa.org/articles/rousseff-extends-brazil%E2%80%99s-regionalinfluence-cuba-and-haiti)//HAL
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff traveled to Cuba on January 30, followed by a visit to Haiti on
February 1. While some had hoped Rousseff would focus on human rights, given her past of being
imprisoned and tortured during Brazil’s military regime, the president focused on economic ties.
Analysts believe Brazil’s strategic trade and investments in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the
developing world are part of the government’s global strategy. "This is about growing Brazil's soft power
on the international scale and raising Brazil's role in the world. Brazil is taking on a bigger role in the
hemisphere in terms of aid and finance," Matthew Taylor, a Brazil specialist at the American University's
School of International Service, told The Wall Street Journal. Rousseff’s visit to Cuba and Haiti came prior
to her trip to the United States in March and occurred just after the World Economic Forum in Davos,
which she skipped this year. In Cuba, investment was the order of the day. Trade between Brazil and
Cuba increased 31 percent from 2010 to 2011, and reached $642 million last year. Brazil’s development
bank and conglomerate Odebrecht will invest in an $800 million renovation of Cuba’s Mariel port, a
strategic infrastructure project to increase trade. Odebrecht will also invest in Cuba’s sugar industry, in a
bid to increase flagging production levels. The Brazilian government will also open a $350 million credit
line to Cuba to finance food purchases, and another $200 million to purchase agricultural equipment.
On Tuesday, Rousseff signed several science and technology cooperation agreements, including a plan
to create a geological data bank in Cuba and boost the technology center at the Ministry of Metallurgy.
Rousseff also pointed to the U.S. embargo on Cuba as a source of its economic woes, and as another
motive for Brazil’s support of the Cuban economy. Human rights activists hoped that Rousseff would
speak out about human rights on the island, in light of her past, her tougher stance on human rights in
Iran, and the death of a Cuban dissident last month. But Rousseff did not meet with dissidents, nor did
she meet with blogger Yoani Sánchez, who appealed to the Brazilian president on the web to allow her
to visit Brazil to see a documentary about her life. Last week, the Brazilian government issued her a
tourist visa, but Brazilian officials said theycould not help her receive an exit permit in order to leave
Cuba. When asked about human rights issues in Cuba, Rousseff avoided criticizing the Castro regime.
“It’s not possible to use human rights as a political and ideological weapon. The world needs to be
convinced that it’s something every country has to take responsibility for, including our own,” she said.
She also made reference to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S.-run prison in eastern Cuba, as an example of
human rights violations.
Brazil Cuban influence high now—k2 reforms
Boadle, 12 – senior correspondent in Brazilian politics for Rueters (Anthony, “Brazil's Lula says Fidel
Castro lucid and healthy,” January 16th, 2012, Rueters,
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1553619220080116?i=1)//HAL
HAVANA (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro
on Tuesday and said he was "incredibly lucid" and healthy enough to resume his political role in Cuba. "I
think Fidel is ready to assume his political role in Cuba and the role he has in history," Lula said at the
end of a one-day visit. It was not clear he meant Castro would resume hands-on running of Cuba. In fact,
Lula invited Fidel Castro's brother, acting President Raul Castro, to visit Brazil. Lula met for two and a
half hours with the 81-year-old revolutionary, who has not appeared in public since undergoing stomach
surgery that forced him to hand over power temporarily to his brother Raul in July 2006. "Fidel spoke for
two hours and I for half an hour," Lula joked in remarks to reporters before heading home to Brasilia.
Two photographs of the meeting showed Castro looking much the same as in the last pictures released
of him in October. In one, Castro is shown in a track suit sitting in an armchair chatting with Lula. In the
other, a relaxed and smiling Castro posed for Lula to take a photograph. Lula, a former labor leader who
said he belonged to a generation that admired Castro's 1959 leftist revolution, offered Cuba millions of
dollars in credit and help in its search for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It was his second visit to Cuba as
president of Latin America's largest nation. Brazilian officials cast Lula's trip as an opportunity to engage
communist-run Cuba with increased trade and investment. Brasilia has the economic resources,
technology and diplomatic clout to help Cuba as it approaches a crucial moment of its history without
Fidel Castro at the helm and under pressure from the United States to open up to multiparty democracy,
a Brazilian foreign ministry official said. "We want to see Cuba back in the fold and can provide the
Cubans with a level of comfort in the transition ahead by not being confrontational like the United
States," he said. ECONOMIC TIES Lula met earlier with Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution
government house in Havana, where the two nations signed eight agreements to bolster economic ties.
Brazil's export financing agency, COFIG, announced approval of credit for food purchases and the
expansion and overhaul of the Che Guevara nickel mine. Brazil is offering Cuba up to $1 billion in credit
lines to pay for Brazilian goods and services, including $600 million for roads. Cuba secured the
commitment of Brazilian state oil company Petrobras to explore for oil in deep-sea Cuban waters of the
Gulf of Mexico, where six foreign oil firms have already contracted 24 of 59 blocks. Petrobras president
Jose Sergio Gabrielli said the Brazilian giant was acquiring and analyzing data and had yet to identify
which blocks it would sign risk contracts for. Petrobras had been reluctant to return to Cuba after
sinking $16 million in a north-coast well that proved dry in 2001. Petrobras and the Cuban state oil
company CUPET agreed to consider a joint venture to build a lubricants plant in Cuba, a project
discussed for years. The one concrete agreement to emerge from Lula's visit was the licensing of Cuban
interferon to Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation for tropical medicine research. The influential Estado de
Sao Paulo newspaper praised the credit splurge for Cuba in an editorial, saying it would clear the way for
Brazilian companies to take part in Cuba's necessary modernization and reform process.
at: soft power inev
Brazil has diplomatic capital too – winners lose and the plan lets Brazil focus on
warming, peacekeeping, and governance
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
Brazil's aspirations are fueled by its impressive social and economic gains and its diplomatic
accomplishments, as well as the ambition, vision, and personal narratives of its two recent presidents,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula). However, Brazil's attempts to
exert its influence on a wide range of pressing international issues may dilute the legitimacy of its
efforts in such areas as climate change, peacekeeping, and global governance, where Brazilian
participation has been most successful. This is not the first time Brazil has generated so much breathless
excitement. The challenge for Brazil now is to not let an exaggerated self-image eclipse its focus on
balancing the constraints faced at home with the opportunities available abroad.
brazil pursuing lead
generic
Brazil is pursuing a hegemonic strategy in face of declining U.S. influence in the region
Stalcup, 12 (Travis C., George and Barbara Bush Fellow at the George H.W. Bush School of Government
and Public Service at Texas A&M University, “What is Brazil Up to with its Nuclear Policy?,” Georgetown
Journal of International Affairs, 10/10/12, http://journal.georgetown.edu/2012/10/10/what-is-brazil-upto-with-its-nuclear-policy-by-travis-stalcup/, Tashma)
What is Brazil up to? That is the question national security planners should be asking. Since abandoning
its nuclear weapons program in the late 1990s, Brazil has appeared the model for nonproliferation.
Relations with Argentina, its longtime rival, have warmed and the two states even cooperate on nuclear
and other security issues. Compared to the Middle East, South America is stable and peaceful, hardly an
environment that would necessitate nuclear weapons. Yet, changes in Latin America and a perceived
shift in the balance of power away from the West require a reconsideration of that assessment.
Moreover, Brazil’s refusal to adopt the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Additional Protocol and its pursuit of
nuclear propulsion technology raise worrisome questions about its intentions. To Brazil, Latin America is
not as stable as often believed. To the north, Venezuela chaffs at the prospect of Brazil as regional
hegemon. In 2010, Russia and Venezuela reached a deal to build the Latin American country’s first
nuclear reactor. Although the project was scrapped after the Fukushima disaster, the prospect remains.
Venezuela has also challenged Brazilian influence in Bolivia and Ecuador, two countries that have or
have attempted to nationalize the facilities of Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil company. In 2008, the
government of Hugo Chavez levied a controversial $282 million tax on a Brazilian construction firm. Such
actions have riled Brazilian leaders. Further north, the United States, long the guarantor of South
American stability, appears hamstrung by economic challenges. According to former Argentine diplomat
Emilio Cárdenas, Brazil believes that the West is in gradual decline and that Brazil is jockeying with other
rising nations for position. This shift in the balance of power engenders a greater degree of uncertainty
about U.S. capabilities and intentions in the future. Such uncertainty, in addition to Brazil’s new political
and economic prowess, gives it the ability to challenge the U.S. at the margins of its power. Moreover, if
the ability of the U.S. to maintain order in the hemisphere is truly constrained, it is incumbent upon the
Brazilian government to seek alternative sources of security. This perceived shift in the balance of
power presents Brazil with an opportunity for international leadership. That is why Brazil is seeking to
achieve a degree of political clout commensurate with its new economic power, setting as its chief
foreign policy goal a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. A key component of
permanent membership is the ability to share the burdens of maintaining international security.
Currently, there is some question as to whether Brazil is capable of such a charge. Looking at the current
permanent members as well as the other BRICs – Russia, India, and China – Brazil sees nothing but
countries with nuclear weapons. According to Kenneth Waltz, the preeminent realist international
relations scholar, states mirror other states – states without nuclear weapons see the power and
prestige of states with nuclear weapons and they want in. Former Brazilian Vice President José Alencar
who died last year, remarked that Pakistan won international relevance “precisely because it has a
nuclear bomb.” A nuclear weapon would not only deter rogue neighbors but solidify Brazil’s regional
dominance and prove that it possesses the military capability to contribute to international security. In
addition to this perceived shift in the balance of power, consider Brazil’s more aggressive military
strategy from 2003 to 2010 during the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Part of that strategy is the
development of an enormous nuclear attack submarine analogous to India’s ballistic missile-capable
Arihant-class. In addition to its potential as a missile platform, the propulsion reactors in Brazil’s
submarines would require a higher degree of uranium enrichment than those for commercial power,
possibly above 90 percent. In 2004, Brazilian Ambassador to the United States Roberto Abdenu
remarked that “submarines are not subject to the [IAEA] safeguards regime.” This interpretation
provides Brazil the capability to enrich weapons-grade uranium and develop a full fuel cycle outside of
international scrutiny and without violating its agreements, such as the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
Furthermore, although Brazil does participate in various nonproliferation agreements, it refuses to
adopt the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This protocol would strengthen the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s ability to detect clandestine weapons programs through
various mechanisms, including a stronger inspections regime. According to Brazil’s National Strategy of
Defense, a precondition to any additional restrictions under the NPT, such as the Additional Protocol, is
the disarmament of nuclear states. However, even modest decreases in the nuclear inventories of the
United States and Russia have proven difficult to accomplish. If the U.S. and Russia are unable or
unwilling to disarm, Brazil feels no responsibility to take further steps to tie its hands by acceding to the
Additional Protocol. Taken independently, these actions are not necessarily provocative. However, when
one considers how Brazil’s security environment is changing, these actions bring Brazil’s intentions into
question. The perceived decline in the United States’ willingness and ability to intervene militarily in
Latin America, hostility of neighboring countries to Brazil’s economic interests, and the hopelessness of
nuclear disarmament provide powerful incentives to explore nuclear capability. None can claim that
Brazil is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, but its more assertive military posture, refusal to sign the
NPT’s Additional Protocol, and pursuit of nuclear propulsion technology should give American
policymakers and nonproliferation analysts pause.
brink
2nc wall
Now is key for Brazil to solidify it’s role - U.S. encroachment collapses Brazil’s influence making
impacts inevitable
The Guardian, 12 (The Guardian, June 10, 2012, “Brazil: a Bric to build with,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/10/brazil-bric-build-with-editorial)//Hensel
Particularly under Ms Rousseff and her foreign minister, Antonio Patriota, it has assumed a distinctive
mixture of restraint and independence in the exercise of that power. Brasilia has not only doubled its
diplomats in the last decade, it has redoubled its emphasis on diplomacy as the only way to "benign
multipolarity". Partly this is the luxury of a peaceful neighbourhood ( which it must still persuade of
the advantages and magnanimity of its leadership ). But it also reflects long diplomatic tradition and
experience of the nature of sovereignty and democratisation. As it accrues power and responsibility, it
will no longer be able to be everyone's friend and will feel the tension between sovereignty and human
rights more keenly, but it aspires to be a bridge between powers and will sometimes be a corrective to
western selectivity and hypocrisy.¶ Not only should Brazil have a permanent seat on the security council,
it is the best argument for security council reform and other attempts to make the international system
more representative. It's time for the west, and the rest, to embrace Brazil's rise more actively and begin
a more profound engagement.
Now is the key moment for Brazilian foreign power projection
BURGES, 13 – PhD (Warwick) in Politics and International Studies; MA (Western Ontario) in Political
Science and Lecturer in International Relations at ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (Sean, “POSTCHAVEZ TEST FOR BRAZIL LEADERSHIP,” The Australian, March 7, 2013, LexisNexis)//HAL
VENEZUELA's President Hugo Chavez has just died after a prolonged battle with cancer. While his death
raises questions about the longevity and sustainability of his Bolivarian revolution, it also stands as a
significant test of the democracy-promoting credentials of Brazil and the two important regional clubs it
runs: the South American political grouping Unasur and the trade bloc Mercosur. Venezuela's
presidential succession procedures are clear. Article 232 of the constitution mandates a new election
within 30 days if a president dies during the first four years of their term. The questions many are asking
now is if this vote will happen -- vice-president Nicolas Maduro says ``yes'' -- and how democratic it will
be, which is open to debate based on past precedent. Historically, a technically free vote on schedule
would satisfy Brazil's pro-democracy requisites. But, events in 2012 suggest Brazil may now be valuing
the spirit as much as the process of democracy. Venezuela's upcoming vote stands as a test of this new
pro-democracy policy in Braslia. On June 22, 2012, Paraguay's Liberal and Colorado parties joined forces
to impeach leftist president Fernando Lugo in a process that many in the region now call a ``couppeachment''. Strictly speaking, the process was legal, but politicised to the point of farce. Charges were
laid, a congressional trial held, and a conviction delivered in less than a day. What astonished many was
the degree of political pressure Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff applied in Mercosur and Unasur to
punish the political factions that had deposed her leftist ally, suspending Paraguay from both groupings.
Suggestions that she was simply playing ideological favourites were strengthened when Brazil refused to
take a similarly strong stance against Venezuela when Chavez failed to take his oath of office in January.
Such criticism may have been a bit unfair and missed the nuance in Brazil's approach. Brazilian
presidential foreign policy adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia offered the opinion, which became his country's
policy, that he agreed with the Venezuela Supreme Court judgment that as a re-elected president article
234 of the constitution allowed Chavez up to six months leave of absence before a new election would
be necessary. In an act of quiet bureaucratic resistance Brazilian diplomats pointedly noted that article
232 still applied and that prompt elections would be required if Chavez died within the next four years.
With new elections now required in Venezuela we have an opportunity to see if there has been a real
change in Brazil's regional foreign policy to advancing substantive democracy or if the Lula-era tradition
of selectively advocating a brand of pro-leftist democratic outcomes remains in place. The upcoming
election in Venezuela is going to be difficult and divisive. The obvious strategy for Maduro will be to
wrap himself in the mantle of Chavez's memory while Henrique Capriles will likely resume his message
of bringing Chavez's social welfare policies to a sustainable path. All of this is an expected part of
electoral politics. Where matters get tricky is the extent to which Maduro deploys executive presidential
powers to artificially boost his campaign. One standout tactic from the October 2012 election was
Chavez's proclivity for mandating lengthy broadcasts of ``government service'' programming to preempt television coverage of Capriles's campaign events. Another question is whether or not the military
and security forces will take on the role of passive spectator expected in a consolidated democracy or if
they will directly or covertly interfere with the campaign. Indeed, the temptation for political
intervention by some sectors in the military will be immense if reports about their links to
narcotrafficking and organised crime are correct. Brazil has the back-room influence to prevent these
sorts of violations of the democratic spirit of an election. Dilma, as well as key advisers such as Garcia,
have enormous influencewith the Chavez faithful. Moreover, Rousseff's 2010 presidential campaign
advisers are likely to again play an important role in the pro-Chavez electoral push, fulfilling much the
same role as Clinton campaign hothouse Carville and Associates did around the world in the 2000s. A
behind the scenes steadying hand on Maduro-camp temptations to unduly exploit their position of
power will be essential to the country's future political stability. Venezuelans will know if the election is
rigged, which would erode the credibility of a possible Maduro victory and further polarise the country.
But if he were to win in a truly clean race it could create the conditions needed for a national political
reconciliation. The same holds true for a possible opposition win. Even if uncomfortable for diplomats,
helping to make this happen is exactly the sort of responsibility that goes with the regional leadership
role Brazil has been claiming in South America. Post-Chavez Venezuela may prove to be Brazil's first real
test. Brics aiming for no less than a new world order. THE fifth Brics summit in Durban might well
represent the emergence of an interesting new power bloc. Brics's objective is to reshape the
international economic order by challenging the historic dominance of the US, Germany, the UK and
France, with a bloc composed largely of countries of the global south, comprising two international and
three regional powers. In previous centuries, Russia's striving to become a world power was stifled by
the backwardness of its political institutions. It required the social and political revolutions of 1917,
followed by the industrial revolution Stalin brutally imposed on it, for Russia to survive the Second
World War, making possible its emergence as a world power. Russia's old ruling classes proved
incapable of realising Peter the Great's dream. After the Decembrist Uprising of 1825, modernist
intellectuals dashed their heads against the iron-clad defences of the ancien regime in their attempts to
overthrow Tsarism. It was the intellectuals who adopted the most revolutionary ideas of their age, the
Bolsheviks, who proved equal to the task, raising Russia from a European backwater to the international
power it became after 1945. The Bolsheviks defeated counterrevolution, supported by Britain, France,
the US and Japan, because they offered the oppressed nationalities of the Tsarist empire autonomy,
self-government and equality. Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili, who assumed the pseudonym Stalin,
was the son of one such minority, the Georgians. China is the dominant economic player in Brics - made
possible by the radical transformation of a declining Asiatic despotism by revolutionary means. After a
century of political and social upheavals from 1850 to 1950, the communists reasserted China's national
sovereignty, reunited the country and created stability by offering leadership to a peasant revolt that
brought much-needed economic and social change. The communists were the agents of modernisation
in Russia and China. Ruthless programmes of social engineering, driven by the intelligentsia, recast them
into modern industrial powers. India, the world's second-most populous country and its largest
parliamentary democracy, is a rich tapestry of languages and religions that has been moulded into one
nation under the leadership of nationalist intellectuals. India has wrestled with modernity in an
environment riddled with the uncertainties of democratic government since independence in 1947.
Continuing tensions could not deter India from transforming itself into a leading centre for the design,
manufacture and servicing of digital software. Like India, SA is composed of a diversity of racial, cultural
and religious communities that will become a united nation thanks to an African nationalist
intelligentsia. The newest member of the Brics bloc, SA, with its relatively small economy and
population, is visibly punching above its weight by associating with the four others. For close to a
century, backward political institutions frustrated its potential. SA's economic development was
distorted by white racism - its industrial economy managed to address the needs of less than 20% of its
small population. Yet SA's economic muscle on the continent comes with a number of obligations. Peace
and stability in our region are essential for the realisation of SA's continental ambitions. On the world
stage, order and security in the oceans on which the country's international trade relies have required
SA to re-equip and modernise its navy. On a continent where its relative prosperity attracts thousands of
legal and illegal migrants, SA necessarily is a status quo power.
--generic
Brazilian soft power is high but could collapse at any time
Leahy, 13 – Brazil bureau chief, Financial Times (Joe, February 22, 2013, “Brazil: the first big 'soft'
power,” Financial Times, ProQuest)//Hensel
The Brazil of Niemeyer's last 10 years was one in which the lower middle class rose to account for more
than half of the population - a fabulous turnround for what for five centuries has been one of the
world's most unequal societies. It is a Brazil that has had stable government for nearly two decades,
from the sociologist-turned-centre-right-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, to the former firebrand
unionist, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, who took office in 2003, and his successor in the ruling Workers Party
(PT), Dilma Rousseff, a Marxist guerrilla-turned-technocrat.¶ It is a Brazil whose global standing has
rarely been higher . Its agriculture feeds the planet. It has good relations with virtually every country in
the world, from the US to North Korea. It has curbed, though not yet halted completely, the destruction
of the Amazon. And it is preparing to host the World Cup next year and the Olympics two years later - a
feat few countries have ever attempted.¶ If the games are successful - which they probably will be,
despite Brazil's reputation for having a very relaxed attitude to planning - they will help seal the
country's image globally as one of the world's emerging powers. Not a military power, bristling with
missiles and troubled by messy border disputes like China or India, but the first big "soft" power, a kind
of Canada writ large but with Carnival thrown in.¶ It is a Brazil, however, whose project is only halffinished and one in which self-congratulation would be premature. As Niemeyer well knew, nothing is
preordained, especially in Brazil. He came to prominence during an earlier period of prosperity in the
1950s and 1960s, when he created such ethereal masterpieces for the then new capital, Braslia, as the
Supreme Court building, whose open chamber and tall windows evoked the spirit of transparency and
progress of the times. A few years later, he was living in exile as Brazil entered 20 years of military
dictatorship followed by nearly two decades of economic crises.¶ Almost no one believes Brazil will
return to those dark years. The challenge today is more about how to continue growing fast enough to
sustain the miracle of upward social mobility. The economic model based on consumption that made it
so successful during the past decade now looks tired. Consumers are still shopping but Brazil's high costs
mean companies are not investing. Economic growth is slowing to a crawl but no one seems willing to
take up the baton of serious reform.¶ The government has tinkered with the economy's levers manipulating the currency and interest rates, protecting local car producers, lowering electricity tariffs,
tendering infrastructure projects. But reforms will have to go deeper than that. Brazil taxes like Sweden
but delivers a fraction of the public services. It is clearing its vast interior for agriculture but has few
railroads to ship goods to port.¶ Its children all attend school but not enough of them learn anything
there. It is improving governance, yet a politician wanted by Interpol for squirrelling away public money
offshore can still sit in Congress.¶ . . .¶ As it happened, Niemeyer died only a couple of months after
another communist and lover of Brazil, Eric Hobsbawm, the great British historian, who died aged 95.
Hobsbawm once wrote, "Nobody who discovers South America can resist the region, least of all if one's
first contact is with Brazil," and said the rise of Lula's PT "must warm the cockles of all old red hearts".¶
However, both knew that Brazil was not a socialist utopia. It owes its success as much to the marketoriented policies introduced by Cardoso, who tamed Brazil's old scourge of inflation, as to the social
welfare programmes launched by Lula's Workers' Party. Both presidents introduced tough reforms
forged in times of crisis, though success arguably made Lula lazy in his later years.¶ Now that difficult
times are on the horizon again, Brazil hopefully will rise to meet the challenge. For a country so rich and
energetic, a bit of common sense should be enough to keep the project on track. The harder thing will
be to fill the void left by Niemeyer.
-- prez transition
Brazilian soft power is on the brink and the link threshold is extremely low – any risk the plan reveals
a weakness destroys all of Brazil’s soft power
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
While Brazil’s soft power still remains relatively strong, under Rousseff’s leadership it has neither
developed nor diminished , revealing that maybe the soft power of Brazil wasn’t so much about the
country, but more about Lula. This brings to mind the image of Fidel’s Cuba compared to today’s less
attractive and powerful Cuba under Raul. In this context, Dilma will have to balance Brazil’s regional and
global ambitions with the country’s current limitations - such as its ranking as the 17th most unequal
country in the world. To build upon Lula’s immense soft power legacy, Brazil will have to pursue more
substantial public diplomacy endeavors that incorporate its strengths without highlighting its
weaknesses.
u.s. influence low
2nc wall
American influence in Latin America has diminished as a cost of Brazil’s influence – we have the only
comparative ev on the debate
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
¶ BEYOND SAMBA, SUN, AND SOCCER¶ The United States is no longer the only go-to power for resolving
crises, providing security, or setting the development agenda for Latin America. Most Americans still
cling to the visceral but incorrect notion that Brazil should behave primarily as a Latin American country.
Washington needs to understand that Brazilians think of themselves less as Latin Americans and more as
Brazilians: a hodgepodge of African, European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and indigenous cultures. Brazil's
strategic thinkers recognize that the nature and quality of its relations with its neighbors will define
Brazil in the twenty-first century as much, if not more, than the bilateral relationship with the United
States.¶ Brazil brings plenty of historical baggage to its relationship with the United States. Many
Brazilians who came of age during the political struggles to unseat the generals running the country in
the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s saw the United States as an obstacle to Brazilian democracy and now lead
Brazil's most important political parties, social movements, state institutions, and businesses. Even
Brazilians with deep ties to the United States share an underlying belief that Brazil has little to gain from
an old-fashioned alliance with Washington.¶ Despite their very real ideological differences on foreign
policy, both Cardoso and Lula kept Brazil's distance from the U.S. agenda in Latin America. Through the
1990s, when Latin America generally followed Washington's free-trade, democracy, and
counternarcotics agenda, Cardoso's government refused to participate in the Clinton administration's
Plan Colombia, resisted the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal, and opposed the U.S. embargo
against Cuba and the 2002 attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which was initially
applauded by the White House.¶ Like Cardoso, Lula sought to distance Brazil from the United States on
regional issues while also putting a Brazilian stamp on a number of regional institutions, including
Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the South American Defense Council, and, most
recently, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. But with drugs and violence becoming
a Brazilian problem, too, Lula's government provided intelligence and other material support to the
government of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia. Still, Brazil denounced the renewal and expansion of the U.S.
presence at military bases in Colombia, opposed the coup in Honduras and the U.S. decision not to back
the ousted president's return to power, and pushed Washington to lift the embargo against Cuba.¶
Regardless of whether the next government aligns with or distances itself from U.S. policy in the region,
the permanent expansion of Brazil's own interests in Latin America is now paramount. Well beyond its
historic and commercial ties with Argentina or its political and economic hegemony in Paraguay, its
commercial and financial participation in the economies of its neighbors has taken off. Between 2000
and 2009, Brazilian trade with Mercosur countries rose 86 percent, its trade with the Andean
Community grew by 253 percent, and its trade with Mexico increased by 121 percent. Often with
preferential financing from the Brazilian Development Bank, Brazil's global companies have become
major actors in infrastructure projects throughout the region-including investments in Colombia's
mining and oil sectors; oil refinery modernization and highway construction in Peru; and transit,
construction, oil extraction, and soybean planting in Venezuela. Unlike Chavez, who distributes his
country's petro-largess for explicitly political and ideological purposes, Brazil has translated its
investments and economic prowess in Latin America into influence on the global stage.¶ The informality
of the economies along Brazil's borders makes them a breeding ground for organized criminal gangs
and for trafficking in people, guns, drugs , and other contraband. Conscious of the vast asymmetries in
the neighborhood, Brazil has recently begun to build an elaborate network of military bases along the
country's extremely porous 9,000-mile border.¶ In Latin America, the competition for diplomatic
leverage and political influence is just getting started. Indeed, Lula and Rousseff s foreign policy
architects argue that Brazil's interests in Latin America necessarily propel the country into low intensity
competition with the United States. After decades of taking its cues about how to think about the region
primarily from U.S. -oriented elites, the United States is playing catch-up to acquaint itself with a
substantially changed region. Latin American governments are now accountable first and foremost to a
newly empowered electorate-including the poor, the working class, the new middle class, indigenous
groups, and social movements-and not to Washington. Proximity and interests have likewise compelled
the new Brazil to learn to live with this changed political environment.
U.S. hegemony in Latin America is unsustainable and doomed – litany of factors
Paterson, 9 (Commander Pat, U.S. Navy, “Our Waning Influence to the South,” Proceedings Magazine,
May 2009, Volume 135, Issue 5, http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2009-05/our-waninginfluence-south, Tashma)
Decades of foreign-policy hypocrisy and economic double standards have resulted in a pervasive
resistance to and suspicion of U.S. involvement in Latin America. The animosity manifests itself in ways
that are direct threats to our national security: U.S. diplomats have been expelled, narcotics trafficking
has reached record heights, and our military is being ousted from strategically important bases in the
region. The United States is losing access and influence in Latin American and Caribbean nations like
never before. Unless we act quickly, we may be unable to regain our standing in this vital area. Since
1800, Latin America has endured almost 100 U.S. military or intelligence interventions. Concerned about
communist expansion during the 1970s and 1980s, the United States supported a number of autocrats
and military juntas fighting against insurgents. These internal conflicts led to prevailing governments'
brutal suppression of leftist groups and civilians caught in the middle, often at the cost of civil liberties
and human rights. The "dirty wars" revealed a hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy: publicly we promoted
democracy and individual freedoms while privately providing support for abusive dictators. The United
States moved from passive to active intervention with the CIA-engineered coups of democratically
elected governments in Guatemala in 1954 and Chile in 1973, causes célèbres for those who today
oppose U.S. involvement in the region. In the 1980s in Central America, U.S.-supported right-wing
governments resulted in nearly 400,000 deaths. In Guatemala, a 36-year civil war left nearly 200,000
killed, most poor indigenous farmers, making it one of Latin America's most violent wars in modern
history. In 1982, an Amnesty International report estimated that over 10,000 indigenous Guatemalans
and farmers were killed in a four-month period, most by government death squads. The Nicaraguan civil
war (1950-79) left 50,000 dead, 600,000 homeless, and $1.6 billion in debt. The Sandinista Revolution
that followed (1979 - 90) left another 50,000 dead. In the El Salvadoran civil war between 1979 and
1989, the combined death toll for civilians and combatants was 75,000. While no U.S. military
interventions have occurred since Grenada in 1983 ("Urgent Fury") and Panama in 1989 ("Just Cause"),
deep-seated suspicions of the United States hinder modern-day goodwill efforts. Fortunately, the dark
years of mass violence and dictatorial military rule in Latin America appear to be over. Since the 1990s, a
wave of democratization has brought liberal and enlightened ideas to the area, forcing hard-line military
governments and conservative forces to cede power. All Latin American countries today have
democratic processes, with the exception of Cuba. In recent years, progressive and populist policies
have taken root in the region. This is as much a backlash to the conservative military governments as it is
a public cry for assistance against poverty, which averages 40 percent in Latin America. Leftist
governments now head 12 of the 16 South and Central American nations (or 75 percent), a complete
shift from just 20 years ago. At that time, 75 percent were led by right-wing governments. Since 2000,
populist-leftist leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of
Bolivia, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador have been elected to office. They rose to power, in part, on a wave
of anti-Americanism. Angered by decades of U.S. economic hegemony and military unilateralism, most
Latin Americans hold strongly negative views of U.S. policies. In Zogby International's 2006 poll, 86
percent of Latin American elites rated U.S. relations in the area as negative, with only 13 percent as
positive. 1 One witness testifying before Congress quantified the problems as, "We've never seen
numbers this low." 2 As a result, our strategic interests there are in jeopardy. This overarching antiAmerican sentiment presents a danger to our national security interests. In Bolivia, President Morales
ordered U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg to leave the country in September 2008. Venezuela's
President Chavez followed suit by ejecting Ambassador Peter Duddy later the same day. This marks a
first in U.S. history; never before have two ambassadors been expelled from their assignments
simultaneously. It also demonstrates how the leadership of these countries works closely together, in
this case against our interests. Some of the most important U.S. initiatives in Latin America have been
recently blocked or replaced. Venezuela and Brazil have convinced some countries to establish a
collective security agreement (called the Union of South American Countries, or UNASUR) that would
exclude the United States. The U.S.-led Free Trade of the Americas initiative, an attempt to establish a
hemisphere-wide economic-cooperation zone, has been stalled by resistance from Venezuela and
others. Ecuador has refused to renew our lease on the airbase at Manta, forcing the shutdown of a
strategically vital forward operating location. Venezuela, one of the wealthiest countries on the
continent because of its vast oil reserves, is emerging as a powerful and alarming regional leader at the
hands of Hugo Chavez, a loud, charismatic leader who has rewritten the constitution to allow himself to
stay in power. We must rapidly answer Chavez and his petroleum-fueled anti-U.S. rhetoric. Venezuela is
the fifth-largest oil exporter in the world and has the ninth-largest oil reserves. With these rich coffers,
Chavez has been providing five times more financial assistance to Latin America than has the United
States—and has been gaining influence and power. Chavez has been vehemently critical, referring to
former President George W. Bush as the "Devil" and asserting that "the hegemonic pretension of U.S.
imperialism . . . puts at risk the very survival of the human species." 3 In 2007, John Negroponte, thendirector of National Intelligence, said that President Chavez was "among the most stridently antiAmerican leaders anywhere in the world, and will continue to try to undercut U.S. influence in
Venezuela, in the rest of Latin America, and elsewhere internationally." 4 Evidence indicates that Chavez
is in cahoots with drug traffickers and terrorists. On 14 May 2007, the State Department determined
that Venezuela was a major trafficker of narcotics to the United States and was friendly with quasiterrorist organizations like the Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas de la Republica de
Colombia, or FARC). The 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report stated: Rampant
corruption and a weak judicial system are the main reasons for the prominent role Venezuela is now
playing as a key transit point for drugs leaving Colombia for the United States. Colombian guerrillas such
as the FARC, National Liberation Army [Ejercitos de Liberacion Nacional, ELN], and the Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia [Auto Defensas de Colombia] move freely through Venezuela, unchallenged by the
authorities. 5 Venezuela also presents a threat to other regional countries that oppose Chavez or
support us. During the past four years, he has been on a $4 billion shopping spree for weapons in Russia,
Spain, and elsewhere. Using its oil wealth to modernize and expand its military, Venezuela has been
trying to buy state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, and submarines. Strong U.S. allies like
Colombia are rightfully worried. The Colombian government watched as Chavez first aligned himself
with the FARC (a group trying to topple the Colombian government) and then mobilized Venezuelan
troops on the Colombian border following a March 2008 dispute with Ecuador. The growing resentment
of the United States is reflected in new challenges for the war on drugs. A congressional report in
October 2008 revealed that despite a $6 billion effort designed to reduce Latin American cocaine
cultivation and distribution by 50 percent over the past six years, we have not stemmed the influx of
drugs. Despite U.S.-led military successes against leftist insurgents in Colombia that have decimated the
top FARC leadership and reduced the number of guerillas by 50 percent, coca cultivation has
skyrocketed by 27 percent. Drug czar John Walsh of the Office of National Drug Control Policy said that
the trafficking has increased by as much as 40 percent. No longer receptive to Washington's requests for
cooperation, countries that are the most opposed to our policies are also the source of many of the
narcotics. Air trafficking of cocaine from Venezuela has increased 400 percent in the past three years. In
September 2008, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against two of the heads of Venezuelan
intelligence agencies for their role in trafficking. Upon entering office in Bolivia in 2006, former coca
grower President Evo Morales nearly doubled the amount of authorized land available for its cultivation.
According to UN figures, Bolivia coca cultivation has risen 5 percent since 2000. In November 2008,
Morales expelled U.S. drug-enforcement agents working in the country. In Ecuador, the forced closure
of the U.S. airbase denies us an important airfield from which to patrol the eastern Pacific Ocean, a
transit zone for nearly 70 percent of the cocaine that reaches the United States. Coast Guard Rear
Admiral Joseph Nimmich, head of the interagency counterdrug headquarters in Key West, Florida,
acknowledged the scope of the challenge his group faces. "We're lucky we get 5 percent," he said,
referring to the amount of drugs intercepted. 6 This growing problem has always represented a national
security threat, but never more so than now. Colombian traffickers have used their profits to create a
new and dangerous vessel. In the past, drugs were transported on fishing vessels and speedboats, both
susceptible to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard search-and-seizure efforts. But now smugglers have begun to
use small self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSS). In 2008 alone, an estimated 60 - 80 of these craft
sailed from Colombia toward Central American and Mexican destinations. Each SPSS carried an average
of 3 - 5 tons of cocaine; some had a capacity of 8 - 10 tons of cargo. In a time of proliferating weapons of
mass destruction, the idea of 80 to 100 enemy vessels steaming undetected toward the California or
Florida coastline represents a major national security threat. The threat comes from land as well as sea.
The flow of cocaine surging northward from South American regimes has pulled Mexico into an
increasingly dangerous war. The drug-related murder rate there resulted in nearly 5,400 deaths in 2008,
more than double the 2007 rate of 2,500. Many U.S. government officials worry that the conflict has
taken a turn toward so-called Colombianization. In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, cartels
responded to a federal crackdown with a violent and unlimited war against the government and military
officials. Both the head of the federal police and the national drug czar were recent victims of these
cartels. An estimated 90 percent of the coke entering the United States travels through Mexico. 7 The
conflict threatens to spill over our southern border. More than 60 Americans have been kidnapped or
murdered so far. In 2005, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza closed the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo due to
threats against personnel in that border city. In October 2008, men with rifles and grenades attacked
the U.S. consulate in Monterrey. The problems in Mexico threaten the very existence of that country,
and some strategists have warned that it could become a failed state. This would be a very worrisome
development in a country that shares a 1,700-mile border with us and is our second-biggest trade
partner. A December 2008 U.S. Joint Forces Command report on worldwide securty threats predicted
that Mexico could experience a "rapid and sudden collapse." 8 But we do not have the resources to
prevent this from occurring. The Merida Initiative, a $400 million package provided in 2008 to Mexico to
combat trafficking, is only a fraction of the estimated $23 billion that Mexican cartels earn for the drugs
flowing across our border. Additionally, in 2007 the Pentagon reduced funding for anti-drug efforts in
Mexico by more than 60 percent, to free up $8 - 10 billion needed monthly for the war in Iraq. President
Barack Obama's election offers an opportunity to extend an olive branch to our southern neighbors. His
election was well received in Latin America; a worldwide BBC poll showed a preference for Obama to
McCain in every single country surveyed, by a four-to-one overall margin. Evo Morales seemed to share
these hopes when he said: "The entire world is hoping there will be changes. We Bolivians want to
improve diplomatic relations." 9 Brazilian leader President Luiz Lula da Silva echoed the same cautiously
optimistic sentiment. The timing is right. According to an influential new report on emerging global
multilateralism, U.S. influence is expected to wane as China and Russia come online, and globalization
further distributes economic opportunities for developing nations in Latin America. A new U.S. foreign
policy focused on the Western Hemisphere makes sense, considering our ties here economically and
demographically. By 2050, more than 30 percent of our population will be Latino, making it the
country's largest minority. That represents a tripling of the current Hispanic population here. Already we
are the second most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico.
generic
US influence in Latin America is declining now
Crandall 11 – Associate Professor of International Politics at Davidson College and the author of The
United States and Latin America After the Cold War. He was Principal Director for the Western
Hemisphere at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2009 and Director for Andean Affairs at the National
Security Council in 2010-11 (Russell, “Post-American Hemisphere: Power and Politics in an Autonomous
Latin America,” Foreign Affairs. 90.3 (May-June 2011): p83,
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora90&div=49&g_sent=1)//HAL
On August 18, 2010, a Venezuelan drug trafficker named Walid Makled was arrested in Colombia. U.S.
officials accused him of shipping ten tons of cocaine a month to the United States, and they made a
formal extradition request to try him in New York. Although the Venezuelan government had also made
an extradition request for crimes Makled allegedly committed in Venezuela, senior U.S. diplomats were
confident that the Colombian government would add him to the list of hundreds of suspects it had
already turned over to U.S. judicial authorities in recent years. So it came as a surprise when Colombian
President Juan Manuel Santos announced in November that he had promised Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez that Makled would be extradited to Venezuela, not the United States. Colombia,
Washington's closest ally in South America, appeared to be unveiling a new strategic calculus, one that
gave less weight to its relationship with Washington. What made the decision all the more unexpected
is that the U.S. government still provides Colombia with upward of $500 million annually in
development and security assistance, making Colombia one of the world's top recipients of U.S. aid. For
the United States in Latin America today, apparently, $500 million just does not buy what it used to.
Across the region in recent years, the United States has seen its influence decline. Latin American
countries are increasingly looking for solutions among themselves, forming their own regional
organizations that exclude the United States and seeking friends and opportunities outside of
Washington's orbit. Some U.S. allies are even reconsidering their belief in the primacy of relations with
the United States. Much of this has to do with the end of the Cold War, a conflict that turned Latin
America into a battleground between U.S. and Soviet proxies. Washington has also made a series of
mistakes in the years since then, arrogantly issuing ultimatums that made it even harder to get what it
wanted in Latin America. At the same time as U.S. influence has diminished, Latin America's own
capabilities have grown. The region has entered into an era of unprecedented economic, political, and
diplomatic success. Most visibly, Brazil has emerged as an economic powerhouse, attracting foreign
investment with an economy that grew 7.5 percent last year. (Regionwide, average GDP growth last
year was 5.6 percent.) Regular free elections and vibrant civil societies are now commonplace in Latin
America, and the region's diplomats are more visible and confident in global forums than ever before.
After decades on the receiving end of lectures from Washington and Brussels, Latin American leaders
are eager to advertise their recent gains. Santos has been known to tell visiting foreign counterparts
that this will be "Latin America's century." Although star performers such as Brazil and Chile have
recently surged ahead, Latin America has yet to realize its full collective diplomatic and political
capacity. The problems that have plagued the region in the past--income inequality, a lack of law and
order, illicit trafficking networks--still exist, threatening to derail its hard-earned successes. Guatemala,
to take just one example, not only ranks among the world's poorest countries; it also has one of the
highest homicide rates in the world, with 6,000 people murdered each year in a population of only 13
million. Ironically, moreover, Latin America's entry into a "post-hegemonic" era, a product of its own
advancements, could undermine its past progress. As the balance of power in the region is
redistributed, unexpected alliances and enmities could arise. Many observers have assumed that less
U.S. involvement would be an inherently positive development, but that may be too optimistic. No one
should underestimate the capacity of the Venezuela-led bloc of quasiauthoritarian leftist governments
to stop the regional trend toward greater openness and democracy--values that the bloc sees as
representing a capitulation to the U.S.-controlled global system. Nonetheless, Latin America's emerging
democratic consensus seems inevitable, and as its strategic posture finally matures, the region will be
more directly responsible for its own successes and failures. Long Latin America's master, the United
States must adapt to the new realities of this post-hegemonic era, lest it see its influence diminish even
further. It must demonstrate an ability to quietly engage and lead when appropriate--an approach that
will allow Washington to remain actively involved in the region's affairs without acting as though it is
trying to maintain its legacy of hegemony. Given how accustomed the United States is to dominating
the region, this project will be harder than it sounds. FROM HEGEMONY TO AUTONOMY The era of U.S.
hegemony in Latin America began over a century ago, when the United States started flexing its
emerging economic and military might in Central America and the Caribbean. In the jungles and
mountains of Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, American soldiers and diplomats used
persuasion, coercion, and force to advance U.S. political and economic interests. During the Cold War,
Washington sought to stem the threat of Soviet and Cuban communism, acting directly, for example,
when it invaded Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, and indirectly, as when it provided covert
funding to undermine Chilean President Salvador Allende's leftist government in the 1970s. Sometimes
these efforts worked, as in Chile and Grenada, but often they did not; both the Bay of Pigs operation in
1961 and U.S. efforts to overthrow by proxy the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in the 1980s were
outright failures.
US influence in Latin America is declining now and it fails—no respect
Llana, 12 – Monitor's European Bureau Chief based in Paris, masters in journalism from Columbia
University and a BA in history from the University of Michigan (Sara Miller, “50 years after Cuba Missile
Crisis, US influence in hemisphere waning; Investment from emerging economies like China and Russia
are diminishing Latin America's reliance on the United States, making it more difficult for Washington to
isolate regimes like Cuba,” The Christian Science Monitor, October 14, 2012, LexisNexis)//HAL
It was what many consider the most dangerous moment the world has ever faced: the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962, which saw the United States square off over nuclear missiles stationed by the Soviet
Union in Cuba. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the tense standoff. And while
the politics of the Cold War have little relevance for US-Latin American relations today, in some ways the
US finds itself in the very position that set the stage for conflict in the first place, says Philip Brenner, a
historian of the missile crisis at American University. With US influence waning in the region, Latin
America is forging ahead with its own agenda. It was not only the containment of communism that
drove US attempts to oust Fidel Castro from the helm of Cuba in the early 1960s says Mr. Brenner. The
US was also concerned about Latin American countries emulating Cuba, particularly its geopolitical
stance in the Cold War, and thus undermining American leadership in the western hemisphere. Some 50
years later, the US faces the same situation, just a more modern iteration. "What the US feared the
most in 1962 has come to pass," says Brenner, who authored "Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle
with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis." "We were concerned about our sphere of influence that
we had taken for granted.... [Today] we cannot dominate this region anymore. They do not look to us
for leadership. Countries look within the region, and to some extent to Cuba still." After the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, the US turned its attention from Latin America as it focused on terrorism and threats
from the Middle East. At the same time, over the past decade Latin American democracy has flourished
and the global economy shifted, with Latin America no longer looking just north to the US for leadership
and investment, but to India, China, and Russia. China surpassed the US as Brazil's biggest trading
partner in 2009. Investment from outside Most of these relationships are economic in nature among
emerging economies. If Russia, for example, once eyed Cuba to buoy its political project close to the
American border, today it is inking energy deals and selling arms in Latin America because it finds willing
partners and purchasers there. "Russia is going to sell all kinds of arms to Venezuela, not because
[Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez is saying he is socialist. It's because he has money to pay for it,"
says Alex Sanchez, a senior research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. The flurry of
investment in countries ranging from Venezuela to Bolivia helps to further undermine US global
dominance in the region, a scenario that many leaders welcome today. Chief among them is Mr. Chavez,
who just won another six-year term in office, and his allies including President Evo Morales in Bolivia
and President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Indeed, the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis will likely
provide an opportunity for the "extreme left" in Latin America to express support for Cuba, says Johns
Hopkins Latin American expert Riordan Roett. "They will be in solidarity about the survival of the Castro
brothers," Mr. Roett says. 'A lynchpin' in the region That kind of defiance - showing respect for a nation
that for so long the US has considered a thorn in its side - would have been unthinkable 50 years ago.
Before the Cuban Missile Crisis, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the US pressured Latin American
countries to suspend Cuba's membership from the Organization of American States (OAS). At the same
time, Cuba signed onto the non-aligned movement, and Brenner says it was that move that the US
feared other countries in Latin America might follow. At the time, US thinking on the movement was,
'you are with us or you are against us.' The politics surrounding Cuba at the OAS highlights the
declining influence of the US on the region. Fifty years ago the US advocated for Cuba's suspension, and
was successful; but during the group's summit in April, leaders across political spectrums said they
would question attending another summit without Cuba at the table. "This comes from [Colombian
President Juan Manuel] Santos, our most loyal ally in the region," says Brenner. "Cuba was once the
pariah state; it is now a lynchpin for all the other countries."
-- regional influence
All former need for US leadership is gone—new institutions have grown to stabilize
Latin America without the United States
Puntigliano, 7 - Assistant Professor in Economic history and Lecturer in Latin American Studies at
Stockholm University (Andres Rivarola, “Global shift: the U.N. system and the new regionalism in Latin
America,” Article from: Latin American Politics and Society | March 22, 2007,
http://business.highbeam.com/425060/article-1G1-160801168/global-shift-un-system-and-newregionalism-latin-america)//HAL
This is a mainly theoretical article that intends to rethink the role of Latin America in the light of global
systemic changes; and, as Delich (2004) holds, to rethink is to discover. The point of departure is that
with the end of the Cold War, a new economic order and security bal- ance is taking form in the new
institutional environment generally called globalization. An important implication of this change is that
with the end of bipolarity and the erosion of superpower hegemony, new spheres of authority (SOAs)
have emerged on the world scene (Rosenau 1997). One increasingly relevant sphere of authority is the
U.N. system, which has gained prominence as a source of normative and moral authority. This article
explores the links between the U.N. system as a global sphere of authority and emerging regional
constellations from the periphery in Latin America. Some overall inquiries examine the extent to which
nation-states are using regional formations as vehicles of development and security strategies. The
article further analyzes whether a stronger link between periphery groupings and the U.N. system might
improve the groups' bargaining power, and what this could mean for how peripheral states formulate
their long-term foreign and development strategies. For such analysis, two important elements are the
waning significance of the dichotomy between domestic and foreign markets, and the new forms of
diplomatic articulations and regional expressions (e.g., values, norms, or organizations), which function
as a kind of local (political, cultural, and economic) answer to the globalization process. The word new,
however, should not lead to a neglect of the past. Probably as a reac- tion to the homogenizing force of
globalization, regionalism presents an important alternative that includes the awareness of the local
identities and former experiences that are remixed into the new system. History does indeed matter,
and we must keep in mind that social processes contain lines of continuity and change. A basic
hypothesis in this article is that the U.N. system is becom- ing a new core as a sphere of authority,
causing an erosion of the hegemony of industrialized countries from North America and Europe (the
traditional core) that have held dominant economic and normative con- trol over the system. The U.N.
system still is a rather loose network of organizations, each with its own governing bodies, budgets, and
secre- tariats, without supranational structures in the areas of security and for- eign policy.' Each
component of the system has a different kind of inter- national leverage and is subjected to different
forms of national control. The U.N. system agencies, furthermore, often hold different positions on
major issues, such as economic and social matters. Yet there appears to be a tendency for greater
supranational interaction among them, together with a homogenization of norms that conveys a kind of
moral identity on the system. Some of these norms relate to human rights, the fight against poverty,
respect for international law, fair trade rules, and the environment. The tendency for interaction does
not imply an absence of conflict in the system, nor does it suggest that all agencies interpret the norms
in the same way. But it does imply that the norms are increasingly interwoven, making it necessary for
actors, such as states or national and international nongovernmental organizations, to dichotomies in
the international system. That conception is still true, but it should be analyzed in light of the systemic
shifts produced by post-Cold War institutional changes. This essay presents a more detailed analysis of
regionalization and the U.N. system and the theoretical implications of this relationship for the study of
international relations. The discussion also outlines elements inherent to the globalization process that
contribute to a closer discussion of the Latin American case. These include the waning dichotomy
between domestic and foreign markets; the diplomatic artic- ulations, trade partnerships, and
legitimating values at work in the rela- tionship; the contradictions between the regional and
international orders; and the awareness of local identities and former experiences that are remixed
into the new system. A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW A major assumption of mainstream studies in
international relations since the end of World War II has been a state-centric point of view in which
nation-state interests were the key units of analysis. Another piv- otal assumption was bipolarity, with
superpowers setting the agenda of alliances and conflicts along which states delineated their strategies.
Since the post-1989 transformations, however, both pillars have been severely challenged. In relation
to the former, pundits maintain that state-centric literature is an uncertain foundation for theorizing
about how domestic and international politics interact (Putnam 1993). The issue is thus not whether to
combine domestic and international expla- nations, but how best to do so (Evans et al. 1993, 9).
Rosenau goes even further, arguing that this perspective is imprisoned by the idea that the line
between domestic and foreign affairs still serves as the cutting edge of analysis. His approach lies in a
world view that recasts the relevance of "territoriality," highlighting instead the "porosity of
boundaries" (1997, 64). This means that instead of a state-centric predominance, there are complex
multicentric structures, processes, and rules, which he calls spheres of authority (SOAs). There is a
growing interest in research on new spheres of author- ity; for example, through concepts such as
world culture (Boli and Thomas 1999), global governance (Held et al. 1999), and empire (Hardt and
Negri 2001). Common among these approaches is that they go beyond nation-states to include
international governmental, nongovern- mental, or regional organizations as central actors in the
formation of spheres of authority (see also Amin 2000). More and more studies point to the
strengthening of non-state-centered sources of rulemaking. These include transnationally organized
sources of power and legitimacy, including states, and international governmental and
nongovernmental elaborate strategies that take into account the different (and sometimes
antagonistic) components of the system. Along this same line, a second hypothesis in this study is that
regional constellations are becoming a new means of expression for nation-states, which are starting to
amalgamate security and develop- ment strategies and take advantage of the room to maneuver
opened through the U.N. system. The European Union (EU) is a pioneer in this sense, in acting with one
voice in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Whereas the EU has received much attention, however,
regionalism in the periphery has drawn little, probably because these regional group- ings have still not
reached the EU's level of institutionalization and influ- ence. Yet there are indications of change in both
senses. Moreover, an interesting dimension of periphery regionalism and its link to the U.N. system is
that it appears to challenge the established Cold War percep- tion of core and periphery, which has
been seen as one of the major organizations, but also standardization organizations, private companies,
epistemic communities, and other groups (see Bayne and Woolcock 2004; Etzioni 2004). Some of these
regulators are states themselves or are connected to states, but some are more loosely connected or
even not connected at all. In the words of Brunsson and Jacobsson (2000), "the world is full of
organizations that produce rules for others-be they states, companies or individuals-to follow." Taking
all these elements into account, this study shares the view of those who argue that the globalization
process is changing the way we think about global "authority." Of course, the United States, with its
powerful military machine, could step over international law and invade Iraq (certainly a point for the
neorealists). On the other hand, Iraq has also shown the limitations of "hard power" and the need for
"soft power" (the ability to attract others by the legitimacy of policies and values), given that the
United States "cannot confront the new threat of terrorism without the cooperation of other countries"
(Nye 2004, 17). Therefore, the U.N. matters. There is, though, a debate around the role of the U.N.
Some com- mentators portray the organization as largely a failure because it does not reflect thie
underlying dynamics of power, culture, and security. According to such a view, U.S. unilateralism during
the Iraq crisis shows that "the first and last geopolitical truth is that states pursue security by pursuing
power" (Glennon 2003). There are certainly many challenges to international law as well as structural
problems at the U.N.; but this does not necessarily reflect an increasing hegemony of the United
States. Paradoxically, in spite of its crisis, the U.N. system is increasingly a source of global legitimacy
and a kind of "morality of last resort." 1111It is also becoming a central node in a system of
international governmental and nongovernmental organizations that is forming a new dimension of
world polity. This can be appreciated, for example, in the role that U.N. agencies play as promoters,
defenders, and creators of human rights standards, development priorities, health- and educationrelated issues, or, as recently, in helping to mobilize resources to assist the tsunami vic- tims or in
nation-building missions (Dobbin 2005). Thus, parallel to the centrifugal forces unleashed by the
globaliza- tion process, there is also a centripetal force that creates coherence among global units of
the system and its regional subunits. Etzioni's words give perhaps a good picture of the U.N.: Another
consequence of the end of the East-West dichotomy that is relevant for this study is the emergence of a
new pattern of global secu- rity relations, in which concepts such as "third world" have lost their
meaning. About this, Buzan (1991, 431) holds that "the best available set of terms to capture the
relationships of the 1990s comes from the center- periphery approach elaborated in the dependency
literature of the 1960s and 1970s." That is true, but it is narrow to look at it from the per- spective of
the pre-1989 system, when there was a state-centered notion of the core attached to the industrialized
countries and their economic groups as the dominant sphere of authority. It is also important to note
that the so-called dependency literature had very divergent perspectives on the center-periphery issue,
ranging from the structuralist work of Pre- bisch (1949) or Cardoso and Faletto (1974) to the Marxistinspired stud- ies of Frank (1971). But other center-periphery studies also are very important, albeit
generally ignored by the development debate. These stem from the perspective outlined by Shils
(1975). In a model reminiscent of Friedrich Hegel's thesis, antithesis, and synthesis approach, Shils
proposes three central ideas: integration, con- flict, and countercenters. He argues that there must
always be some measure of integration for a society to exist, which does not imply that all societies
must be highly integrated or that they are all equal (Shils 1988). He views conflict as an expression of
the periphery's resistance to assimilation by the core. Countercenters are seen as designating the
periphery's permanent desire to penetrate the sphere of authority dom- inated by the core. Rejecting
the rigidities inherent in many core- periphery views, Shils does not see power as a one-way street of
core dominance over periphery. Hence, periphery is seen not necessarily just as a victim but also as a
source of power, through the formation of countercenters. A main value of this perspective is that it
contains a dynamic model that is very useful for analyzing current changes in the international system,
such as the one expressed through the "new regionalism." According to Hettne et al. (1999), processes
of economic globaliza- tion and regionalization are occurring simultaneously. There have been regional
groupings in the past, yet a major difference between old and new regionalisms is that the new are not
only concerned with economic issues, but also have security imperatives. This means that the relationship between development and security must be reconsidered, because, as Hettne (2001) notes,
"development has more explicitly become a security issue and this is taking form as exhibited by the
new kind of regional constellations." Another feature of the new regionalism is that it takes place in a
multipolar global order, whereas the old regionalism was marked by bipolarity. This point is central in
linking the ideas of Shils and of Hettne et al.; the latter see the rise of regional powers as contributing to
the decline of hegemony of the industrial powers (Hettne et al. 1999). In a way, the regional powers in
Hettne's formulation are analogous to what Shils refers to as countercenters. Along this line, the new
region- alism can be seen as a way of coping with global transformations, because an increasing
number of states realize that they lack the capa- bility and the means to manage such a task alone.
Thus, the mixing of security, economic, and social initiatives is transforming the "region" into a
"synthesis" of national security and development aspirations. There is, of course, no single answer
about how to adapt to the new global structures. Indeed, the issue of defining globalization is itself an
endless theme (Hettne 2001, 16). Furthermore, "there is no consensus on what kind of world order, if
any, we can expect to emerge from the combination of whatever changes are actually occurring in the
global configuration of power" (Arrighi and Silver 1999, 21). It should there- fore be remembered that
regions are not given but rather created and recreated in the process of global transformation. Turning
more specifically to the Latin American case, some researchers maintain that the end of the Cold War
has not meant a more flexible environment for the Latin American countries and that "eco- nomic
matters appear to have replaced political ones as the fulcrum upon which core influence is pressed on
Latin America" (Hey and Mora 2003). It is true that many Cold War economic and military inequalities
still persist, yet this view fails to perceive the effects of the post-Cold War changes discussed above.
Traditionally, the issue of security in Latin America has been related to national defense, restricted to
the military, and lacking civilian leadership or input from the academic community (Diamint 2004).
That position was particularly true for the Cold War period, when "development" and "foreign policy"
were largely separate issues. The latter generally had an imperative in the ideological alignment behind
one of the two superpowers, which meant giving priority to military security perspectives. Such logic
motivated international alignments and policies that often left aside long-term development
advantages and fos- tered an overwhelming concern about the role of the United States as an
economic and security counterpart. With globalization, however, a whole new agenda emerged,
together with new regional actors. One of the most remarkable is Mercosur, the Common Market of
the South, formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This emerging bloc is becoming a new
catalyst of regional positions in multilateral arenas and is one of the clearest expressions of the "new
regionalism."
link
u.s. links
china crowd out link
Link – The aff’s crowd out of Chinese influence kills future sustainable growth in Brazil
Dowd ‘12 – Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation (Alan Dowd, American Security
Council
Foundation
“Crisis
in
the
America's,”
http://www.ascfusa.org/content_pages/view/crisisinamericas)//JES
New offshore discoveries will soon catapult Brazil into a top-five global oil producer. With some 38
billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast, Brazil expects to pump 4.9 million barrels per day by 2020,
as the Washington Times reports, and China has used generous loans to position itself as the prime
beneficiary of Brazilian oil. China’s state-run oil and banking giants have inked technology-transfer,
chemical, energy and real-estate deals with Brazil. Plus, as the Times details, China came to the rescue of
Brazil’s main oil company when it sought financing for its massive drilling plans, pouring $10 billion into
the project. A study in Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ) adds that Beijing plunked down $3.1 billion for a slice
of Brazil’s vast offshore oil fields.
Chinese investment in Brazil is key to its pursuit of softpower
RT, 9 (May 10th, 2009, The Real Truth, “Latin America Looks East Where Does This Leave the United
States?,” http://realtruth.org/articles/090504-004-americas.html,)//JES
This transaction shows the diminishing influence of the United States in its own hemisphere—and
China’s growing need for natural resources and the great lengths to which it will go to get them. As the
Christian Science Monitor stated, “The U.S. is no longer the only game in town.” The New York Times
reported that “just one of China’s planned loans, the $10 billion for Brazil’s national oil company, is
almost as much as the $11.2 billion in all approved financing by the Inter-American Bank in 2008. Brazil
is expected to use the loan for offshore exploration, while agreeing to export as much as 100,000 barrels
of oil a day to China, according to the oil company.” China’s interest in Brazil comes on the heels of
Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva’s call for an economic new world order. In a telling
statement about where many Latin American heads-of-state place blame for the economic situation, the
popular leader blamed “white people with blue eyes” for the current global financial mess. He said this
during a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and repeated it publicly in weeks to come.
cuba crowd out link
Continued U.S. disengagement is key for Brazil to puruse leadership in Cuba
Honda 10 – serves on the House Budget and Appropriations Committees (Mike Honda, May, 4th, 2010,
Huffington Post “Political Grandstanding in US Prevents Economic Opportunity in Cuba,” 5/4/10,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-mike-honda/political-grandstanding-i_b_562468.html)//JES
The U.S. is already marginalized: CLACS explicitly bars U.S. participation. The impact of this Latin tack
toward insularity is not insignificant. Consider grandstanding by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva, who rebuffed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's efforts to bring Brazil on Iran sanctions
while courting Cuba's leadership. Lula, capitalizing on Cuba's appetite for growth, proposed investments
in industrial, agriculture and infrastructure projects, including ports and hotels, and an agreement with
Brazil's oil company. We will see more of this. The Cubans are seeking suitors. Like the Bank of the
South, Latin America's attempt to wean countries off U.S. institutions like the World Bank, the longer we
keep Cuba at arm's length, the more likely Brazil and others will take our place. The longer we keep
Cuba listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, an allegation roundly criticized by diplomats, the more we
risk the credibility of our national security regime and reputation in the region. Economically, the case
for cooperation is even clearer. Despite the trade embargo, there is some engagement. Cuba continues
to rely on U.S. agriculture. Since 2002, we have been Cuba's largest supplier of food and agricultural
products, with Cuba purchasing more than $3.2 billion in products since 2001. This agricultural reliance
is in jeopardy, which puts American farmers at risk. In 2008, U.S. food imports to Cuba totaled $712
million, declined to $533 million last year and are declining this year. Cuba, having witnessed strong
economic growth in the early 2000s at 11 percent and 13 percent, is now struggling to make ends meet,
slipping below 2 percent growth in 2009. Beyond foodstuffs, other natural resources offer potential for
partnership. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Cuba owns 9 billion barrels of untapped oil, along
with 9 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The Cuban government cites higher oil numbers, at 20 billion
barrels. Either way, there's money to be made, and Cubans welcome participation from countries that
can help them tap and market the oil. While the U.S. disengages, countries such as Brazil, Russia,
Venezuela and China are talking. We are clearly missing investment opportunities.
Cuba is key to Brazilian soft power
Lyons and De Cordoba 12 – Wall Street Journal’s Latin American correspondents (John and Jose,
“Brazil's President Flexes Clout in Cuba Trip; Rousseff Offers Closer Economic Ties, Reflecting Nation's
Bid for Greater Regional Leadership; Human Rights Remain Issue,” Wall Street Journal (Online) [New
York, N.Y] 01 Feb 2012, ProQuest)//HAL
SÃO PAULO, Brazil--President Dilma Rousseff offered closer economic cooperation to Cuba during a visit
to the communist island on Tuesday, marking Brazil's highest-profile bid to transform its growing
economic might into diplomatic leadership in Latin America. Brazil's state development bank is financing
a $680 million rehabilitation of Cuba's port at Mariel. Work on the port is being managed by the
Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht SA, which may also provide support forCuba's sugar industry,
Brazilian officials have said. Ms. Rousseff's closer engagement of Cuba --she is visiting the island before
a trip to the White House-- is the latest example of Brazil's strategy to expand its regional influence by
offering subsidized loans to poorer nations. In recent years, Brazil has disbursed tens of billions of
dollars around Latin America, and as far away as Africa. But none of these efforts have the same
symbolic resonance as in Cuba, which has opposed the U.S. since shortly after Fidel Castro's 1959
revolution and remains a lightning rod in U.S. domestic politics and a sticking point for U.S. relations
with other Latin nations. " This is about growing Brazil's soft power on the international scale and
raising Brazil's role in the world," said Matthew Taylor, a Brazil specialist at the American University's
School of International Service. "Brazil is taking on a bigger role in the hemisphere in terms of aid and
finance, and by helping out Cuba they really draw attention to this new role they are playing." Although
the U.S. has been the predominant power broker in Latin America since the introduction of the Monroe
Doctrine in 1823, experts say the U.S. doesn't oppose Brazil's bid for regional influence. Many analysts
say they believe Brazil could become a stabilizing force in a region known for political and economic
volatility.
zero-sum
Brazil is America’s rising spoiler – SQ policy dictates that U.S. influence is reciprocated
with thorny competition
Sabatini & Berger 12 - editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly; the senior director of policy at Americas
Society; member of Council of the Americas & a policy associate at the Americas Society (Christopher
Sabatini and Ryan Berger, June 13th, 2012, CNN “Why the U.S. can’t afford to ignore Latin America”,
6/13/12, http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/13/why-the-u-s-cant-afford-to-ignore-latinamerica/)//JES
Recently, countries with emerging economies have appeared to be taking positions diametrically
opposed to the U.S. when it comes to matters of global governance and human rights. Take, for
example, Russia and China’s stance on Syria, rejecting calls for intervention.¶ Another one of the BRICS,
Brazil, tried to stave off the tightening of U.N. sanctions on Iran two years ago. And last year, Brazil also
voiced its official opposition to intervention in Libya, leading political scientist Randall Schweller to refer
to Brazil as “a rising spoiler.”¶ At a time of (perceived) declining U.S. influence, it’s important that
America deepens its ties with regional allies that might have been once taken for granted. As emerging
nations such as Brazil clamor for permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council and more representatives
in the higher reaches of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. will need to
integrate them into global decision-making rather than isolate them.¶ If not, they could be a thorn in the
side of the U.S. as it tries to implement its foreign policy agenda. Worse, they could threaten to
undermine efforts to defend international norms and human rights.
US led multilateral organizations fail—Brazil has tried to counterbalance US hegemony
Brand et al 12, Alexander Brand is Lecturer and Post-Doc Researcher at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Mainz. Susan McEwen-Fial is Lecturer at the Department of Political Science
at the University of Mainz. Wolfgang Muno is Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of
Erfurt. Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann is Lecturer at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of
Erfurt. (04/2012, “BRICs and U.S. Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and
Empirical Evidence from Latin America”, Mainz Papers on International and European Politics (MPIEP)
Paper No. 4, http://international.politics.uni-mainz.de/files/2012/10/mpiep04.pdf, jj)
Concerning institutional innovation and the use of alliances a/o multilateral coordination¶ as a means to
strengthen one’s influence, things look remarkably different. Here we can detect a mixture of
institutional failure (OAS, FTAA), the fostering of bi- and multilateral trade¶ institutions as well as nonactivism on behalf of the U.S. In contrast, even the Chinese have –¶ as actors traditionally and
geographically external to the region – significantly expanded their¶ institutional ties to LA lately. State
visits, applications for observer status, summits and common institutional frameworks constitute a
relatively significant level of activism. Brazil, on the¶ other hand, has for years sought to use the
institutional level to strengthen its status as regional¶ power (and potential contender to U.S. regional
hegemony). Here, the idea of an intended¶ counterbalancing of U.S. hegemony is particularly clear.
Brazil-U.S. influence is zero-sum – OAS and Honduran crisis prove Brazil to be a singular power
Duquenal, 11 – editor of Venezuela News and Views; with a PhD, former scientist; award winning Latin
American News Blog (Daniel Duquenal, March 2, 2011, Troy Media “Loss of U.S. influence in Latin
America opportunity for Canada,” http://www.troymedia.com/2011/03/02/loss-of-u-s-influence-inlatin-america-opportunity-for-canada/)//JES
Yet, these “victories have not translated into the ability of the U.S. to recover the ground it had lost in
the preceding decade, a void that Brazil has been busily filling. This has led to a mostly silent contest
between the U.S. and Brazil to assert their dominance, a contest which has included dirty tricks from
Brazil, such as trying to create a separate structure from the Organization of American States (OAS), one
which will not include either the U.S. or Canada. The leftist tide has, in fact, been receding faster than
would have been believed two years ago. Its first major setback was the Honduras coup: although
mishandled at first by the U.S., it eventually became the first real victory in the area for democracy over
Chavez’s authoritarian neo-socialism. Both Chavez and Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
overplayed their hands in Honduras, with Lula even offering shelter to former Honduras President Josa
Manuel Zelaya Rosales in his embassy at the worst moment of the crisis. This was an error on Zelaya’s
part, because Brazil had never exerted significant influence in Central America before and thus looked
like an unacceptable interloper, almost as imperialist an interloper as the U.S. of yore.
Brazil is soft power is ideologically opposed to U.S. influence in the region
Brand et al 12 – Alexander Brand: Lecturer and Post-Doc Researcher at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Mainz & Susan McEwan: Fial, Lecturer at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Mainz & Wolfgang Muno: Visiting Professor of Political Science at the
University of Erfurt & Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann: Lecturer at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy,
University of Erfurt (2012, Mainz Papers on International and European Politics, “BRICs and U.S.
Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and Empirical Evidence from Latin
America.” Mainz Papers on International and European Politics, 2012/04. Google Scholar,
https://international.politics.uni-mainz.de/files/2012/10/mpiep04.pdf//JES)//HAL
Burges defines Brazilian activism as a leadership project based on the concept of consensual hegemony,
in which “the central idea is the construction of a structural vision, or hegemony that specifically
includes the nominally subordinate, engaging in a process of dialogue and interaction that causes the
subordinate parties to appropriate and absorb the substance and requisites of the hegemony as their
own”, without relying on force (Burges 2008: 65). The data presented in this paper is in line with the
argument advanced by authors working on Brazilian leadership that the country cannot perform the
traditional, i.e. military and economic types of hegemony given its relative capabilities limitations and
the domestic instability derived from economic inequality and young democratic regime (Lima/Hirst
2006; Malamud 2009; Vieira 2011). In this sense, the concept of consensual hegemony, which
corresponds to a large extent with the concept of soft power as defined in this paper, fulfills the gap to
understand Brazilian role in Latin America, or rather, South America. A combination of mostly soft
power with institutional activism seems to sustain the Brazilian claim for leadership. Some leverage of
military and economic power contributes to support that claim, but they are not enough to consolidate
a hegemonic role for Brazil in South America. If Brazil wanted to present itself as a rival to the U.S. or
perhaps China in the future, “soft power” is a central concept. The content of this soft power strategy
does not include traditional cultural policies such as media and the creation of cultural institutes abroad.
This has been seen by some diplomats as a handicap, and proposals to explore it more thoroughly are
being currently discussed. The Brazilian diplomat Edgar Telles Ribeiro argues for a revision of the lack of
a more strategic cultural foreign policy, asking if “the international insertion of the country would not
benefit from -as an additional element, and in light of the experience of developed countries . . . , a
cultural engagement abroad characterized by more substance, continuity and comprehensiveness”
(Ribeiro 2011: 88). As for state visits, the number is extremely high, especially in comparison with the
U.S. and China. South American presidents and lower ranks visit themselves regularly both bilaterally
and multilaterally in the context of Mercosur and UNASUR for instance. Academic exchange is also
common both at the student and staff level. Brazilian universities are no competitors to their U.S.
counterparts for South American students, but there is a certain flow given better structural conditions.
The data for Latin American immigrants in Brazil show an increase from 1960 (63.474) to 1991 (118.606)
to 2000 (144.528). According to Marques and Lima (2011), the expectation for the demographic census
of 2012 is that of a further increase. As for the nationalities, the pattern remained stable over the years,
in 2000 the first group was of Argentinean origin (21,4%), followed by Paraguayans (18,6%) and
Uruguayans (16%). The soft power approach pursued by Brazil so far has consisted rather in the very
promotion of a debate on the legitimacy of the international order and the demand for a more
consensual, democratic, legitimate international order. To the extent that the criticism of the
contemporary status quo is based on the claim of the unfair, disproportional and asymmetric position of
Western powers in general, and the U.S. in particular, the Brazilian leadership project is based on a
competition with the U.S. role in the region . However, the substantive priorities of the Brazilian
foreign policy are not that divergent from that of the U.S.; the problem is distributive rather than
substantive. As already mentioned, the central pillars of Brazilian foreign policy are a preference of
diplomatic settlement of disputes, the respect of international law, sovereignty, non-intervention and
multilateralism. The promotion of democracy and human rights has become a priority since
democratization and central to the present administration of Dilma Roussef. Except for Brazil’s
resistance against concepts regarding responsibility to protect and preventive intervention, these are
actually quite Western pillars and priorities. The contradiction between these aims might pose a
challenge to Brazilian foreign policy and its hegemonic bid (Santiso 2003; Ribeiro Hoffmann 2011), and
this inconsistency might undermine the soft power approach, but so far, it has contributed to the
perceived legitimacy of its hegemony in South America.
mexico links
U.S. mexico relations
U.S.-Mexico relations counter Brazil influence and China support for Brazil
Brzezinski 12 – former National Security Adviser (Zbigniew, “Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of
Global Power”, 2012, pp. 108-109)//Beddow
A waning partnership between America and Mexico could precipitate regional and even international
realignments. A reduction in Mexico’s democratic values, its economic power, and its political
stability coupled with the dangers of drug cartel expansion would limit Mexico’s ability to become a
regional leader with a proactive and positive agenda. This, in the end, could be the ultimate impact of
an American decline: a weaker, less stable, less economically viable and more anti-American Mexico
unable to constructively compete with Brazil for cooperative regional leadership or to help promote
stability in Central America. In that context, China could also begin to play a more significant role in
the post-American regional politics of the Western Hemisphere. As part of China’s slowly emerging
campaign for greater global influence, the PRC has initiated large-scale investments in both Africa
and Latin America. For example, Brazil and China have long been trying to forge a strategic
partnership in energy and technology. This is not to suggest that China would seek to dominate this
region, but it obviously could benefit from receding American regional power, by helping more
overtly anti-American governments in their economic development.
mexico infrastructure aff
Link – Mexican failing infrastructure is the only way for Brazil to surpass Mexico as a rival
O'Neil, 11 – Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies for the CFR (Shannon, February, 2011 Council on
Foreign Relations “Mexico: Development and Democracy at a Crossroads” CFR Expert Briefs, February
2011, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexico-development-democracy-crossroads/p24089)//JES
Last year, Mexico celebrated as it claimed the top spot in Latin America in the World Bank's Doing
Business survey, overtaking Colombia. By revamping its bankruptcy laws and cutting the burdens on
doing business, at a global ranking of 35 (up from 41 in 2010) Mexico today is far ahead of Brazil, its
much-hyped rival, at 127. Nevertheless, as its peers and neighbors reform their institutions and labor
markets and invest in education, infrastructure, and innovation, Mexico is falling behind on broader
measures of competitiveness. In the World Economic Forum's 2010 Global Competitiveness Index,
Mexico's ranking fell six notches to sixty-sixth among 139 countries. The country's large, unwieldy
bureaucracy; unreformed labor laws; weak regulatory framework; and low investment in human and
physical capital will continue to hinder competitiveness,3 while its customs regulations and product
standards introduce further pitfalls for foreign investors.
venezuela links
venezuela influence
Link – Venezuela tradesoff and Brazilian influence in the region tradeoff – Cuban interests prove
Feinberg 11 - professor of international political economy at the School of International Relations and
Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego (Richard Feinberg, November 2011, Brookings
“Reaching OutCuba’s New Economyand theInternational Response”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/11/18%20cuba%20feinberg/1118_cub
a_feinberg.pdf)//JES
Emergent Brazil’s special interest in Cuba obeys several motives. The Brazilian and Cuban economies
have salient complementaries—in the sugar industry, off-shore petroleum, pharmaceuticals, and
infrastructure construction—that attract Brazilian exporters and investors. In the diplomatic realm, the
accelerating Brazilian drive toward hegemony in Latin America and influence throughout the developing
world steers it naturally to Havana Harbor; Cuba is easily the largest of the Caribbean islands, and Cuba
retains considerable prestige in certain circles worldwide. Brazil would cherish Cuban support for its
overriding ambition to gain a permanent seat on the U .N. Security Council. Although Brazilian diplomats
are quick to deny it, there is fierce competition between Brasilia and Caracas for leadership
throughout the Americas , and nowhere is this head-to-head rivalry sharper than in Cuba.
zero-sum
Transition from Venezuela to Brazil dominance now – maintaining this trend key
Goldwyn, 13 - President, Goldwyn Global Strategies, House Committee of Foreign Affairs, (David L.,
April 11th, 2013 U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository “The Impact of the Tight Oil and Gas
Boom on Latin America and the Caribbean: Opportunities for Cooperation,” House Committee on
Foreign Affairs; Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere; “Energy Opportunities in Latin America and
the Caribbean” http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20130411/100622/HHRG-113-FA07-WstateGoldwynD-20130411.pdf)//JES
A. Uncertainty in Venezuela Venezuela has long been seen as the leader of a regional group of states
seeking to wage an ideological and political competition for regional influence with the U.S. Yet the
death of President Chavez, whose charisma has long been regarded as a key facet of the Bolivarian
narrative, and Venezuela’s growing economic problems, which were recently reflected by the
government’s efforts to devalue the currency by more than 30% against the dollar, have led some
observers to believe that the influence of the Venezuelan model has peaked. Many are now
forecasting that the Brazilian economic model , which still provides for a generous state role in the
economy, yet does so in a more market-friendly and democratic context, will gain clout among states in
the region that remain skeptical of liberal economics and the Washington consensus.
x country links
link
Brazil can only thrive as a leader absent U.S. leadership – The Aff takes away from
Latin American leadership competition which is also zero-sum
Crandall 11 – Associate Professor of International Politics at Davidson College; Principal Director for
the Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Department of Defense in 2009; Director for Andean Affairs at the
National Security Council in 2010-11 (Russell Crandall, May-June 2011, Foreign Affairs “Post-American
Hemisphere: Power and Politics in an Autonomous Latin America,” 90.3,
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/fora90&div=49&g_sent=1)//JES
POWER PLAYS Latin America's economic growth and political stability are driving an unprecedented
power shift within the region. Countries are reassessing their interests and alliances, and the more
confident among them are flexing their muscles. Instead of looking to Washington for guidance, Latin
American countries are increasingly working among themselves to conduct diplomacy, pursue shared
objectives, and, at times, even spark new rivalries. Brazil's emergence as a serious power is a direct
result of the increasing absence of U.S. influence in the region . Sensing an opportunity to gain the
regional stature that has long eluded it, the country has begun to act more assertively. But complicating
Brazil's power play is the reaction from its fellow Latin American nations. Colombian, Mexican, and
Peruvian officials, among others, talk privately about their dislike of Brazil's arrogant diplomacy. In
some quarters, Brazil's responses to developments such as Chavez's ongoing assault on Venezuela's
democracy and even the 2009 coup in Honduras have undermined its credibility as a serious leader.
(Brasilia's reluctance to speak out for hemispheric democracy is particularly inexcusable for a
government that includes many officials who suffered under the successive military regimes of the
1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.) Many Latin American officials quietly reveal that they are not eager to see
Brazil replace the United States as the hemisphere's hegemon. As one diplomat recently put it, "The
new imperialists have arrived, and they speak Portuguese." Yet Brazil is learning that leadership means
responsibility. Relations with its neighbor Bolivia are a case in point. After the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was kicked out of
Bolivia, Brasília belatedly realized that Bolivia's cocaine exports-most of which are destined for Brazil, Argentina, or Europe-represented a
serious challenge and so stepped up its counternarcotics cooperation with Bolivia. Fortunately, the United States and Brazil are eager to work
together on counternarcotics. Bolivia will be a key test of this cooperation- made all the more important by the bitter diplomatic flap that
erupted in May 2010 between U.S. President Barack Obama and then Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the Iranian nuclear deal
brokered by Brazil and Turkey. Colombian
leaders are also aware of the shifting balance of power within Latin
America. With the recent departure of the inimitable Lula, whose charisma and presence overshadowed the efforts of other Latin American
leaders, Santos now believes his government can assume the mantle of regional leadership by adopting a more balanced foreign policy, one
less dependent on Washington. Although Santos has no desire to do away with his country's long-standing closeness to the United States, he
understands that Colombia's credibility is now more dependent on its ability to cooperate with other regional governments, most important of
all, Brazil's. Further evidence of Colombia's diplomatic and strategic maturity can be found in the way it has begun exporting its
counterinsurgency and counternarcotics expertise to places as far away as Afghanistan. For almost half a century, the Colombian government
has waged a bloody war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or farc. But it has been only in the past several years that the
Colombian state, backed by billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, has gained the upper hand. Overwhelmed by this fight until recently,
Colombia's security forces now use their hangars and equipment to train pilots from Mexico and Peru and counternarcotics operatives from
Afghanistan. As Latin America comes into its own, it is beginning to rely more on its own multilateral bodies.
For the past 60 years, the Organization of American States, headquartered in Washington, has struggled to gain credibility in the region, as
critics saw it as a guise for U.S. domination. In recent years, however, it has codified the primacy of democracy in its guiding principles-an
important development suggesting that oas members now consider democracy a shared goal as opposed to a foreign imposition. Meanwhile, in
2008, Brazil
helped create the Union of South American Nations, or unasur, which Brazilian leaders quietly
hope will replace the oas as the default regional body in South America. But so far, its record has been mixed.To
date, unasur has prioritized regional integration and solidarity over promoting democratic practices. And
much to the chagrin of some in Brasília, the oas demonstrated its importance when it helped coordinate
the regional diplomatic response following the coup in Honduras in 2009, an effort that likely staved off
even greater strife in the country. The oas also renewed its relevance during its General Assembly meeting that same year, when a
debate regarding Cuba's 1962 suspension from the body produced a consensus that Cuba's return to full membership should depend on its
transition to democracy. The
seemingly moribund organization has shown some surprisingly gritty
determination, but there is new competition in the neighborhood .
impact
soft power
africa war
Brazilian soft power solves Africa war
White, 10 – PhD in Political Studies from the University of Cape Town, independent researcher and
consultant specialising in political economy issues in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Gordon Institute of
Business Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Lyal, “Understanding Brazil’s new drive for Africa,”
South African Journal of International Affairs,
http://www.tandfonline.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2010.494345#.Uc345zsqZsk
)//HAL
Brazil’s new Africa strategy: political diplomacy, neo-mercantilism and development cooperation Brazil’s
contemporary relations with Africa may at first appear to be a complex — even poorly defined — mix of
political alliances (old and new) and commercial interests, underpinned by foreign policy priorities that
have varied from administration to administration in Brazil. On closer inspection, however, Brazil’s
relations with Africa can be neatly divided into three broad categories. While these may be interrelated,
they certainly do offer a useful strategic map of Brazil’s engagement with Africa which correlates
strongly with Brazil’s broader foreign policy goals as an emerging global power. The first category is
political diplomacy and Brazil’s multilateral engagement with Africa. This has been a primary feature of
Brazilian foreign policy under President Lula, who single-handedly changed the face of Brazilian
international engagement and multilateral activism during his two terms in office. Under Lula, Brazil’s
multipolar approach reprioritised the developing South through various multilateral forums and placed
special attention on Africa through unprecedented direct attention and visits, advancing the historical
Brazilian notion of responsible pragmatism with universal democratic principles, and development
through increased globalisation. The second category is trade and investment, wherein certain Brazilian
companies have maintained a long standing interest (especially in lusophone Africa). However, the
recent surge of interest shown by emerging Brazilian MNCs in resource extraction, construction and
agriculture beyond the former Portuguese colonies to other parts of Africa represent a new era of
commercial exchanges between Africa and Brazil, which certainly appears to be a strong driver of
Brazilian foreign policy on the continent. Finally, development and development co-operation have
become an important component of Brazilian foreign policy, and is sure to be a principal driver of
foreign policy in Africa. Brazil’s relative success in social development programmes in its own country
has made it a primary exporter of ‘social technology’ to other developing countries. This has become an
important tool in is foreign policy in the developing world. Africa is clearly an important arena for the
exercise of Brazil’s new foreign policy approaches. Its engagement in Africa is generally well-received.
Brazil seems to have opted for a middle-ground approach between the Chinese-style of engagement —
which is highly political and supported by the weight of the state-run machinery behind investments and
development initiatives—and the Indian approach—which is characterised more by private sector
investments and entrepreneurial activities across the continent. This is a continent in need of political
support and better representation through functional coalitions at multilateral forums. Africa also needs
investment in resource extraction, in construction and civil engineering (all areas of commercial focus
for Brazilian companies), and development co-operation, as well as increased technology and
knowledge transfers. Africa is an ideal location for rolling out Brazilian-styled social programmes and to
put in practise nuanced approaches to enterprise and technology-led development, which will test the
real world application of Brazil’s instructive lessons for developing countries. In turn, beside reliable
access to strategic resources like oil, Brazil also seeks political support from African countries in various
global forums, especially in its pursuit of permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) and, more generally, their recognition of Brazil as a leading global power. Political diplomacy,
geopolitics and multilateral engagement Brazil’s prioritising of Africa in the current period can be
attributed largely to President Lula.26Since taking office in 2003, Lula has visited no less than 19 African
countries in eight trips. During this time Brazil has doubled the number of its embassies in Africa to
30,27 and Lula was invited as a special guest to the African Union summit in Sirte, Libya, in 2009. Brazil
has hosted a number of large second track initiatives with African academics and policy thinkers and was
behind the creation of the South AmericaAfrica summit.28 In 2007 Lula stated that, ‘South America is a
priority in Brazilian external policy. Our region is our home ...We also feel ourselves connected to Africa
through cultural and historical threads. Having the second largest black population in the world, we are
committed to share the destiny and challenges of the region.’ 29With these words Lula set a political
precedence for his administration and those that follow. On a personal note, Lula has also pledged his
commitment to alleviating poverty in Africa when he leaves office at the end of 2010.30 All these efforts
have helped build Brazilian ‘soft power’ in Africa, and particularly in countries like Angola where the Lula
administration has advanced existing cultural and historical linkages through diplomatic exchanges and a
range of agreements. Brazil’s political advances have also brought targeted funding, credit lines and
technical assistance to Africa. The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and the Brazilian Agricultural
Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) have rolled out a number of development initiatives across the
continent, the fact of which has gone a long way in developing Brazil’s strategic interests and promoting
the country in the eyes of Africans. The role of BNDES and EMBRAPA, which have become an important
part of Brazil’s commercial expansion and drive for development cooperation in Africa, will be described
in more detail in the two sections that follow. From a geopolitical or multilateral perspective, these ‘onthe ground’ efforts — which go beyond high profile but largely vacuous political visits — have not gone
unnoticed among African leaders. In turn, Brazil, like any emerging power in Africa, seeks privileged
status for its contractors and development plans. Beyond this, African support for Brazil’s grand plans of
global governance reform is important. This is especially the case in the UN where each nation has a
vote and Brazil is vying for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Large-scale African conflict will draw in outside powers and escalate to nuclear war
Deutsch 02 – Founder of Rabid Tiger Project (Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm focusing on
Russia and Eastern Europe Jeffrey, “SETTING THE STAGE FOR WORLD WAR III,” Rabid Tiger Newsletter,
Nov 18, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html)
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo
(the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in
Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to
"national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid
tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishywashy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very
few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this
respect - not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more
easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn,
or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need
any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a
proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can
ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike
would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help - financial, scientific, engineering, etc.
Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
aids
Brazil regional leadership is key to solve AIDS
Lee, Chagas, and Novotny, 10 (Kelley Lee, Luiz Carlos Chagas, and Thomas E. Novotny, 10 – (1) Centre
on Global Change and Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom,
(2) Independent Researcher – Public Health and Trade Policies, London, United Kingdom, (3) Graduate
School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America
(Brazil and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Global Health Diplomacy as Soft Power,”
April 20, 2010,
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.
1000232&representation=PDF)//HAL
Brazil’s New Prominence in Global Health Brazil has become increasingly prominent in international
relations in recent years through its leadership in climate change [7], trade, energy policy, and nuclear
nonproliferation negotiations [8]. By combining economic growth with progressive domestic social
policies, the country has defied orthodox thinking on development. It has been in the realm of global
health, however, that Brazilian diplomacy has been particularly noteworthy, beginning with negotiations
on access to medicines for treatment of HIV/AIDS. Because of its constitutional requirement for equity
in access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy [9], and the political will to address the issue, Brazil successfully
confronted and negotiated a satisfactory resolution to barriers imposed on drug availability by the
Agreement on TradeRelated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). With the US government
aligning with powerful corporate interests, Brazil’s championing of free and universal access to ARVs
earned worldwide respect among public health advocates [10]. While other countries, such as Thailand
and South Africa, also sought to challenge the pharmaceutical industry on restrictive pricing policies, as
Nunn and colleagues argue, Brazil became the first developing country to offer free ARV treatment to
HIV/AIDS patients despite claims by the World Bank that such a policy was not cost-effective [11].
Importantly, the country has seen a dramatic decline in AIDS related morbidity and mortality as a result
of its treatment program, a success story that has served as a role model for the expansion of global
support for HIV/ AIDS treatment in other countries. In this way, Brazil helped bridge a chasm between
public health and trade policy through its national HIV/AIDS policy [12].
AIDS will kill hundreds of millions if not stopped. It threatens to extinguish life on the planet
Mathiu, 2K – (Mutuma, Africa News, July 15, 2000, “AIDS: Devastation!” LexisNexis)
Every age has its killer. But Aids is without precedent. It is comparable only to the Black Death of the
Middle Ages in the terror it evokes and the graves it fills. But unlike the plague, Aids does not come at a
time of scientific innocence: It flies in the face of space exploration, the manipulation of genes and the
mapping of the human genome. The Black Death - the plague, today easily cured by antibiotics and
prevented by vaccines - killed a full 40 million Europeans, a quarter of the population of Europe,
between 1347 and 1352. But it was a death that could be avoided by the simple expedient of changing
addresses and whose vector could be seen and exterminated. With Aids, the vector is humanity itself,
the nice person in the next seat in the bus. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Every human
being who expresses the innate desire to preserve the human genetic pool through the natural
mechanism of reproduction is potentially at risk. And whereas death by plague was a merciful five days
of agony, HIV is not satisfied until years of stigma and excruciating torture have been wrought on its
victim. The plague toll of tens of millions in two decades was a veritable holocaust, but it will be nothing
compared to the viral holocaust: So far, 18.8 million people are already dead; 43.3 million infected
worldwide (24.5 million of them Africans) carry the seeds of their inevitable demise - unwilling
participants in a March of the Damned. Last year alone, 2.8 million lives went down the drain, 85 per
cent of them African; as a matter of fact, 6,000 Africans will die today. The daily toll in Kenya is 500.
There has never been fought a war on these shores that was so wanton in its thirst for human blood.
During the First World War, more than a million lives were lost at the Battle of the Somme alone, setting
a trend that was to become fairly common, in which generals would use soldiers as cannon fodder; the
lives of 10 million young men were sacrificed for a cause that was judged to be more worthwhile than
the dreams - even the mere living out of a lifetime - of a generation. But there was proffered an
explanation: It was the honour of bathing a battlefield with young blood, patriotism or simply racial
pride. Aids, on the other hand, is a holocaust without even a lame or bigoted justification. It is simply a
waste. It is death contracted not in the battlefield but in bedrooms and other venues of furtive intimacy.
It is difficult to remember any time in history when the survival of the human race was so hopelessly in
jeopardy.
--solves HIV aids
Brazil soft power is key to solve disease and HIV/AIDS
Flynn, 13 – PhD in Sociology from University of Texas at Austin focusing on the relationship between
Brazil and Health, MSc Sociology from London School of Economics (Mathew, “Brazilian Pharmaceutical
Diplomacy: Social Democratic Principles Versus Soft Power Interests,” International Journal of Health
Services, Volume 43, Number 1, 2013, Pages 67-89, Baywood Publishing Company)//HAL
One of the most interesting cases of health diplomacy to explore in terms of the realist and
constructivist debate is Brazil. As a member of the “BRIC” countries that also include Russia, India, and
China, Brazil assists in the construction of global health infrastructure and has been increasing healthbased assistance to other developing countries while building up its domestic health system (11). Since
Brazil is considered a rising economic giant and intermediate power on the world stage (12), one
subsequent conclusion is that Brazil’s foreign health initiatives represent soft power diplomacy (13, 14).
My counter-argument is that Brazil’s health diplomacy reflects the social democratic principles of its
constitution and efforts to construct a universal health care system more than traditional foreign policy
objectives. Focusing on pharmaceutical diplomacy as a subset of health diplomacy, I review Brazil’s
intellectual property disputes, foreign assistance programs, and alliances with civil society groups to
demonstrate that its health diplomacy does not represent the “high politics” of security and trade but
the “soft politics” of international solidarity and human rights concerns. SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC POLICIES
IN AN INEGALITARIAN COUNTRY Brazil’s interests in health diplomacy are not shaped by traditional
diplomatic prerogatives, but to defend the country’s ability to provide universal access to life-saving
medicines against external pressures and threats. The right to health, enshrined in Brazil’s 1988
Constitution and best exemplified by its AIDS program, shapes the country’s interest in promoting global
norms related to essential medicines. The increasing prominence of health issues in Brazilian politics
does not reflect the “best practices” based on neoliberal solutions promulgated at the international
level. Instead, the case of Brazil can be characterized as social democratic policies without having a
social democratic regime.2 Indeed, domestic health reforms based on social democratic goals continue
to be a work in progress. Brazil’s Unified Health System (Sistema Única da Saúde, or SUS) grew out of the
country’s democratic transition during the 1980s. Despite continued challenges in terms of fiscal
resources and institutional outreach to marginal populations, Brazil has years of experience in health
care administration, training, and disease control and surveillance in a large and diverse country.
Ensuring health equity remains a challenge for SUS as a result of underfunding, regressive taxation, and
unequal distribution throughout the country’s diverse regions (15). Extending SUS coverage and
improving service delivery continues to strain budgets and limit what can be spent on other programs
such as high-priced essential medicines. The country’s most successful health program is its fight against
HIV/AIDS, based on strong principles of human rights and politicized relations between activist
bureaucrats and civil society partners (16). A number of successful court cases forced the state to
uphold constitutional and human rights obligations (17), while policymakers translated these
entitlements into collective rights. Extending treatment cut mortality rates and reduced hospitalizations
of people with HIV/AIDS. Between 1997 and 2000, it is estimated that 234,000 hospital admissions were
avoided, representing savings of US$677 million (18). Despite increased funding for medicines in recent
years, patients, activists, and policymakers remain concerned about the sustainability of universal access
to treatments. Tracing the development of Brazilian health and pharmaceutical policies at the domestic
level reveals the institutionalization of a social democratic program. Despite continued challenges in a
highly inequitable society, Brazilian achievements in the area of health have begun to influence other
policy domains. Indeed, the Ministry of Health has begun to implement industrial policies to ensure
domestically-produced inputs to the public health system. Brazil’s strategy for ensuring the sustainability
of its AIDS treatment program and other pharmaceutical policies is to invest in local production of
generic drugs and to negotiate price cuts with pharmaceutical firms that control the patent rights of vital
medicines (19). In terms of foreign policy, Brazil’s interest is to protect the achievements of domestic
health programs such as those addressing AIDS. Consequently, its health diplomacy does not use its
AIDS program as a mechanism of soft power; rather, Brazilian diplomats employ soft power to defend
and build international support around an institutionalized value of health equity.
cuba scenario*
Continued leadership spurs investment in Cuba – solves democracy, growth, and key industries
Feinberg 11 - professor of international political economy at the School of International Relations and
Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego (Richard Feinberg, November 2011, Brookings
“Reaching OutCuba’s New Economyand theInternational Response”,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/11/18%20cuba%20feinberg/1118_cub
a_feinberg.pdf)//JES
Emergent Brazil’s special interest in Cuba obeys several motives. The Brazilian and Cuban economies
have salient complementaries—in the sugar industry, off-shore petroleum, pharmaceuticals, and
infrastructure construction—that attract Brazilian exporters and investors. In the diplomatic realm, the
accelerating Brazilian drive toward hegemony in Latin America and influence throughout the
developing world steers it naturally to Havana Harbor ; Cuba is easily the largest of the Caribbean
islands, and Cuba retains considerable prestige in certain circles worldwide. Brazil would cherish Cuban
support for its overriding ambition to gain a permanent seat on the U .N. Security Council. Although
Brazilian diplomats are quick to deny it, there is fierce competition between Brasilia and Caracas for
leadership throughout the Americas, and nowhere is this head-to-head rivalry sharper than in
Cuba.There are also matters of ideology and domestic politics that contribute to Brazil’s special interest
in Cuba. Within Brazilian internal politics, the more left-wing faction of the governing Workers Party has
an historic affinity with revolutionary Cuba and wants Brazil positively engaged on the island. More
generally, Brazil touts its modern social democratic model of development, in contrast to Chavez’s “21st
Century Socialism,” and if Brazil could nudge Cuba gradually toward its ideological direction, that would
be a major diplomatic accomplishment .The expanding Brazilian economy is spreading its tentacles
throughout the Caribbean Basin. Although still modest, Brazilian-Cuban trade has grown in recent years.
Two-way merchandise trade hovered around $600 million in 2008-2009 and will approach a projected
$800 million in 2011, according to official Brazilian sources . Brazil enjoys a significant trade surplus; in
2010, Brazilian exports reached $415 million as against imports from Cuba of just $73 million (Table 2 .2)
. Brazilian exports spanned a range of agricultural and industrial products, notably petroleum
derivatives, soy, and meats, while Brazilian imports were concentrated in Cuban pharmaceutical
products and minerals. Brazilian businesses have shown keen interest in the island. For fifteen years, the
small but successful joint venture between Souza Cruz and TabaCuba, ‘BrasCuba,” has been producing
and marketing cigarettes. Petrobras hopes to sign a joint venture with Cupet (51% Cupet, 49%
Petrobras) to build an oil lubricants factory for domestic consumption, requiring a $50 million
investment by Petrobras
democracy
Brazils regional power is key to democratic promotion—solves better than the US
Stuenkel, 13 - BA from the Universidad de Valencia in Spain, a Master in Public Policy from Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government, where he was a McCloy Scholar, and a PhD in political science from the
University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, assistant professor of international relations at the Getúlio
Vargas Foundation (FGV) in São Paulo, where he coordinates the São Paulo branch of the School of
History and Social Science (CPDOC) and the executive program in international relations (Oliver, Third
World Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2013, pp 339–355, “Rising Powers and the Future of Democracy
Promotion: the case of Brazil and India,” http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.775789)//HAL
Western democratic governments and organisations spend billions of dollars every year on democracyrelated projects, turning them into the dominant actors in the field of democracy promotion. Yet a
notable shift of power is taking place towards countries that are more hesitant when it comes to
systematic democracy promotion. Have Brazil and India promoted democracy in the past? How do
analysts and policy makers in emerging democracies—using Brazil and India as an example in this
analysis—think about democracy promotion? How can we characterise their arguments in relation to
the critiques cited above? Brazil and democracy promotion Brazil accounts for over half of South
America’s wealth, population, territory and military budget, which suggests that it is relatively more
powerful in its region than China, India and Germany are in their respective neighbourhoods. 46 Yet,
despite this dominant position, it shied away from intervening in its neighbours’ internal affairs before
the 1990s. The preservation of national sovereignty and non-intervention have always been and remain
key pillars of Brazil’s foreign policy, so any attempt to promote or defend self-determination and human
rights abroad—a commitment enshrined in Brazil’s 1989 constitution—stands in conflict with the
principle of non-intervention. The tension arising from these two opposing visions—respecting
sovereignty and adopting a more assertive pro-democracy stance, particularly in the region—is one of
the important dilemmas in Brazilian foreign policy of the past two decades. In fact, particularly during
the 1990s, Brazil abstained several times from promoting or defending democracy. In 1990, under
President Fernando Collor de Mello (1990–92) and largely because of economic interests, Brazil blocked
calls for a military intervention in Suriname after a military coup there. A year later it opposed military
intervention to reinstall President Aristide in Haiti. In 1992 it remained silent over a political crisis in
Ecuador. In 1994—when a member of the UN Security Council—it abstained from Security Council
Resolution 940, which authorised the use of force in Haiti with the goal of reinstating President Aristide,
who had been removed from power in 1991 through a coup.50 However, contrary to what is often
believed, Brazil has defended democracy abroad in many more instances, and over the past two
decades its views on intervention have become decidedly more flexible.51 Even under indirectlyelected
President José Sarney (1985–89), the first president after democratisation, Brazil supported the
inclusion of a reference to democracy in a new preamble to the Organization of American States (OAS)
Charter.52 Under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), Brazil intervened in neighbouring
Paraguay in 1996 to avoid a military coup there—workingthrough Mercosur and the OAS to obtain
higher leverage, and ultimately convincing General Lino Oviedo not to stage a coup d´état against then
President Juan Carlos Wasmosy.53 The Brazilian president again played an important mediating role
during political crises in Paraguay in 1999 and 2000.54 When then Peruvian President Fujimori falsified
the election results in 2000, Brazil’s President Cardoso refused to criticise him and Brazil was the major
obstacle to US and Canadian efforts to condemn Peru at the OAS General Assembly.55 Yet, in an
important gesture, President Cardoso stayed away from President Fujimori’s inaugural ceremony, and a
year later Brazil supported the Inter-American Democratic Charter, largely aimed at Fujimori, which
includes the norm of democratic solidarity.56 Following the coup in Venezuela Brazil has assumed a
more assertive prodemocracy stance in the region. In 2002 it actively engaged in Venezuela when a
group sought to illegally oust Hugo Chavez, who was reinstated 48 hours later.57 Looking back over the
past decade, Santosi argues that Brazil has played an exemplary and fundamental role in strengthening
democratic norms and clauses across the region.58 In his memoirs Cardoso reflected on the issue by
saying that ‘Brazil always defends democratic order’. 59 Burges and Daudelin argue that ‘one can say
that Brazil has been quite supportive of efforts to protect democracy in the Americas since 1990’. 60
This tendency has been further strengthened in the 21st century. In 2003 President Lula (2003– 2010)
swiftly engaged to resolve a constitutional crisis in Bolivia and, in 2005, he sent his foreign minister to
Quito to deal with a crisis in Ecuador. In the same year Brazil supported the OAS in assuming a mediating
role during a political crisis in Nicaragua, including financial support for the electoral monitoring of a
municipal election there. In 2009 the international debate about how to deal with the coup in Honduras
was very much a result of Brazil and the USA clashing over the terms of how best to defend democracy,
rather than whether to defend it.61 Over the past two decades Brazil has systematically built democratic
references and clauses into the charters, protocols and declarations of the subregional institutions of
which it is a member. The importance of democracy in the constitution and activities of the Rio Group,
Mercosur and the more recent South American Community of Nations (Unasul) can to a large extent be
traced back to Brazil’s activism.62 At the same time Brazil has sought to ensure that the protection of
democratic rule be calibrated with interventionism, combining the principle of non-intervention with
that of ‘non-indifference’. 63 This term’s policy relevance remains contested, yet it symbolises how
much Brazil’s thinking about sovereignty has evolved. For example, when explaining why Brazil opposed
a US proposal to craft a mechanism within the OAS’S Democratic Charter, which permits the group to
intervene in nations to foster or strengthen democracy, Celso Amorim argued that ‘there needs to be a
dialogue rather than an intervention’, adding that ‘democracy cannot be imposed. It is born from
dialogue.’ 64 It thus positions itself as an alternative and more moderate democracy defender in the
hemisphere than the USA, and one that continuously calibrates its interest in defending democracy with
its tradition of non-intervention. Brazil’s decision to lead the UN peacekeeping mission, Minustah, in
Haiti, starting in 2004, cannot be categorised as democracy promotion per se, yet the mission’s larger
goal did consist in bringing both economic and political stability to the Caribbean Island, which has been
the target of US American democracy promotion for years.65 In the same way Brazil’s ongoing
involvement in Guinea Bissau, a member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP)
proved to be a yet another important moment for Brazil’s role as a promoter of peace and
democracy.66 Brazil had provided some electoral assistance to Guinea-Bissau from 2004 to 2005 and it
continued to support efforts to stabilise the country by operating through the UN peacekeeping mission
there.67 During a CPLP meeting in 2011 Brazil signed a memorandum of understanding to implement a
Project in Support of the Electoral Cycles of the Portuguese-speaking African Countries and TimorLeste.68 In addition, in the lead-up to the anticipated elections in April 2012, Brazil made further
financial contributions to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) basket fund in support
of the National Electoral Commission for assistance in the execution of the election.69 Brazil’s prodemocracy stance became most obvious in 2012, when President Dilma Rousseff—together with the
leaders of Uruguay and Argentina—suspended Paraguay from Mercosur after the impeachment of
Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo, which most governments in the region regarded as the equivalent
of a coup d’état or a ‘parliamentary coup’. 70 The Brazilian government thus set a clear precedent that
anti-democratic tendencies in the region would cause a rapid and clear reaction from leaders in Brasília.
President Rousseff’s decision to work through Mercosur—rather than the OAS— is consistent with a
growing preference to use local regional bodies, possibly in an effort to strengthen projection as a
regional leader. Yet there are also critical voices. Summarising Brazilian foreign policy over the past two
decades, Sean Burges argues that ‘Brazil has not behaved consistently in support of democratic norm
enforcement’, 71 and that decisive action to preserve democracy has been ‘tepid’. 72 Ted Piccone
reasons that ‘when it comes to wielding…influence in support of democracy in other countries…Brazil
has been ambivalent and often unpredictable’. 73 Both these evaluations were made before Brazil’s
assertive stance in Paraguay in 2012. Nevertheless, despite this strategy, the term ‘democracy
promotion’ is not used either by Brazilian policy makers or by academics when referring to Brazil’s
Paraguay policy. In the same way Brazil does not promote any activities comparable to those of large US
or European nongovernmental organisations, whose activities range from political party development,
electoral monitoring, supporting independent media and journalists, capacity building for state
institutions, and training for judges, civic group leaders and legislators. This brief analysis shows that
Brazil is increasingly assertive in its region, and willing to intervene if political crises threaten democracy.
Brazil is most likely to intervene during constitutional crises and political ruptures, and less so when
procedural issues during elections may affect the outcome—as was the case during Hugo Chavez’ reelection in 2012, when several commentators criticised Brazil’s decision not to pressure the Venezuelan
government to ensure fairelections.74 Yet, despite this distinction, it seems clear that the consolidation
of democracy in the region has turned into one of Brazil’s fundamental foreign policy goals. This
development must be seen in the context of Brazil’s attempt to consolidate its regional leadership. In
the 1980s Brazilian foreign policy makers perceived the need to engage with the country’s neighbours,
principally its rival Argentina, a trend that continued and strengthened throughout the 1990s. At the
beginning of Cardoso’s first term, the president began to articulate a vision that fundamentally diverged
from Brazil’s traditional perspective—a vision that identified ‘South America’ as a top priority.75 This
trend has continued ever since, and was intensified under Cardoso’s successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Over the past few years, as Brazil’s economic rise has caught the world’s attention, the region has firmly
stood at the centre of Brazil’s foreign policy strategy.76 This trend continues under Brazil’s current
administration, with a focus on reducing a growing fear in the region that Brazil could turn into a
regional bully; over the past few years anti-Brazilian sentiment has been on the rise in South America.77
Yet, while Brazil may de facto defend democracy with frequency in the region, it rarely engages in the
liberal rhetoric so common in Europe and the USA. It may be precisely because of Brazil’s traditional
mistrust of the USA’s attempts to promote freedom that Brazilian policy makers refrain from using
similar arguments. Rather, Brazil can be said to be defending and promoting political stability above all
else, a key ingredient of Brazil’s interest in expanding its economic influence on the continent.
Democracy is key to solve for extinction
Muravchik 1 – Resident Scholar at American Enterprise Institute Joshua, “Democracy and nuclear
peace,” Jul 11, http://www.npec-web.org/syllabi/muravchik.htm
The greatest impetus for world peace -- and perforce of nuclear peace -- is the spread of democracy. In a
famous article, and subsequent book, Francis Fukuyama argued that democracy's extension was leading
to "the end of history." By this he meant the conclusion of man's quest for the right social order, but he
also meant the "diminution of the likelihood of large-scale conflict between states." (1) Fukuyama's
phrase was intentionally provocative, even tongue-in-cheek, but he was pointing to two down-to-earth
historical observations: that democracies are more peaceful than other kinds of government and that
the world is growing more democratic. Neither point has gone unchallenged. Only a few decades ago, as
distinguished an observer of international relations as George Kennan made a claim quite contrary to
the first of these assertions. Democracies, he said, were slow to anger, but once aroused "a democracy .
. . . fights in anger . . . . to the bitter end." (2) Kennan's view was strongly influenced by the policy of
"unconditional surrender" pursued in World War II. But subsequent experience, such as the negotiated
settlements America sought in Korea and Vietnam proved him wrong. Democracies are not only slow to
anger but also quick to compromise. And to forgive. Notwithstanding the insistence on unconditional
surrender, America treated Japan and that part of Germany that it occupied with extraordinary
generosity. In recent years a burgeoning literature has discussed the peacefulness of democracies.
Indeed the proposition that democracies do not go to war with one another has been described by one
political scientist as being "as close as anything we have to an empirical law in international relations."
(3) Some of those who find enthusiasm for democracy off-putting have challenged this proposition, but
their challenges have only served as empirical tests that have confirmed its robustness. For example, the
academic Paul Gottfried and the columnist-turned-politician Patrick J. Buchanan have both instanced
democratic England's declaration of war against democratic Finland during World War II. (4) In fact, after
much procrastination, England did accede to the pressure of its Soviet ally to declare war against Finland
which was allied with Germany. But the declaration was purely formal: no fighting ensued between
England and Finland. Surely this is an exception that proves the rule. The strongest exception I can think
of is the war between the nascent state of Israel and the Arabs in 1948. Israel was an embryonic
democracy and Lebanon, one of the Arab belligerents, was also democratic within the confines of its
peculiar confessional division of power. Lebanon, however, was a reluctant party to the fight. Within the
councils of the Arab League, it opposed the war but went along with its larger confreres when they
opted to attack. Even so, Lebanon did little fighting and soon sued for peace. Thus, in the case of
Lebanon against Israel, as in the case of England against Finland, democracies nominally went to war
against democracies when they were dragged into conflicts by authoritarian allies. The political scientist
Bruce Russett offers a different challenge to the notion that democracies are more peaceful. "That
democracies are in general, in dealing with all kinds of states, more peaceful than are authoritarian or
other nondemocratically constituted states . . . .is a much more controversial proposition than 'merely'
that democracies are peaceful in their dealings with each other, and one for which there is little
systematic evidence," he says. (5) Russett cites his own and other statistical explorations which show
that while democracies rarely fight one another they often fight against others. The trouble with such
studies, however, is that they rarely examine the question of who started or caused a war. To reduce
the data to a form that is quantitatively measurable, it is easier to determine whether a conflict has
occurred between two states than whose fault it was. But the latter question is all important.
Democracies may often go to war against dictatorships because the dictators see them as prey or
underestimate their resolve. Indeed, such examples abound. Germany might have behaved more
cautiously in the summer of 1914 had it realized that England would fight to vindicate Belgian neutrality
and to support France. Later, Hitler was emboldened by his notorious contempt for the flabbiness of the
democracies. North Korea almost surely discounted the likelihood of an American military response to
its invasion of the South after Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly defined America's defense
perimeter to exclude the Korean peninsula (a declaration which merely confirmed existing U.S. policy).
In 1990, Saddam Hussein's decision to swallow Kuwait was probably encouraged by the inference he
must have taken from the statements and actions of American officials that Washington would offer no
forceful resistance. Russett says that those who claim democracies are in general more peaceful "would
have us believe that the United States was regularly on the defensive, rarely on the offensive, during the
Cold War." But that is not quite right: the word "regularly" distorts the issue. A victim can sometimes
turn the tables on an aggressor, but that does not make the victim equally bellicose. None would
dispute that Napoleon was responsible for the Napoleonic wars or Hitler for World War II in Europe, but
after a time their victims seized the offensive. So in the Cold War, the United States may have initiated
some skirmishes (although in fact it rarely did), but the struggle as a whole was driven one-sidedly. The
Soviet policy was "class warfare"; the American policy was "containment." The so-called revisionist
historians argued that America bore an equal or larger share of responsibility for the conflict. But
Mikhail Gorbachev made nonsense of their theories when, in the name of glasnost and perestroika, he
turned the Soviet Union away from its historic course. The Cold War ended almost instantly--as he no
doubt knew it would. "We would have been able to avoid many . . . difficulties if the democratic process
had developed normally in our country," he wrote. (7) To render judgment about the relative
peacefulness of states or systems, we must ask not only who started a war but why. In particular we
should consider what in Catholic Just War doctrine is called "right intention," which means roughly:
what did they hope to get out of it? In the few cases in recent times in which wars were initiated by
democracies, there were often motives other than aggrandizement, for example, when America invaded
Grenada. To be sure, Washington was impelled by self-interest more than altruism, primarily its concern
for the well-being of American nationals and its desire to remove a chip, however tiny, from the Soviet
game board. But America had no designs upon Grenada, and the invaders were greeted with joy by the
Grenadan citizenry. After organizing an election, America pulled out. In other cases, democracies have
turned to war in the face of provocation, such as Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to root out an
enemy sworn to its destruction or Turkey's invasion of Cyprus to rebuff a power-grab by Greek
nationalists. In contrast, the wars launched by dictators, such as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, North Korea's
of South Korea, the Soviet Union's of Hungary and Afghanistan, often have aimed at conquest or
subjugation. The big exception to this rule is colonialism. The European powers conquered most of
Africa and Asia, and continued to hold their prizes as Europe democratized. No doubt many of the
instances of democracies at war that enter into the statistical calculations of researchers like Russett
stem from the colonial era. But colonialism was a legacy of Europe's pre-democratic times, and it was
abandoned after World War II. Since then, I know of no case where a democracy has initiated warfare
without significant provocation or for reasons of sheer aggrandizement, but there are several cases
where dictators have done so. One interesting piece of Russett's research should help to point him away
from his doubts that democracies are more peaceful in general. He aimed to explain why democracies
are more peaceful toward each other. Immanuel Kant was the first to observe, or rather to forecast, the
pacific inclination of democracies. He reasoned that "citizens . . . will have a great hesitation in . . . .
calling down on themselves all the miseries of war." (8) But this valid insight is incomplete. There is a
deeper explanation. Democracy is not just a mechanism; it entails a spirit of compromise and selfrestraint. At bottom, democracy is the willingness to resolve civil disputes without recourse to violence.
Nations that embrace this ethos in the conduct of their domestic affairs are naturally more predisposed
to embrace it in their dealings with other nations. Russett aimed to explain why democracies are more
peaceful toward one another. To do this, he constructed two models. One hypothesized that the cause
lay in the mechanics of democratic decision-making (the "structural/institutional model"), the other that
it lay in the democratic ethos (the "cultural/normative model"). His statistical assessments led him to
conclude that: "almost always the cultural/normative model shows a consistent effect on conflict
occurrence and war. The structural/institutional model sometimes provides a significant relationship but
often does not." (9) If it is the ethos that makes democratic states more peaceful toward each other,
would not that ethos also make them more peaceful in general? Russett implies that the answer is no,
because to his mind a critical element in the peaceful behavior of democracies toward other
democracies is their anticipation of a conciliatory attitude by their counterpart. But this is too pat. The
attitude of live-and-let-live cannot be turned on and off like a spigot. The citizens and officials of
democracies recognize that other states, however governed, have legitimate interests, and they are
disposed to try to accommodate those interests except when the other party's behavior seems
threatening or outrageous. A different kind of challenge to the thesis that democracies are more
peaceful has been posed by the political scientists Edward G. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. They claim
statistical support for the proposition that while fully fledged democracies may be pacific, Ain th[e]
transitional phase of democratization, countries become more aggressive and war-prone, not less." (10)
However, like others, they measure a state's likelihood of becoming involved in a war but do not report
attempting to determine the cause or fault. Moreover, they acknowledge that their research revealed
not only an increased likelihood for a state to become involved in a war when it was growing more
democratic, but an almost equal increase for states growing less democratic. This raises the possibility
that the effects they were observing were caused simply by political change per se, rather than by
democratization. Finally, they implicitly acknowledge that the relationship of democratization and
peacefulness may change over historical periods. There is no reason to suppose that any such
relationship is governed by an immutable law. Since their empirical base reaches back to 1811, any
effect they report, even if accurately interpreted, may not hold in the contemporary world. They note
that "in [some] recent cases, in contrast to some of our historical results, the rule seems to be: go fully
democratic, or don't go at all." But according to Freedom House, some 62.5 percent of extant
governments were chosen in legitimate elections. (12) (This is a much larger proportion than are
adjudged by Freedom House to be "free states," a more demanding criterion, and it includes many
weakly democratic states.) Of the remaining 37.5 percent, a large number are experiencing some degree
of democratization or heavy pressure in that direction. So the choice "don't go at all" (11) is rarely
realistic in the contemporary world. These statistics also contain the answer to those who doubt the
second proposition behind Fukuyama's forecast, namely, that the world is growing more democratic.
Skeptics have drawn upon Samuel Huntington's fine book, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late
Twentieth Century. Huntington says that the democratization trend that began in the mid-1970s in
Portugal, Greece and Spain is the third such episode. The first "wave" of democratization began with the
American revolution and lasted through the aftermath of World War I, coming to an end in the interwar
years when much of Europe regressed back to fascist or military dictatorship. The second wave, in this
telling, followed World War II when wholesale decolonization gave rise to a raft of new democracies.
Most of these, notably in Africa, collapsed into dictatorship by the 1960s, bringing the second wave to
its end. Those who follow Huntington's argument may take the failure of democracy in several of the
former Soviet republics and some other instances of backsliding since 1989 to signal the end of the third
wave. Such an impression, however, would be misleading. One unsatisfying thing about Huntington's
"waves" is their unevenness. The first lasted about 150 years, the second about 20. How long should we
expect the third to endure? If it is like the second, it will ebb any day now, but if it is like the first, it will
run until the around the year 2125. And by then--who knows?--perhaps mankind will have incinerated
itself, moved to another planet, or even devised a better political system. Further, Huntington's
metaphor implies a lack of overall progress or direction. Waves rise and fall. But each of the reverses
that followed Huntington's two waves was brief, and each new wave raised the number of democracies
higher than before. Huntington does, however, present a statistic that seems to weigh heavily against
any unidirectional interpretation of democratic progress. The proportion of states that were democratic
in 1990 (45%), he says, was identical to the proportion in 1922. (13) But there are two answers to this. In
1922 there were only 64 states; in 1990 there were 165. But the number of peoples had not grown
appreciably. The difference was that in 1922 most peoples lived in colonies, and they were not counted
as states. The 64 states of that time were mostly the advanced countries. Of those, two thirds had
become democratic by 1990, which was a significant gain. The additional 101 states counted in 1990
were mostly former colonies. Only a minority, albeit a substantial one, were democratic in 1990, but
since virtually none of those were democratic in 1922, that was also a significant gain. In short, there
was progress all around, but this was obscured by asking what percentage of states were democratic.
Asking the question this way means that a people who were subjected to a domestic dictator counted as
a non-democracy, but a people who were subjected to a foreign dictator did not count at all. Moreover,
while the criteria for judging a state democratic vary, the statistic that 45 percent of states were
democratic in 1990 corresponds with Freedom House's count of "democratic" polities (as opposed to its
smaller count of "free" countries, a more demanding criterion). But by this same count, Freedom House
now says that the proportion of democracies has grown to 62.5 percent. In other words, the "third
wave" has not abated. That Freedom House could count 120 freely elected governments by early 2001
(out of a total of 192 independent states) bespeaks a vast transformation in human governance within
the span of 225 years. In 1775, the number of democracies was zero. In 1776, the birth of the United
States of America brought the total up to one. Since then, democracy has spread at an accelerating
pace, most of the growth having occurred within the twentieth century, with greatest momentum since
1974. That this momentum has slackened somewhat since its pinnacle in 1989, destined to be
remembered as one of the most revolutionary years in all history, was inevitable. So many peoples were
swept up in the democratic tide that there was certain to be some backsliding. Most countries'
democratic evolution has included some fits and starts rather than a smooth progression. So it must be
for the world as a whole. Nonetheless, the overall trend remains powerful and clear. Despite the
backsliding, the number and proportion of democracies stands higher today than ever before. This
progress offers a source of hope for enduring nuclear peace. The danger of nuclear war was radically
reduced almost overnight when Russia abandoned Communism and turned to democracy. For other
ominous corners of the world, we may be in a kind of race between the emergence or growth of nuclear
arsenals and the advent of democratization. If this is so, the greatest cause for worry may rest with the
Moslem Middle East where nuclear arsenals do not yet exist but where the prospects for democracy
may be still more remote.
--solves democracy
Solves democracy
Goldman and Johnston, 11 (Julianna AND Nicholas, Bloomberg, March 20, 2011, “Obama Says Brazil a
Model for Democracy While Juggling Libya Crisis in Rio,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0321/obama-calls-brazil-model-for-north-african-democratic-movements.html)//Hensel
¶ President Barack Obama, declaring his support for Brazil’s rising global economic clout, said the
country can serve as a model for pro-democracy movements around the world, including in North
Africa and the Middle East.¶ ¶ Brazil is “a country that shows democracy delivers both freedom and
opportunity to its people,” Obama told a crowd yesterday at Rio de Janeiro’s century-old Theatro
Municipal. “A country that shows how a call for change that starts in the streets can transform a city,
transform a country, transform a world.”¶ ¶ Obama, 49, arrived in Brazil March 19 to kick off a five- day
tour aimed at deepening trade ties with Latin America the same day that an international coalition
began military action against forces loyal to Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi. As Obama spoke in Rio,
the military operation escalated with anti- aircraft fire heard in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.¶ ¶ The crisis
in North Africa has overshadowed Obama’s trip, as he’s had to juggle demands including national
security briefings with official events and sightseeing. A planned press conference with President Dilma
Rousseff was scrapped, allowing the two leaders to avoid questions about Brazil’s abstention in the
United Nations Security Council vote last week authorizing air strikes against Libya.¶ ¶ Brazil’s
Democracy¶ ¶ Still, the U.S. leader used yesterday’s speech to compare the development of free markets
in Brazil since the end of the country’s last dictatorship in 1985 to the wave of democratic uprisings
across the Middle East and North Africa.
Brazil soft power solves human rights
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
Human Rights¶ The Task Force is encouraged by President Rousseff’s stated commitment to human
rights. Rousseff’s personal history has placed a spotlight on human rights, and Brazil is lending its voice
to advance the many dimensions of and threats to human rights across the world. Rousseff signaled
Brazil’s coming emphasis on international human rights and a departure from her predecessor when,
during her first media interview after her election, she asserted that she would not have abstained on a
2010 UN human rights resolution on Iran. 33 Early in the Rousseff presidency, Brazil has made overtures
on human rights issues in Latin America, the Middle East, and Iran, and Rousseff maintained the position
of the special secretary for human rights as a cabinet-level position.¶ The Task Force also notes that
Brazil has made a considerable contribution to the improvement of human rights of its citizens in recent
years. Brazil’s historic transition from a military-led to a democratically elected government has
produced economic growth and an opening of society, and that has dramatically reduced poverty and
childhood malnutrition by nearly 80 percent.¶ Presidents Obama and Rousseff can be powerful voices
calling for racial, ethnic, and gender equality in their own countries and abroad, having broken barriers
as the first African-American president in the United States and the first female president in Brazil.
Likewise, both President Rousseff and Secretary Clinton have identified the importance of girls’
education and the advancement of women as matters of development and security and can use their
bona fides to further elevate this issue both domestically and abroad.
econ*
Brazil soft power solves the global economy and the north-south divide
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
¶ Global Financial Architecture¶ ¶ Formally known as the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central
Bank Governors, the G20 aims to give greater representation to emerging economies that did not
belong to, and whose interests were therefore not represented directly by, the G8. 35 At the height of
the financial crisis, Brazil sought to solidify its leadership and credibility in the G20 by making a $10
billion one-off contribution to the IMF. Given the G20’s inherent emphasis on developing but
underrepresented economies, Brazil is a natural leader within the group. Brazil has worked within the
G20 to advance its protracted efforts to increase voting rights for emerging economies within the IMF
and World Bank, and a number of reforms have increased Brazil’s voting power. 36¶ ¶ Brazil will likely
continue its efforts toward restructuring the architecture of global institutions and regimes so that they
better reflect the emergence of nontraditional powers. Brazil has already proven successful at increasing
official voting shares within global financial institutions, though not to the extent it desires. With Brazil’s
priority— reform of the IMF and World Bank— at least partially addressed, the Task Force expects that
Brazil will advocate against protectionist measures and budget cuts in rich countries, continue to argue
for stricter government oversight mechanisms and balancing of financial markets, and emphasize
avoiding what it considers the manipulation— especially the artificially low valuations— of U.S. and
Chinese currencies.
-solves globally
Brazil soft power solves global free trade
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
¶ International Trade¶ ¶ Brazil aims to restructure global trade architecture to advance both trade
liberalization and more equitable access to markets while also providing a degree of protection to its
domestic markets and participants. Brazil, along with India, spearheaded the creation of the G20
developing nations in Cancún in 2003 to strengthen their negotiating power within the WTO. (Brazil’s
role in the financial G20 is addressed below.)¶ ¶ As a bridge between the developed and developing
worlds, Brazil alternately compromises on its commitment to liberalization and its solidarity with
developing nations, which, like Brazil itself, are at times inclined toward industrial and farm
protectionism. For example, Brazil has supported exceptions from tariff limits for “special products” in
developing countries confronted by a surge of imports. On the other hand, in 2008, Brazil broke from
Argentina, China, and India to endorse a proposal that would lower the ceiling on U.S. agricultural
subsidies in exchange for cuts to industrial tariffs.¶ ¶ The Task Force expects that near-term agreement
on the Doha Development Agenda is unlikely; in the meantime, Brazil— within the G20 and
independently— will likely continue to balance its free trade interests with its persistent desire to
elevate the influence and interests of developing nations within trade negotiations. This duality of
interests reflects the duality within Brazil as both a developed and developing country.
food insecurity*
Solves food security
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
In the coming years, Brazil will play a fundamental role in ensuring international food security .
Pastureland covers nearly a quarter of the country, and 150 million acres of arable land remain
uncultivated, promising enormous potential for increasing agricultural production in a nation that is
already the world’s fourth-largest food exporter. Brazil is the largest producer of sugar cane, coffee, and
beef. Although China and India lead Brazil in wheat, rice, and corn production, Brazil's agricultural GDP
growth between 2000 and 2007 surpassed that of both countries, as well as the global average. In
unequal Brazil, however, abundance and deprivation coexist. The Zero Hunger program, which began in
2003, and other initiatives have decreased the number of people who suffer from hunger by 28 percent.
This progress, along with Brazil's technological success in adapting mass agricultural production to
tropical conditions, has made Brazil a reference point and model for food security programs in Africa
and Latin America.
laundry list
It solves Doha talks, warming, Amazon deforestation, AIDs, South American stability, and IsraelPalestine conflict
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
OUTWARD BOUND¶ Until the end of the twentieth century, Brazilian foreign policy was based on four
primary directives: protect the country's vast territorial holdings, consolidate and strengthen its
republic, avoid or settle all conflicts with its neighbors, and maintain a distant but cordial relationship
with the United States. A founding member of the League of Nations and the un, Brazil sent troops to
fight with the Allies in World War II, but it never aspired to lead Latin America. During the period of
military rule in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Brazil successfully projected itself as both a leading
nonaligned country and an occasional but never intimate partner of the United States.¶ In the 1990s,
Brazil evolved from its traditional reclusiveness. The country's success on the home front, together with
radical shifts in global politics and economics, has generated a new story line-one that crystallized under
the Lula administration-that Brazilians invoke to explain the country's near ubiquity on the global stage.
This new narrative recalls the manifest destiny of nineteenth century America, with a Brazilian twist.¶
With neither blood spilled nor territory annexed, Brazil consolidated a multiethnic and multiracial
democracy, stabilized a strong market economy, and lifted millions into a growing middle class.
Brazilians of all stripes argue that by virtue of these accomplishments, Brazil is entitled to be seen as a
global power and to act as one.¶ An increasingly confident Brazil has undertaken an ambitious and farflung foreign policy agenda. This quest has included efforts to secure a seat on an expanded UN Security
Council, to organize major and minor developing countries into a stronger coalition within the Doha
trade talks , and, more recently to expand voting rights for itself and others at the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.¶ Brazil also has a powerful voice in climate change negotiations . The
country has an exceptionally clean energy matrix and contains approximately 60 percent of the
Amazon rain forest within its borders. At the same time, Brazil's deforestation is a significant
contributor of greenhouse gases. Brazil is a champion of affordable access to HIV/AIDs medications for
the poor and has led the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti since 2004. After last year's earthquake in
Haiti killed 21 Brazilians, the highest loss for Brazilian troops abroad since World War II, Brazil made a
$19 million contribution to the UN, announced a $205 million relief plan for Haiti, and committed an
additional 1,300 rescue workers. Likewise, Brazilian troops are part of the UN missions in Liberia, the
Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, and East Timor, among other current peacekeeping operations.
That said, with commercial and diplomatic interests in mind, Brazil has largely stayed silent on crises in
Myanmar (also called Burma), Sudan, and Zimbabwe.¶ Notwithstanding its BRIC brotherhood, Brazil is
alert to the double-edged sword represented by China's market power and resource grab. China is now
Brazil's largest source of foreign investment-in ports, rail, reactors, iron, steel, and oil. China has become
Brazil's largest export market for soy, oil, and iron and its biggest competitor when it comes to
manufactured goods and resources in Africa. After years of remaining silent, this year Brazil joined with
the other G-20 countries, including India, Russia, and the United States, to call for China to let its
currency float.¶ Under Lula, Brazil championed a SouthSouth agenda in its near and far abroad. Along
these lines, the country promoted pan-ideological South American integration and began forging a
loose coalition and dialogue with India and South Africa. Brazil has made major investments in Africa,
especially in Portuguese-speaking nations and other resource-rich countries. And the Brazilian Foreign
Ministry has opened 16 new embassies across the continent in as many years. The Lula government
drew on Brazil's economic strength and diverse population-the country is home to approximately ten
million Brazilians of Middle Eastern descent-to justify a number of high-profile and commercially driven
presidential visits to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan. Lula touted Brazil's potential as a neutral
interlocutor in negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians . With no evident diplomatic
results to show for the trips, the visits seemed a commercial exercise above all.
Brazilian leader key to global cooperation, energy and agriculture
White, 10 – PhD in Political Studies from the University of Cape Town, independent researcher and
consultant specialising in political economy issues in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Gordon Institute of
Business Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa (Lyal, “Understanding Brazil’s new drive for Africa,”
South African Journal of International Affairs,
http://www.tandfonline.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2010.494345#.Uc345zsqZsk
)//HAL
The rise of Brazil as an emerging power Long described as ‘the country of the future — and always will
be’, 16 Brazil’s astonishing ascent in the last decade has silenced its critics who doubted it would ever
realise its true potential. Such potential, based on the country’s vast territory, population and economic
size and dominance in South America and its array of natural resources, has eluded Brazil since the
country was first vaunted as an emerging power in the 1950s. Instead, the promise of a prosperous
future was replaced by political instability and successive economic failures that culminated in a myriad
of social problems that made Brazil one of the most violent and unequal countries in the world
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Economic stagnation in the 1980s — known as the ‘lost decade’ — and
lack-lustre performance in the 1990s further deepened inequality and poverty levels. In the early 1990s
inflation stood at approximately 70% per month, which marked the peak of a 40 year period where
inflation outpaced annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth.17 In recent years the story of Brazil has
changed. Since 2000 sustained economic growth and falling social inequality has — for the first time in
decades — followed Brazilian political stability, which was entrenched in the mid-1990s by former
president Fernando Hernique Cardoso. Between 2003 and 2008 Brazil enjoyed its best economic
performance in more than 25 years, with economic growth averaging 5% per annum. Foreign
investment reached record levels of $45 billion in 2008 and a favourable trade balance, with exports
exceeding $700 billion, is driving Brazil’s export-led growth.18 All this has translated into greater global
influence, projecting the Brazilian voice beyond Latin America and the traditional developing South into
a new league of leading global powers alongside China, India and the United States. After years of
underperformance and dashed expectations, Brazil, it seems, has finally arrived. Brazil’s emergence and
recent economic success can be attributed to a fortuitous combination of factors and events. These
include political leadership and appropriate succession; the sequencing of tough reforms dating back to
the early 1990s; well formulated and executed social policies; the commodity boom; and a favourable
international environment. On top of this, new oil deposits were discovered off the coast of Rio de
Janeiro which, once exploited, will convert Brazil from a net importer to a net exporter of oil. Brazil is
scheduled also to host the world’s two largest sporting events, the International Football Federation
(Fifa) World Cup football finals in 2014, and the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. All this has
injected a wave of optimism and enthusiasm in Brazil, which has instilled a new sense of confidence and
global leadership in the country. Brazil finally seems to be embracing its role as a global player that
extends well beyond Latin America and conventional multilateral actions, engaging directly on a
political, commercial and developmental level in regions across the globe.19 Brazil’s global emergence
has been characterised by not only a rise in inward investment flows, but also an increase in outward
investment (predominantly in the developing world) and with that a provider of development
assistance. In 2006 outward bound foreign direct investment (FDI) flows for the first time matched
inbound FDI. In that year inbound FDI stock reached in excess of $328.5 billion, while outbound FDI
stock totalled $129.8 billion, which is exceptionally high considering Brazilian investors are still relatively
new players in foreign markets. It is also indicative of Brazil’s coming of age.20 It is this new found
outward orientation of the Brazilian economy that distinguishes Brazil’s rise, as well as the excitement
around its economic potential, from past ‘miracle periods’. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, for
instance, Brazil enjoyed a 10% annual economic growth for seven consecutive years. This figure
constituted one of the world’s highest growth rates of that time. It is true that agricultural exports
boomed during this period, but a lack of product and market diversity made it extremely vulnerable to
both internal and external shocks, and Brazil soon fell victim to economic crises in the early 1980s.
Today Brazil is no longer simply exporting commodities. True, Brazil’s commodity mix — from soy beans,
beef and orange juice to iron ore — has been a fundamental contributor to its recent wealth
accumulation, as booming markets from the United States to China demand food and raw materials. But
it is more the choice of policies and the sequencing of long term structural reforms (which have finally
settled after a long period of adjustment) that have enabled Brazil to capitalise on the commodity boom,
while other countries — like South Africa — have not.21 This is what distinguishes Brazil from other
commodity exporters. The Brookings Institute, in a recent publication, describes Brazil as ‘reaping the
benefits of its legacy of policies’. 22 Ironically, it has been those very same protectionist policies from
the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that were designed to make Brazil self-sufficient and to empower the state
through a large and controlling public sector that have created internationally competitive and
technologically superior Brazilian multinational corporations (MNCs) and development agencies today.
In the 1990s, before Brazil’s privatisation drive, 38 of Brazils 100 largest firms were still government
owned. Government-controlled Petrobras is still widely regarded as the largest company headquartered
in the southern hemisphere.23 While a large body of literature24 describes the state-led development
policies adopted by Brazil decades ago as ‘costly and counterproductive’, the legacy of these policies is
paradoxically, it seems, the foundation for Brazil’s outward-looking business and political leaders. These
policies helped develop a competitive advantage in sectors like agribusiness, biofuels (bioethanol in
particular) and resource extraction, the underlying services and expertise for development of which are
now being exported around the world. Such prolonged autonomy from international markets in Brazil
also helped develop skilled technocrats, bureaucrats and systems geared toward innovative social
programmes and broad-based development. Lessons in social development (especially in areas such as
HIV/AIDS awareness) have long been instructive for African countries. But certain programmes around
conditional cash transfers, incentivebased education, commercial farming and renewable energy (to
name a few) are now actively being exported to African countries in what Brazilians call a transfer of
‘social technology’. 25 This is a dimension of Brazilian internationalisation that transcends various
sectors relevant to both social and commercial development, and which has become an important
component of Brazilian foreign policy in both Latin America and Africa. This dimension receives further
attention below. Ultimately, Brazil’s protectionist policies from the 1960s to 1980s have unintentionally
given it a competitive advantage in a range of commercial and social sectors particularly relevant in the
developing world. This has not only helped position it more steadfastly as an emerging power, but has
provided tangible areas of foreign engagement beyond traditional trade and political relations, revealing
new drivers of Brazilian foreign policy in the form of investment, development cooperation, technology
transfer, energy and agriculture — all of which are interconnected and relevant to Africa.
Brazil soft power is key to African economic and renewables development – solves
agriculture, economy, warming (need card that says African renewables are key to
solve), and AIDs
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
Brazil’s Rising Role in Africa Brazil is the latest among the BRICS to make a strategic play to advance its
global legitimacy and status through diversified market channels and diplomatic ties in Africa. Under
Lula’s leadership, Brazil conferred considerable weight to prioritizing Brazil’s Africa relations. Framed
within Brazil’s South-South agenda, Lula made eleven official visits to the continent, traveling to twentyfive countries— more than any other Brazilian president or BRIC head of state. In the first part of this
century, Brazil has doubled the number of its embassies in Africa to thirty four, pushing beyond its
traditional sphere of influence in the former Portuguese colonies. Boosting relations within Africa’s fiftythree member bloc at the UN has long carried currency in Brazil’s bid for a permanent seat in an
expanded Security Council. With the world’s largest population of people of African descent, Brazil is
strategically leveraging its deep historical, linguistic, and cultural affiliations to forge economic and
political inroads. On several of his visits to the continent, Lula issued apologies for Brazil’s role in the
African slave trade. Although largely overshadowed by China’s high-profile push into Africa, there is now
a new level of interconnection between Africa and Brazil, one that the Rousseff administration is intent
on deepening. Trade between Brazil and Africa has grown to approximately $26 billion in 2008, up from
just $3 billion in 2001, making Brazil Africa’s tenth largest trading partner. Whereas China’s economic
footprint is more widespread across the continent, Brazil’s activity is largely concentrated in the
extractive industries, such as oil and mining, and a few major trading partners: Nigeria, Angola, Algeria,
South Africa, and Libya, which together account for 77 percent of Brazil’s trade with Africa. Brazilian
multinational companies are steadily acquiring presence in Africa and have been successful in
connecting to and involving local communities, making a concerted effort to build capacity. For instance,
Odebrecht has operated in Angola since 1975; today it is the largest private-sector employer in the
country, with ventures spanning food and ethanol production, offices, factories, and supermarkets.
Petrobras and Vale are at the vanguard of Africa’s repositioning as the next frontier for the development
of natural resources and infrastructure. In line with its efforts to boost worldwide biofuels demand,
Brazil is a pivotal actor in the expansion of biofuels initiatives in Africa. Synergy has been notable
between the Brazilian private sector and development agencies like BNDES and ABC (Brazil’s USAID
equivalent) in promoting biofuels and technology development in Africa. Brazil has drawn upon its
expertise in renewable energy to assist Africa in filling its knowledge gap. African partners also benefit
from Brazil’s knowledge sharing and technical assistance, particularly with respect to tropical
agricultural technology. Brazil has invested more than $4 billion in Africa’s agriculture sector over the
past five years to develop production capacity. In a landmark agreement, Embrapa opened a satellite
regional office in Ghana to deepen research collaboration and strengthen its advisory role throughout
the continent. Through the transfer of technology, skills training, research and development, and the
infusion of capital, Brazil is breaking fresh ground in constructing a new development paradigm. For
example, the Africa-Brazil Cooperation Programme on Social Protection, launched in 2009, creates a
platform for Brazilian experts to work with their African counterparts in facilitating exchange on various
social development policies, such as Bolsa Familia and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment initiatives.
Brazil is also active within a number of multilateral organizations— the Summit of the Community of
Portuguese Speaking Countries, the World Social Forum, the WTO, the IBSA Dialogue Forum, and the
Africa-South America Summit— to advocate for sustainable development in Africa.
Brazil soft power effective —US heg not needed
Armijo, 7 – Armijo is an independent research professional at Portland State University and holds a
Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Political Science (Leslie Elliott, “THE BRICS COUNTRIES (BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA,
AND CHINA) AS ANALYTICAL CATEGORY: MIRAGE OR INSIGHT?” ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 31, No. 4,
2007, pp. 7-42, http://relooney.info/0_NS4053_948.pdf)//HAL
A liberal institutionalist also would ask what India and Brazil might want from global governance.
Democratic peace theory predicts greater mutual trust between state dyads in which both countries are
democracies. India and Brazil should be skilled at peaceful interstate cooperation for the same reasons
that the United States, France, or Japan are skilled. The commitments of politicians are relatively
credible, since abrupt shifts in policy will be difficult to explain to voters. Moreover, both India and Brazil
have demonstrated considerable soft power, or attractive and persuasive international capabilities. For
example, India was a leader in both the Non-Aligned Movement of the 1950s through the 1970s and the
New International Economic Order of the 1970s and early 1980s, each of which might have found
greater long-run success had more of their members been democracies like India. More recently, Brazil
and Argentina have improved their relations dramatically since both have democratized. If some
democracies that are major powers (the European members of today’s G-7) are substituted for by other
newly powerful democracies (such as India and Brazil), then we may expect global governance
institutions, overarching liberal values, and processes to remain much the same. Nonetheless, some of
the content of global governance initiatives could shift in response to weightier participation from
developing country democracies. Like France or Britain, India and Brazil should value human rights, labor
rights, and a free press. But leaders of India and Brazil may view global redistribution more favorably
than leaders of the wealthy democracies. For example, climate change is an issue on which both Brazil
and India have implemented domestic reforms and could be global leaders, but the substance of their
leadership could make today’s G-7 uncomfortable. Both democratic BRICs will side with other
developing countries in demanding much greater conservation efforts from the United States, Japan,
and the European Union, rather than from countries whose peak industrial push remains ahead of them.
Indian and Brazilian politicians and nongovernmental organization (NGO) activists also have been active
in South-South diplomacy. Both countries have played host to the World Social Forum (WSF), the antiDavos meeting, the original idea for which came from a Brazilian businessman and social activist, Oded
Grajew.54 Anti-AIDs activists in the two countries have begun transnational collaborations, sharing ideas
and pressuring their governments to insist on their rights to manufacture generic versions of expensive
pharmaceuticals developed in the wealthy democracies. In 2003 Brazil joined India and South Africa in
issuing the Brasilia Declaration, which announced the three democracies’ intent to negotiate jointly
within the WTO. This core became the Group of 20 (G-20, also known as the G-22) developing countries.
They came to world attention during the Cancun ministerial meeting of the WTO by its refusal to
negotiate over liberalizing the regulation of inward foreign direct investment until the advanced
industrial countries committed to substantial agricultural trade liberalization.55 What is particularly
interesting in the Brazil-India-South Africa cooperation is that the three have been able to cooperate
despite their lack of closely parallel interests in agricultural and other commodity trade. Contrast this
with the utter inability of developing, debtor countries in Latin America and elsewhere to form a united
front vis-à-vis creditor country banks and governments in the 1980s, a period when many were either
autocracies or very new and fragile democracies. This section thus has argued that a liberal
institutionalist framing leads us to ask the most interesting questions about how and why a substitution
of countries within the set of major powers might alter global politics. However, at the same time, the
concept of “the BRICs” as a single useful analytical set is shattered. Instead, what appears to be most
significant is whether the large emerging powers, whichever they may be, can be socialized into the
hitherto cozy club of large industrial democracies. These democracies, dominated by the United States,
have more or less cooperatively managed the interlocking global governance regimes since the last
world war.56 If the large emerging powers become both status-quo powers, interested in preserving
existing global governance institutions, and more or less open, liberal societies, then the world may not
miss U.S. hegemony all that much. If not, then the maintenance of mutually beneficial, yet purely
voluntary, interstate cooperation founded on reciprocal trust becomes significantly more problematic.
israel conflict
Brazilian power key to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict
Datz and Peters, 13 – Giselle Datz is an Assistant Professor of Government and International Affairs at
the School of Public and International Affairs, Joel Peters is
Professor of Government and International Affairs at the School of Public and International
Affairs, Virginia Tech (“Brazil and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict in the New Century: Between Ambition,
Idealism, and Pragmatism,” Israel Journal of foreign Affairs VII : 2 (2013)
http://israelcfr.com/documents/7-2/7-2-5-GiselleDatz-and-JoelPeters.pdf)//HAL
Brazil’s approach to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has remained true to the course set by President
Lula. Brazil under Dilma Rousseff has continued to be a strong and vocal advocate of Palestinian
statehood. Shortly before the November 29, 2012 vote on Palestinian membership in the United
Nations, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota visited Israel and the Palestinian territories, where
he reaffirmed Brazil’s willingness to help mediate a resolution to the conflict. At home, in December
2012, Brazil hosted the Forum Social Palestina Livre [World Social Forum for a Free Palestine], a
gathering of political activists, civil society groups, and transnational networks organized by supporters
of the ruling Workers’ Party. Brazil’s promotion of the Palestinian cause serves its interests at home and
overseas. Domestically, it speaks to the idealism and principles of the Workers Party, which has held
power since 2003. Abroad, it offers Brazil greater visibility, not only reflecting its ambitions of becoming
a global player, but also forming a central element in Brazil’s efforts in challenging American
dominance, and in promoting multilateralism to address and resolve global issues, thereby increasing
the relevance of new emergent powers. But if we are witnessing the emergence of a “post-American”
global order, then Brazil’s engagement with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict also reveals that
pragmatism and self-interest will feature prominently in the approach of “new” powers to the
resolution of global conflicts. Brazil has sought to strengthen its relations with Israel. For all its support
of the Palestinian cause, Brazil sees Israeli investment, its high-tech sector, and the procurement of
Israeli technology and advanced weapons as critical in the continued modernization of its economy and
the development of its military exports. This sense of pragmatism and realpolitik has also guided Israel’s
approach to Brazil. Recognizing Brazil’s importance as an economic actor and emerging global power,
and its potential as a market for its military exports, and aware that it has little chance of affecting
Brazil’s position, Israel has chosen to overlook its rhetoric on the conflict and work with Brazil, not
against it. Indeed, Brazilian–Israeli relations have never been stronger. Since Rousseff came to power
two years ago, five Israeli ministers have visited Brazil. Trade between the two countries has continued
to flourish and Israeli military and security companies have deepened their presence in the growing
Brazilian homeland security and defense markets. In April 2012, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, one
of Israel’s leading defense contractors, acquired a 40-percent stake in the Brazilian aerospace company
GESPI Aeronautics, and that summer the commander of the Brazilian air force paid a visit to Israel to
discuss areas of future cooperation. At least until the end of Rousseff’s term in office (2015), we are
likely to see the pattern of Brazil’s engagement with Israel and the Palestinians remain one that meshes
ambition, idealism, and pragmatism in a more assertive foreign policy agenda that, for all its normative
flavor, is ultimately grounded in material self interest. In that respect, it is a pattern of foreign policy
behavior that is not too dissimilar to that of other emerging powers.
Even without escalation, Middle East nuclear war guarantees extinction
Hoffman, 6 (Ian Hoffman, Staff Writer, December 12, 2006, “Nuclear Winter Looms, experts say”,
MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers)
SAN FRANCISCO -- With superpower nuclear arsenals plummeting to a third of 1980s levels and
slated to drop by another third, the nightmarish visions of nuclear winter offered by scientists during
the Cold War have receded. But they haven't gone away. Researchers at the American Geophysical
Union's annual meeting warned Monday that even a small regional nuclear war could burn enough
cities to shroud the globe in black smoky shadow and usher in the manmade equivalent of the Little
Ice Age. "Nuclear weapons represent the greatest single human threat to the planet, much more so
than global warming," said Rutgers University atmospheric scientist Alan Robock. By dropping
imaginary Hiroshima-sized bombs into some of the world's biggest cities, now swelled to tens of
millions in population, University of Colorado researcher O. Brian Toon and colleagues found they
could generate 100 times the fatalities and 100 times the climate-chilling smoke per kiloton of
explosive power as all-out nuclear war between the United States and former Soviet Union. For
most modern nuclear-war scenarios, the global impact isn't nuclear winter, the notion of smoke from
incinerated cities blotting out the sun for years and starving most of the Earth's people. It's not even
nuclear autumn, but rather an instant nuclear chill over most of the planet, accompanied by massive
ozone loss and warming at the poles. That's what scientists' computer simulations suggest would
happen if nuclear war broke out in a hot spot such as the Middle East, the North Korean peninsula or,
the most modeled case, in Southeast Asia. Unlike in the Cold War, when the United States and Russia
mostly targeted each other's nuclear, military and strategic industrial sites, young nuclear-armed
nations have fewer weapons and might go for maximum effect by using them on cities, as the United
States did in 1945. "We're at a perilous crossroads," Toon said. The spread of nuclear weapons
worldwide combined with global migration into dense megacities form what he called "perhaps the
greatest danger to the stability of society since the dawn of humanity." More than 20 years ago,
researchers imagined a U.S.-Soviet nuclear holocaust would wreak havoc on the planet's climate.
They showed the problem was potentially worse than feared: Massive urban fires would flush
hundreds of millions of tons of black soot skyward, where -- heated by sunlight -- it would soar higher
into the stratosphere and begin cooking off the protective ozone layer around the Earth. Huge losses
of ozone would open the planet and its inhabitants to damaging radiation, while the warm soot
would spread a pall sufficient to plunge the Earth into freezing year-round. The hundreds of millions
who would starve exceeded those who would die in the initial blasts and radiation. Popularized by
astronomer Carl Sagan and Nobel prize winners, the idea of nuclear winter captured the public
imagination, though nuclear-weapons scientists found nuclear winter was virtually impossible to
achieve in their own computer models without dropping H-bombs on nearly every major city.
Scientists on Monday say nuclear winter still is possible, by detonating every nation's entire nuclear
arsenals. The effects are striking and last five times or longer than the cooling effects of the biggest
volcanic eruptions in recent history, according to Rutgers' Robock.
smoking
Brazil regional leadership is key to solve smoking
Lee, Chagas, and Novotny, 10 (Kelley Lee, Luiz Carlos Chagas, and Thomas E. Novotny, 10 – (1) Centre
on Global Change and Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom,
(2) Independent Researcher – Public Health and Trade Policies, London, United Kingdom, (3) Graduate
School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America
(Brazil and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Global Health Diplomacy as Soft Power,”
April 20, 2010,
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.
1000232&representation=PDF)//HAL
Brazilian Tobacco Control Policy as an Exemplar Brazilian leadership was critical to the successful
conclusion of the FCTC negotiations in 2003. Following the establishment of a model national tobacco
control program, Brazilian medical doctor and former coordinator of the National Tobacco Control
Programme, Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, was recruited to lead WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI), and
Brazilian diplomats were appointed to chair the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) for the FCTC.
A fuller understanding of Brazil’s contribution to the FCTC process may provide lessons about the
conduct of global health diplomacy in other contexts. Brazil’s National Tobacco Control Programme
implemented many innovations: Brazil was the second country (after Canada) to adopt graphic warnings
on cigarette packages, the first to create a body to regulate tobacco contents and emissions, and the
first to ban the use of ‘‘light’’ and ‘‘mild’’ terms in describing tobacco products. According to an
interview with Tania Cavalcante, Executive Secretary of the National Inter-ministerial Commission to
Implement the FCTC, Brazil promoted these advances in many INB negotiation sessions, and encouraged
other countries to support them as treaty elements. Importantly, Brazil’s status as one of the biggest
producers and exporters of tobacco, while at the same time achieving high visibility in tobacco control,
provided additional credibility for its leadership role in the FCTC negotiations [13]. As diplomat Frederico
Duque Estrada Meyer, former assistant to Ambassadors Celso Nunes Amorim and Luiz Felipe de Seixas
Correa , put it, ‘‘Some countries have restrictive anti-smoking policies like Brazil, but are not producers.
Others, are big producers but with a very liberal tobacco policy….we were leading on both sides….we
represented both conflicting interests.’’ In our interviews, the Brazilian former Director of the TFI, Vera
Luiza da Costa e Silva, further emphasized this complex negotiating position: To be a big producer, a big
exporter with a strong and influential industry, and a big consumer market for tobacco products, with
pressures in the domestic market generated by allies of a powerful industry, Brazil actively supported all
the WHO resolutions that led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body. To be a
country subject to all these factors and also able to implement tobacco control, we were talking at that
time of being a model for other countries, mainly for developing countries. We were sending a message
that, under any circumstances, a government committed to this priority, despite the weight of other
factors, could still have one of the best tobacco control programs in the world and support and adopt a
treaty on tobacco control. (Translated from Portuguese) Coalition Diplomacy: Bringing Together Public
Health and Foreign Policy Brazil’s ability to grapple with the diversity of interests at the national level,
including a powerful tobacco industry, began with the establishment of the Inter-Ministerial National
Commission on the Control of Tobacco Use in 1999. Backed by the highest levels of government, the
Commission was a consultative body to determine the official government position on the FCTC
negotiations. Importantly, nine ministries were represented on the Commission, including Inland
Revenue, Trade and Development, and Agriculture [14–15]. This commission, including all pertinent
stakeholders, ensured that tobacco control was embodied in consistent policies throughout government
and not only as a health ministry issue. The close involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in
particular, backed by the highest levels of government, ensured a clear and unified endorsement of
health goals within Brazilian foreign policy: The participation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Geneva
clearly signaled, largely to tobacco industry representatives, that the Government was cohesive in its
position against smoking. The Government’s stance dispelled any doubt that the negotiations could only
be about health interests. (Translated from Portuguese) [Interview with Ambassador Santiago Alcazar,
former Manager of Social Issues Unit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs] This was an approach that protected
governmental negotiation positions from the vested interests of the tobacco industry, and it can be
considered one strategy for the implementation of Article 5.3 of the FCTC on the protection of public
health policies with respect to tobacco control from commercial and other vested interests. Once
negotiations commenced, the government extended coalition building to civil society organizations
(CSOs), which, through participation in health councils at the federal, state, and municipal levels,
mobilised to implement tobacco control interventions [13]. Their role proved particularly critical in
supporting its subsequent ratification by the Brazilian Senate after the signing of the FCTC by the Chief
Executive. The need to build a broad domestic coalition on tobacco control across government, civil
society, and the public health community was heightened by the industry’s own strategic lobbying of
related economic interests to help it oppose stronger binding obligations of the FCTC. As described in an
internal document of British American Tobacco (BAT), released to the public in the 1990s as a result of
US litigation [16]: [W]e know how the FCTC will be negotiated and we know what countries will be
involved. All end markets have been alerted and key political and legal arguments have been
distributed….British American Tobacco’s response to date has consisted of attempting to engage in
dialogue with the WHO, running a lobbying campaign based on legal and political arguments designed to
preserve adults freedom to smoke, maintain our ability to trade freely and to raise awareness of the
FCTC’s implications among finance, trade, agriculture and employment ministers around the world. We
have had some success in some countries but it is by no means complete. [17] Brazil is cited by the
industry as among the key countries where such a strategic approach was needed. Faced with this
industry threat, Brazil then extended its coalition building to the regional and global levels. In addition to
formal FCTC negotiations, informal meetings were held, according to Calvacante, as ‘‘a strategy adopted
by chairs of different working subgroups when there was an impasse and consensus could not be
reached.’’ Brazil played an active part in many of these meetings, especially at the regional level, she
said: ‘‘The objective was to start sowing regional consensus before the INB negotiations to speed up the
process. We organised the first meeting for the Americas region.’’. At the same time, CSO activity was
organised through the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), a worldwide coalition of nongovernmental
organizations and interested parties, which played an important contributory role in FCTC negotiations,
ratification, and implementation [18]. As Alcazar writes, ‘‘[d]ifferent groups in civil society come
together as an interested party in the process of implementing an international treaty. It is as if civil
society, as an interested party—and certainly an unstructured one—becomes a player on the
international stage’’ [13]. Brazilian Leadership in Global Negotiations A strategically important decision
by the WHO TFI was the appointment of Celso Nunes Amorim, then Brazil’s Permanent Representative
to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, as INB Chair. Amorim was
recognised as a skilled and experienced diplomat, particularly during his tenure as negotiator in UN talks
on disarmament, trade, and security. The US delegation described him as ‘‘a steady hand and [providing]
good leadership’’ [19]. When Amorim became Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2002, he was
succeeded as INB Chair by another experienced diplomat, Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa. Along with skilful
diplomats, Brazil was enabled by the strong support of the Minister of Health, Jose´ Serra, who
recognized that the international negotiating process had direct effects on Brazilian national tobacco
control efforts and public health, according to Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva. As an emerging economy,
Brazilian support for the FCTC was important for countering industry-led arguments that tobacco control
was a ‘‘first world issue.’’ Despite epidemiological evidence to the contrary [20], the industry claimed
that the first world, Anglo-Saxon and English speaking political economies, ... are fuelling the debate and
in many cases driving the political agenda within the WHO. Most third world countries have other
priorities but are not able to resist the pace, drive and political dynamics which are moving the FCTC
forward. [21] To counter such claims, the TFI sought to build support within the developing world. The
six deputy chairs of the INB to lead specific working groups—the US, Australia, Iran, India, South Africa,
and Turkey—were carefully selected to ensure both developed and developing country representation
and to encourage regional activism. The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), formed in
2001, played a similar role. In Latin America, regional meetings were held to build consensus within such
groups as the Group of Latin America and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) and Mercosur (Mercado
Comu´n del Sur): Group meetings of this nature happen regularly in Geneva and are opportunities to
discuss a diversity of themes, which are discussed in a diplomatic context. As Brazil was chairing the
treaty negotiations, it had a privileged forum to amplify the relevance and importance of what the WHO
was proposing. (Translated from Portuguese) [Interview with Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva] Brazil then
used its diplomatic channels to build linkages across regions: They not only performed their role during
the meetings, but also took advantage of meetings with representatives of other countries and regions
at their respective permanent missions in Geneva to disseminate information about the contents and
scope of the treaty, especially about the necessity of countries to give priority to this public health
subject in parallel with the ‘‘great star’’ in the city which was the World Trade Organization. (Translated
from Portuguese) [Interview with Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva] The result of this effort was effective
expanded participation by developing countries in the negotiations: Those developing countries, which
were under assault by massive tobacco industry marketing and political pressure campaigns, have
fought back in Geneva, and the strengthening of the treaty during this last round of negotiations is a
tribute to their courage and persistence in resisting the efforts by the United States, Germany and Japan
to weaken the treaty and water down crucial clauses. Developing countries formed a strong alliance
with NGOs and championed our positions during the negotiations. [22] Conclusions Brazil’s leadership in
global health diplomacy must be understood as part of the country’s political and economic ascendance
in international relations. As the world’s tenth largest economy, and an integrated member of the world
trading system, the country’s influence over a wide range of global health issues is likely to grow in
coming decades. Brazil has recognised that traditional practices of hard power can be inappropriate in a
globalized world. Its understanding of soft power, in the form of normative leadership and the use of
‘‘opinion-shaping instruments’’ [23], suggests that a new kind of diplomacy is emerging to achieve
collective action on shared challenges such as global health. Through its principled stance on ARVs, and
its domestic commitment to strong and effective tobacco control, Brazil has earned widespread
credibility as a diplomatic leader. This, in turn, has helped to reinforce domestic policy on tobacco
control. Brazil’s remarkable example also suggests that engagement in health diplomacy is increasingly
seen as a core component of what it means to be a global citizen [24].
Smoking will kill a billion people
Pentz and Berg, 10 - Rebecca D., Ph.D., Emory University School of Medicine, AND Carla J., Ph.D.
Department of Behavioral Sciences & Health Education, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
(“Smoking and Ethics: What Are the Duties of Oncologists?” August 24th, 2010, The
Oncologist September 2010 vol. 15 no. 9 987-993, Google Scholar)//HAL
THE TOBACCO EPIDEMIC The World Health Organization (WHO)’s 2009 report on the world’s tobacco
epidemic continues the alarming story, now much too familiar. In the last century, tobacco killed one
hundred million people, and without intervention, it will kill one billion in this century. Tobacco-related
deaths kill more people than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria together. China alone has 320 million
smokers and is the major cigarette consumer in the world, accounting for 37% of demand [1]. Today,
70% of tobacco-related deaths occur in under-resourced countries, and this percentage will rise to 80%
by 2030 [2]. Northern Africa, Western Asia, Southeast Asia, and South and Central America are predicted
to have a 75%–100% increase in cancer deaths from 2000 to 2020 if the widespread use of tobacco
continues at the current rate and if infections like the human papillomavirus and hepatitis B and C are
not contained [3]. And there is no sign that tobacco consumption is declining in the under-resourced
world; this year, the under-resourced world will consume 71% of all tobacco products [4]. Tobacco is not
just killing smokers. About 200,000 workers die each year because of smoke-filled workplaces. Half of
the countries in the world, representing two thirds of the world’s population, allow smoking in the
workplace [4]. Inhaling secondhand smoke increases the risk for lung cancer in nonsmokers by 30% [5].
Nearly half the world’s children—700 million— breathe tobacco smoke, often in their own homes.
Furthermore, adolescents who grow up in smoking homes are more likely to smoke themselves [6, 7]. In
short, “Tobacco use is the most preventable cause of death. Halving tobacco consumption now would
prevent 20 –30 million people from dying before 2025 and 170 –180 million people from dying before
2050 from all tobaccorelated diseases including cancer” [3]
prolif
Brazilian influence is uniquely key to solve nuclear proliferation
Rothkopf, 12 (David, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, chair of the
Carnegie Economic Strategy Roundtable, President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, Editor-at-Large of
Foreign Policy, “Brazil's New Swagger,” Foreign Policy, 2/28/12,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/28/brazil_s_new_swagger)
Nonetheless, after over a year in office, despite facing great domestic and international challenges,
Rousseff has already earned a higher popularity rating than did Lula at a similar point in his tenure. And
Patriota is quietly and, in the eyes of close observers, with great deftness, building on Amorim's
groundbreaking work to establish Brazil as a leader among the world's major powers. "We have a great
advantage," notes Patriota. "We have no real enemies, no battles on our borders, no great historical or
contemporary rivals among the ranks of the other important powers … and long-standing ties with many
of the world's emerging and developed nations." This is a status enjoyed by none of the other BRICs -China, India, and Russia -- nor, for that matter, by any of the world's traditional major powers. This
unusual position is strengthened further by the fact that Brazil is not investing as heavily as other rising
powers in military capabilities. Indeed, as Tom Shannon, the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, has noted, the
country is one of the few to effectively stake its future on the wise application of soft power -diplomacy, economic leverage, common interests. It's surely no coincidence that, in areas from climate
change to trade, from nonproliferation to development, Brazil under Lula and Amorim and under
Rousseff and Patriota has been gaining strength by translating steady growth at home and active
diplomacy abroad into effective international networks.
Proliferation causes global nuclear war
Muller, 8 – director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt in Germany and a professor of
international relations at Frankfurt University [Harald, “The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an
Interdependent World,” Spring 08, The Washington Quarterly • 31:2 pp. 63–75]
A world populated by many nuclear-weapon states poses grave dangers. Regional conflicts could
escalate to the nuclear level. The optimistic expectation of a universal law according to which nuclear
deterrence prevents all wars15 rests on scant historical evidence and is dangerously naive. Nuclear
uses in one part of the world could trigger “catalytic war” between greater powers, drawing them
into smaller regional conflicts, particularly if tensions are high. This was always a fear during the Cold
War, and it motivated nonproliferation policy in the first place. Moreover, the more states that
possess nuclear weapons and related facilities, the more points of access are available to terrorists.
warming
US Unilateralism prevents Brazilian leadership that solves global warming
Hochstetler and Viola, 12 – CIGI Chair of Governance in the Americas in the Balsillie School of
International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, AND, PhD in
Political Science from the University of Sao Paulo, Full Professor at the Institute of International
Relations, University of Brasilia (Kathryn and Eduardo, “Brazil and the politics of climate change: beyond
the global commons,” July 24th, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.698884)//HAL
As normally understood, climate change is a classic ‘commons’ problem, which no individual actor can
solve. Since reducing emissions is costly, doing so unilaterally would mean accepting a comparatively
disadvantaged position with minimal benefit for the environment. Unilateral action to address climate
change is thus irrational, and an actor’s best option is to shirk, doing nothing while others address the
problem (Esty 1999, Sunstein 2007, pp. 2–3, Keohane and Victor 2011, p. 13). A state that wants to
address climate change should seek formal international cooperation, as it should want to see other
states bound by institutions that ‘help states achieve their objectives through reducing contracting
costs, providing focal points, enhancing information and therefore credibility, monitoring compliance,
and assisting in sanctioning deviant behavior’ (Keohane and Victor 2011, p. 8). For a decade, the largest
emitter, the United States, framed its unwillingness to sign onto a global climate protocol in these
terms, complaining that existing texts did not bind free-riding large emerging countries to reduce their
emissions (Engel and Saleska 2005, pp. 192–193, Roberts and Parks 2007). Now Brazil and South Africa
have pledged to reduce their emissions while China and India will lower their emissions intensity, but
the four have cooperated in resisting doing so in ways that bind them internationally, a stance which
makes it politically difficult for them to demand that from others (Dimitrov 2010). Given the costliness
of emissions reductions, these choices require explanation as they do not follow a commons logic. Our
analysis is guided by the work of a few authors who have suggested that the commons analogy does
not hold for some particularly large countries. Engel and Saleska use game theoretic analysis to
demonstrate that the classic commons model of climate change assumes a situation where participants
are approximately equal, while some emitters are actually large enough that they can affect outcomes
on their own or in small groupings. This gives them different interests, including ‘an incentive to reduce
emissions even in the absence of an international agreement’ (Engel and Saleska 2005, pp. 209, 205).
Mancur Olson’s classic work on ‘oligopolies’ in public goods provision concurs (Olson 1965). Large
emitters have often done less to reduce their climate impact than this incentive for unilateralism would
suggest, however. In such cases they appear to be responding to pressures from disadvantaged
domestic interest groups (Engel and Saleska 2005, p. 214). While large emitters may have particular
domestic benefits to gain from unilateral action, debate over such action inevitably opens the door to
questions about particular domestic costs. Thus domestic cost–benefit calculations determine the
behaviour of large emitters, a claim supported by the US experience (Sunstein 2007, p. 5). The
argument we develop here is that the choices of the emerging powers offer additional support for this
‘uncommon’ view of climate politics. In large emitters, we contend, debates about costs and benefits at
the domestic level are particularly important for determining the timing and extent of commitments to
reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means looking at an array of actors: ‘parties, social
classes, interest groups (both economic and noneconomic), legislators, and even public opinion and
elections, not simply executive officials and institutional arrangements’ (Putnam 1988, p. 432). We
therefore begin by examining the debate around climate action in Brazil. We trace its new willingness to
make voluntary commitments abroad primarily to changes at the nation-state level and below, finding
that Brazil’s negotiating positions responded to new national configurations of actors and preferences.
In broad terms, the new policies respond to a domestic coalition of ‘Baptists and bootleggers’
(DeSombre 2000, pp. 40–43) that emerged in the late 2000s, when principled actors found common
ground with self-interested ones to promote policy change. Once Brazil had decided to take action on
climate change, it still needed to decide how to engage in the international negotiations. Since 2009 it
has done so in coordination with other emerging powers in the BASIC coalition. The BASIC countries
stress their affinity with the G77 of developing countries, but they occupy an increasingly distinct
position, somewhere outside the North– South framing that has traditionally divided climate politics
(Roberts and Park 2007). In the second empirical section of our article, we discuss this uneasy alliance,
whose members’ domestically grounded positions on international action have brought points of both
coordination and conflict. As should be clear, we are not developing a general explanation of why
countries join international accords. Instead, we are making a specific argument about why a small set
of countries – unusual in their size, economic profile, political weight, and contribution to both a global
problem and its potential solution – have taken particular stances in negotiations over international
responses to climate change. For these emerging powers domestic political debates are especially
important for determining when they decide to take on commitments to action. After a brief survey of
global climate negotiations, we move to the case study of Brazil, and show how evolving domestic
positions led its politicians in 2009 to virtually simultaneously pass domestic climate legislation and
accept greater participation in global climate action. With all the BASIC countries reaching the point of
considering some possibility of global action after 2007, the following section on the BASIC coalition
shows how coordination with each other helped to establish just how those commitments would be
made internationally. Alternative explanations Our argument fits with past works that stress the
importance of domestic sources of international action, especially those that see a multiplicity of
actorsand interests in competition with each other to shape national foreign policies (e.g. Putnam 1988,
Moravcsik 1997). We do not address other potential explanations in detail, but several prominent
alternatives are difficult to reconcile with basic elements of the global climate negotiations. One major
set of explanations of international cooperation focuses on the role of hegemonic powers (e.g. Keohane
1984). These large and powerful countries are seen to compel international agreements through some
combination of coercion, side-payments, and leadership. In the climate regime, the obvious candidate
for hegemony, the United States, has yet to make its own treaty commitment to climate action: it
signed, but did not ratify, the Kyoto Protocol, and since withdrew from it. It has tried to insist on legal
obligations for the emerging powers, making that a condition of its own participation as early as 1997,
but has not been willing or able to compel them to join. Another set of internationally grounded
explanations of cooperation proposes that international cooperation may come as norms pass through
a tipping point when ‘a critical mass of relevant state actors adopt the norm’, setting off a ‘norm
cascade’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, p. 895). Not all norms pass through such a tipping point,
however, and the norm of taking on climate action obligations arguably has not. In fact, while the BASIC
countries began to take on voluntary climate action obligations after 2009, many of the most
committed norms holders – Europeans, environmental activists – saw them as actually abrogating the
most important elements of a global climate agreement, commitments to legally binding and verifiable
action (Dimitrov 2010). Finally, it is possible to interpret the outcomes of interest here as a two-level
game, where leaders make choices facing both domestic and international arenas (Putnam 1988).
Nonetheless, we retain our domestic focus since the domestic win-sets that would allow climate action
for these countries have been quite small and restrictive. We show for the Brazilian case that the
changes enlarging that win-set were primarily domestic (albeit sometimes in response to international
developments outside the formal negotiations) and briefly survey supporting evidence for the other
countries. The BASIC countries’ decreasing ability to find common win-sets even among the four after
2009 also endorses focusing on domestic constraints. Emerging powers in the historical global climate
regime complex The existing climate regime is fragmented, with weak interstate negotiations at the
core of a diverse set of activities, actors, and institutions (Engel and Saleska 2005, Depledge 2006,
Dimitrov 2010, Keohane and Victor 2011). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) of 1992 has just one protocol, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It sets emissions reduction
targets for the industrialised and post-Soviet (‘Annex 1’) countries, at levels that followed political
rather than environmental logics. The Kyoto Protocol follows the UNFCCC’s principle of ‘common but
differentiated responsibilities’, splitting the world into developed and developing parts. Since Kyoto, the
emerging powers have occupied an awkward position in this divide, and negotiations over post-Kyoto
arrangements have struggled over their role. At the start of international climate negotiations, China
and India of the BASIC countries already made significant aggregate contributions to global GHG
emissions. By 2010, the approximate shares of global climate emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and
nitrous oxide) had risen to a 24% share for China (6 tons of CO2 equivalent per capita), with India at 7%
(2 tons per capita), Brazil 4% (9 tons per capita), and South Africa 1.5% (12 tons per capita) (Viola
2010). Despite their emissions levels, no one would have identified the BASIC countries as ‘emerging
powers’ in 1990. All were undergoing political upheaval. Economically, their combined gross domestic
product (GDP) (PPP) was just 11% of the global total in 1992, although it doubled to 22% in 2009. Their
average GDP/capita is still just 73% of the global mean. Most of the gains came in the 2000s.1 Thus in
the initial decade of climate negotiations, their weight in global emissions was clearly offset by their
continuing status as poor economies. Correspondingly, the eventual emerging powers were
unconflicted about their position in the 1990s agreements: they were part of the developing world.
They insisted on Northern countries’ historic responsibility for GHG emissions and the North’s much
greater ability to address the problem (Roberts and Park 2007). The emerging powers continued to
negotiate alongside smaller and poorer countries in the G77/China bloc through most of the 2000s even
as they began to grow rapidly and garner attention. Until 2007, they were unwilling to make any
commitments internationally to reduce their emissions, and then only general commitments to the Bali
roadmap, which called for a second set of Kyoto-based obligations and some form of action by
countries not bound by the Kyoto Protocol (Friberg 2009, p. 399). The 2011 Durban agreement
reiterated this plan. It is still the case that no part of the existing global climate regime complex
requires the BASIC countries to limit their emissions of GHG, but they all specified public voluntary
commitments to do so at the end of 2009, and formally presented commitments to the United Nations
at the beginning of 2010 in response to the (unadopted) Copenhagen Accord.2 In Cancu´n in 2010,
these became officially recognised as ‘nationally appropriate mitigation actions’. Some 80 developed
and developing countries made similar commitments, including all the major emitters. There is a
unilateral quality to these commitments in that each country has simply announced its own voluntary
targets, chosen its own timeframe, and will undertake its own preferred means for achieving the target.
Brazil promised a set of actions to reduce 2020 emissions by 36.1–38.9% below what they would
otherwise have been, while South Africa promised a similar 34% reduction. China and India have
committed to reduce their emission intensity, with China aiming to lower its carbon dioxide emissions
per unit of GDP by 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2020, and India promising a drop of 20–25% in the
same time frame. In Cancu´n, they agreed to the possibility of monitoring, oversight, and verification as
well as international consultation and analysis, although the details still have to be negotiated. In the
next section, we trace the changes that pushed Brazil to make its unprecedented commitment to
climate action. Baptists and bootleggers: the domestic politics of climate policy in Brazil Brazil occupies
a unique position in the global carbon cycle. Unlike its fellow BASIC countries, carbon emissions from
the modern sector of the economy – industry, energy, and transportation – are already quite low in
Brazil. An energy sector strongly grounded in renewable energies like hydropower and biofuels
accounts for this outcome. Instead, land use and land use change, especially deforestation, accounted
for 61% of Brazil’s GHG emissions in the Second National Emissions Inventory Communication of 2005,
while agriculture contributed another 19% (Brazil 2010a). Between Brazil’s first GHG inventory in 1994
and the second in 2005, annual emissions from deforestation grew 55%, from 800 million tons of CO2
to 1.25 billion (Brazil 2004, 2010a). These features form a backdrop for Brazil’s evolving climate stances.
Brazil has always had some actors with strong principled commitments to national climate action –
those DeSombre (2000) would call ‘Baptists’. Through most of Brazil’s participation in global climate
negotiations, they failed to influence national representatives who preferred to stress the historical
responsibility of developed countries to act first. In this section, we survey Brazil’s initial climate
positions. We then trace the multiple domestic changes after the mid-2000s that eventually culminated
in new international negotiating positions at the end of that decade. These included surprising new
success at controlling deforestation, the new prominence of actors who supported climate action for
instrumental reasons (‘bootleggers’), and public support for climate action that even spilled into the
2010 presidential election. Brazil in the Kyoto negotiations – the starting position In the initial years of
climate negotiations, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Science and Technology led Brazilian
delegations to climate meetings. In the Kyoto negotiation process (1996–2001), they were guided by a
definition of Brazil’s national interest that tracked closely with its broader foreign policy (Burges 2009).
This affirmed the right to development as a fundamental component of world order, and asserted a
leadership role for Brazil commensurate with the growth in its international stature during the Cardoso
administrations (1995–2002). Unlike its stance in the 1972 Stockholm Conference, Brazil also affirmed a
vision of development with environmental sustainability, but asked that developed countries provide
funding for climate mitigation in developing countries (Viola 2002, 2004). Brazil also argued strongly in
the Kyoto negotiations that national shares of carbon emissions should be calculated on the basis of
their historical accumulation since the mid-nineteenth century, reflecting carbon dioxide’s persistence
in the atmosphere (Roberts and Park 2007, p. 146). In 1997, Brazil suggested a financial mechanism that
would provide compensation for developing countries that voluntarily undertook GHG mitigation. As
these positions suggest, Brazilians were not climate ‘deniers’, but believed that developed countries
bore the responsibility for binding international obligations to address climate change (Lahsen 2004).
The G77 supported this position (Williams 2005). While Annex 1 countries rejected rationales of
historic responsibility, Brazil worked closely with the United States to develop what became the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Kyoto Protocol (Friberg 2009, p. 398). Already in the 1990s,
‘Baptists’ argued for principled reasons that Brazil should adopt a stronger and more active position in
favour of national climate action. Environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) often agreed
that developed countries had a special historical responsibility for climate change, but they still thought
their national representatives drew too much on ‘mindsets characterized by zero-sum thinking and
national economic interests’ (Lahsen 2004, pp. 155–157). Environmentalists had many allies in the
Ministry of Environment (Hochstetler and Keck 2007), but it did not play a major role in international
negotiations at this time. In Cardoso’s second administration, Brazil supported the final stages of
negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol with its division between the responsibilities of developed and
developing states, especially after the United States withdrew from the Protocol in 2001. Brazil helped
pull together the alliance between the European Union, Japan, and emerging countries that made the
final agreements possible. After the push to approve the Kyoto protocol, climate politics again took a
back seat in Brazil, with new president Lula da Silva’s administration after 2003 showing the familiar
divisions and sporadic attention to climate change of his predecessor. The political debate focused on
economic growth at home and reassertion of Brazil’s claims to sovereignty and global leadership
abroad, especially in the South (Burges 2009). Just a few years later, however, the domestic
developments that broadened the coalition in favour of climate action began to unfold. The domestic
politics of improving deforestation control Between 2005 and 2011, Brazil broke with its historic trends
by dramatically lowering Amazonian deforestation from an annual average of almost 21,000 km2 in
2000–2004 to 7000 km2 in 2009. This reduced its total GHG emissions by about 30% (Brazil 2010b).
Annual deforestation rates have always varied in Brazil, with some rough correlation with national
economic growth (see Figure 1). What is unusual about the recent drop in deforestation is that it
coincided with a sustained period of strong economic growth that included a commodity export boom.
Deforestation is still high, but the figures suggest that Brazil might be gaining leverage on one of its
most persistent environmental problems (Nepstad et al. 2009, Macedo et al. 2012). A number of
gradual changes have enhanced the legal architecture in the Amazon (still far from complete), in effect
trading clearer ownership of land and forests for greater public oversight of the use made of them. A
legal modification in 1996 began the process by reforming the Forest Code to raise the required setaside forest areas from 50 to 80% of individual Amazonian plots. Between 2000 and 2006, significant
areas were transferred to protected status, totalling 51% of remaining Amazon forest area (Nepstad et
al. 2009, p. 1350). Amendments to the National Forest Code in 2006 also allowed forests in federal
public lands to be transferred to private agents for sustainable management and commercial use; the
amendments established a Forest Service. A Federal Executive Order in 2009 (458/2009) issued land
titles in the Amazon, legalising to different degrees past land appropriations and deforestation. The
environmental movement heavily resisted the decree, but other analysts argue that the new law could
create private property obligations as well as rights for a vast coalition of legal landowners. Further
Forest Code revisions developing in 2012 would weaken sustainable forest management, e.g. by
allowing deforestation along rivers, but are unlikely to reverse the gains in controlling large scale
deforestation. The large and powerful agricultural coalition in Congress passed the bill over President
Dilma Rousseff’s objections in an April vote. Brazil has long had trouble implementing conservation in
its protected areas (Hochstetler and Keck 2007, p. 2), but stronger institutional capacity and more
effective law enforcement since 2003 have improved outcomes. These changes were developed during
Marina Silva’s tenure as Minister of Environment (2003–2008) and deepened under her successors.
Silva, who grew up as a rubber tapper in the Amazon region, began the process of slowly drawing
Amazonian state authorities into cooperation with the federal government. She required states to
develop plans to reduce deforestation and the federal government did real-time monitoring of the
results. Raids resulted in jail terms for some federal and state agency employees (Macedo et al. 2012,
p. 4). Governmental efforts were supported by national and international NGOs, who raised public
awareness and helped pressure the beef and soy industries to keep Amazon deforesters out of their
supply chains (Nepstad et al. 2009, p. 1350, Macedo et al. 2012). Other components of recent forest
policy aim to provide positive incentives for conservation. In 2007, a pilot programme called the ‘Forest
Protection Payment’ transferred a small amount of cash to local residents for their contribution to
maintaining the integrity of forests. In 2008, President Lula established the Amazonian Fund by
executive order, with the express purpose of capturing donations designated for prevention,
monitoring, and combat of deforestation. The Fund is administered by the Brazilian National
Development Bank (BNDES), which has already approved funding for projects totalling some $120
million. In 2009, BNDES announced the most important donation agreements to date, with Norway’s
Foreign Affairs Ministry promising as much as $ 1 billion if progress containing deforestation is
maintained (Nepstad et al. 2009). Evolving forest related negotiation positions As long as Brazilian
deforestation was high, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry resisted extending the CDM to carbon sinks and
forests. In doing so, it allied with the European Union against other forest countries, blocking an
important potential line of development of the international agreements. Despite having some of the
most important biodiversity and carbon stocks in forest in the world, Brazilian negotiators worried that
making them part of global agreements would eventually open Brazil to international liability for the
high rates of deforestation in the Amazon that the Brazilian government evidently could not control.
This position was strongly supported by rural agricultural and timber elites, dominant in state-level
politics in the Amazon and with a strong bloc in the National Congress (Viola 2004). The ‘Baptists’ of the
Ministry of Environment, the governments of some Amazonian states, and NGOs all argued against
Brazil’s opposition to extending the CDM to forests, but they lost until recently (Viola and Franchini
2012). As deforestation rates started dropping sharply in 2005, Brazil almost immediately changed its
international negotiating proposals. Brazil deviated from its historic position to propose the creation of
a global fund for forest conservation already at the 12th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC
inNairobi in December 2006. According to the Brazilian proposal, Annex 1 countries and corporations
would contribute to a fund that would distribute financial resources according to the performance of
countries in voluntarily reducing deforestation rates. This was the first time that Brazil accepted linking
deforestation rates to global financial tools. Despite this proposal, Brazilian negotiators retained their
traditional objection to carbon markets for forests until 2009. Interest calculations subsequently
brought the first ‘bootlegger’ into the climate action coalition. When the Kyoto Protocol was activated
in February 2005, Brazil had the first CDM project registered (Friberg 2009, p. 404). The CDM projects
promised new investment flows and possibly new technologies. Yet Brazil’s carbon profile meant that it
had comparatively few CDM investment opportunities, and China and India gained much larger shares.
This outcome was especially galling to governors and mayors in the Amazonian states, which lag far
behind the modern parts of the country in wealth and investment. They joined environmental NGOs in
strongly criticising their governments for blocking a similar global mechanism that would bring them
investments for forest conservation, especially after they had begun to reduce deforestation. The
Amazonian governors created a coalition in 2009 to actively push for a change of government strategy
(Nepstad et al. 2009). Following these developments, the Ministry of the Environment finally overcame
the entrenched opposition among the Foreign Ministry’s diplomats and actively contributed to the
development of a new forest instrument (REDDþ, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation) in Copenhagen. Climate action as good business Another ‘bootlegger’ ally emerged
following Barack Obama’s election in the United States in 2008. Brazilian reformist forces were already
trying to convince the federal authorities to assume a leadership role in the global climate negotiations,
which they now expected to move forward rapidly. The US House of Representatives in fact passed the
Waxman-Markey Climate Bill in June of 2009. It created the United States’ first legal framework for
national climate action and included a border tax adjustment for products coming from countries that
did not have similar emissions controls (Zhang 2010). The bill died in the Senate, but the evident shape
of eventual US action galvanised a proactive response from Brazilian industry. Three corporate
coalitions launched documents in September 2009 asking the government to modify Brazil’s climate
stances both domestically and internationally (Viola 2010). Most of the firms involved in the coalitions
were exporters to developed markets and believed that the US law would pass the Senate and quickly
be followed by similar legislation in all developed countries. The firms believed that, since Brazil had
already reduced deforestation and carbon emissions and exporting firms were mostly in low carbon
sectors, Brazil should adopt a new responsible climate policy. They hoped the country would thus avoid
the border tax adjustments and even gain a competitive advantage over China, India, and other higher
carbon emerging economies. The first coalition – ‘Open letter to Brazil about climate change’ – included
22 large national corporations from middle to high carbon intensive sectors. It was led by Brazilian
multinational Vale, the second largest iron ore producer in the world. This coalition demanded a clear
Brazilian commitment, including a steeper decline in deforestation and a reduction in the growth curve
of emissions from energy and cattle raising. The second coalition – ‘Alliance of Corporations in Favor of
the Climate’ – was formed by agribusiness corporations, and made only vague proposals, with some
emphasis on deforestation control. This was the least reform-oriented coalition because it is extremely
heterogeneous, ranging from climate friendly ethanol producers to climate conservative meatpacking
firms. National and transnational corporations that have a long-term climate vision formed the third
coalition, led by utilities and energy corporations. This coalition – ‘The Coalition of Corporations for
Climate’ – proposed more ambitious goals than the others, including setting a peak date for Brazilian
emissions between 2015 and 2020 and mandatory emissions reductions (Viola and Franchini 2012).
Public opinion and electoral politics Public support for climate action is high in Brazil, providing another
reason for politicians to take action. Brazilians have had the highest levels of concern about global
environmental problems in a set of diverse countries surveyed regularly through the 2000s by
Globescan Radar.3 Their concern accelerated across the decade, with 92% of respondents saying in
2010 that they believed global environmental problems were very serious. The local media contributed
to their concern. The ‘Globo Network’, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, is particularly
concerned about climate change issues. This is an anomaly in the Latin American public sphere. Since it
has around 80% of the non-cable audience and an even larger share in cable television, its effect on
public opinion is high and proponents of climate action garner a large audience for their proposals.
Runaway warming causes extinction
Deibel 7, Professor of IR @ National War College (Terry L., 2007l “Foreign Affairs Strategy: Logic for
American Statecraft”, Conclusion: American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today)
Finally, there is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent
nature, which, though far in the future, demands urgent action. It is the threat of global warming to the
stability of the climate upon which all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing
the gathering of this threat for three decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed
through probability to near certainty. Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change
published in refereed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is
occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes Elizabeth Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find
evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming.” Evidence from a vast international
scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as this sample of newspaper reports shows: an
international panel predicts “brutal droughts, floods and violent storms across the planet over the next
century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine
Snowcaps and aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are
melting much faster than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a
decade ago”; “rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the
most destructive hurricanes”; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature measurements
that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is
estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year” as disease
spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree
rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,” concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who
lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From
the founding of the first cities some 6,000 years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution,
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million
(ppm). At present they are accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about
double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way
immediately to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming;
the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted above
show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of
disease, mass die offs of plants and animals, species extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying
countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a warming of 5 degrees or less the
Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20 feet that
would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate
Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of
the Atlantic thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its
latitude would otherwise allow. Economist William Cline once estimated the damage to the United
States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe warming could
cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the most frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based on
positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and causes
hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in
average global temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring everincreasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced with this specter, the best one can conclude is
that “humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing Russian
roulette with the earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor
Marty Hoffert of New York University, “we’re just going to burn everything up; we’re going to heat the
atmosphere to the temperature it was in the Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and
then everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan popularized a theory of
nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union
would not only destroy both countries but possibly end life on this planet. Global warming is the postCold War era’s equivalent of nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported
scientifically. Over the long run it puts dangers form terrorism and traditional military challenges to
shame. It is a threat not only to the security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially to the
continued existence of life on this planet.
-- solves warming
Solves warming
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., November/December 2010, “A New Global
Player: Brazil's Far-Flung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 89, Issue 6, ProQuest)//Hensel
RICH RESOURCES, HOT COMMODITIES¶ Despite the collapse of the Iran deal and the harm done to
Brazil's image, Brazil will continue to play an influential role on the international stage. Climate change
has become an area where Brazil has turned its clean-energy and environmental bona fides into a
significant international voice. Yet Brazil's climate change strategy is still evolving: although the
deforestation of the Amazon has contributed to global warming, more than 40 percent of Brazil's energy
supply is derived from renewable sources. The percentage of Brazilians ranking the environment as their
top concern more than doubled between 2002 and 2007, to 85 percent, making Brazilians the most
environmentally concerned citizens in the world. The Brazilian government remains protective of its
sovereignty over the Amazon and, until recently, refused even to discuss deforestation in international
climate change meetings. But the shift in opinion has opened the door for Brazil to place stewardship of
the Amazon at the top of its agenda.¶ Brazil's National Plan on Climate Change now outlines a strategy
to eliminate the net loss of forest coverage by 2015 and reduce the average deforestation rate by 70
percent before 2017. Its national development bank also administers a $1 billion international fund to
finance the preservation and sustainable development of the Amazon. And it has committed to a
national greenhouse gas reduction of 36-39 percent by 2020 and positioned itself as a representative of
and a bridge to the developing world in climate talks. Although the Copenhagen accord is only a modest
step forward on climate change, Brazil's participation and willingness to compromise proved how
serious the country is about this issue.
Brazil is key to modeling CO2 reduction policies
Sotero and Armijo, 7 – Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and Armijo is an independent research professional at Portland State
University and holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Political Science (Paulo and Leslie Elliott, “BRAZIL: TO
BE OR NOT TO BE A BRIC?” ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2007, pp. 43-70, Google Scholar)//HAL
By other measures, however, Brazil is an environmental superstar. Most importantly, Brazil has begun to
reverse its pollution profile. In 2000, the most recent year for which data are available, the United States
alone accounted for 22 percent of world carbon dioxide emissions, China for another 18 percent, Russia
for 6 percent—but Brazil for only 1 percent. Also in 2000, emissions of CO2 averaged 11.2 metric tons
per person in developed countries and 1.9 in developing countries. Brazil, despite being not a low but a
middle-income country, was just at the developing country mean of emissions of 1.9 metric tons of CO2
per person.33 According to Brazil’s president, the “pace of deforestation was reduced by 52 percent”
between 2003 and mid- 2007, although the true goal of course is net reforestation.34 Second, Brazil
generates only 11 percent of its electricity from burning fossil fuels. An astonishing 83 percent of Brazil’s
electricity derives from hydropower, and almost 27 percent of total energy use (including in vehicles) is
from renewable biomass sources, notably ethanol.35 Third, Brazil is the world’s leader in ethanol
production, technology, and exports, a fact that suddenly has become important in a global
environment that saw international petroleum prices triple from an average of $28 a barrel in 2002 to
$84 a barrel in the first three quarters of 2007.36 Brazilian ethanol is also much “greener” than that
produced in the United States, using inputs, especially energy, four to five times as efficiently.37 The
first international Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, beginning a process that led to the
Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change in 1997. Brazil ratified the Protocol in 2002. It entered into effect
when Russia approved it in 2004. (The United States still declines to participate.) Given its own vast
environmental resources, the importance of rainforest protection for global biodiversity and
ameliorating climate change, and Brazil’s experience with industrial production and country-wide
distribution and use of biofuels, Brazil is uniquely positioned among all emerging and advanced
industrial powers to play a central role in the evolving global climate regime. “Brazil has everything to be
an environmental power, which is, by the way, the only area in which our aspiration to be a great power
is realistic,” commented veteran diplomat and ex-Environment Minister Rubens Ricupero. Fortuitously,
Brazilian climatologists recently have discovered the perfect argument to motivate the Brazilian public
to concern themselves with rainforest destruction and global climate change. They now have evidence
that rainforest destruction has altered rainfall patterns over Brazil itself, thus threatening agriculture
and the nation’s energy supply, given the country’s heavy dependence on hydroelectric power.39 The
debate in Brazilian society over environmental issues has evolved considerably since the times when the
military governments dismissed it as a foreign-inspired conspiracy against the country’s economic
development. A recent European Commission initiative to fund conservation and responsible climatechange management in four large emerging powers perhaps best captures the likely future role of Brazil
as the environmental BRIC.40 The four countries chosen to have the greatest impact on future climate
change are China, India, South Africa, and Brazil. The technical details of the project description are
revealing. The Chinese working group is to focus on teaching economic and environmental modeling
techniques to mid-level Chinese technocrats, for the purpose of incorporating environmental concerns
into ongoing economic development projects. The Indian group is to imagine the most likely disaster
scenarios from climate change and begin to prepare country-specific plans to meet them, hoping to
avoid the enormous destruction and loss of life that has occurred in recent natural calamities such as
the tsunami that hit Indonesia and much of South and Southeast Asia, including coastal India, in
December 2004. The South African group will look at ways, in essence, to improve intra-bureaucratic
“coordination” and thus give the environment ministry more clout within the government itself. Only
the Brazilian group is not charged with finding solutions to country-specific political and technical
problems associated with managing climate change. Instead, Brazil’s brief is international leadership.
The Brazilian team task is to elaborate a detailed climate-change negotiation strategy for developing
countries, as a group, to employ vis-à-vis the advanced industrial countries, in order to persuade the
latter to bear more of the burden of cuts and adjustment than they otherwise would. This division of
labor is about right. As is the case in the trade regime, and in peacekeeping, building an international—
and transnational—climate regime is as much or more about politics as it is about science. But Brazilians
are now comfortable with democratic processes and incremental advance.
multipolarity
bric impact
Brazils regional influence is key to multipolar BRIC leadership
Christensen, 13 - Associate Professor at Aalborg University, PhD in Socialogy and Social Condition (Steen
Fryba, April 23rd, 2013, “Brazil’s Foreign Policy Priorities,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2013, pp
271–286, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.775785)//HAL
Since 2003 Brazil has been actively engaged in an agenda of diffusion of global power and of gaining
more influence in global governance both in the economic and in the security realms. It has sought to
defend national autonomy, strengthen its economy and gain more influence in the global political arena.
Brazil has prioritised South–South cooperation in order to reach these aims. Relations with South
American countries and the other countries of the BRICS grouping have been prioritised. This builds on
two main logics. One is that South America is important in Brazil’s geopolitical strategy and in the aim of
creating a Brazilian sphere of interest, as well as a platform for Brazil’s competitive insertion in the
global economy. Brazil has been relatively successful in these regard, with the creation of the South
American Defence Council, significant economic trade and investment links, and infrastructural
developments improving access to Brazilian export markets in Asia and in South America itself. BRICS
cooperation largely builds on a common interest in gaining more influence in the global economic and
political order. This strategy has been relatively successful as BRICS are increasingly influential players in
global economic governance, although this has not assured an agreement in multilateral trade
negotiations at the WTO. However, the global security order is still dominated by the USA and its
Western allies, and Brazil is still far from gaining a permanent position on the UN Security Council and
cannot even rely on explicit support from China and Russia, which are members. Brazilian strategies
have been broadly successful. At the regional level the council has successfully promoted the
establishment of a Common Defence Council in Unasur, making South America a security region. This
means that South America has increasingly become Brazil’s sphere of influence. However, South
America is not a cohesive bloc, as national interests and strategies diverge significantly. Therefore
Unasur functions strictly as an intergovernmental institution based on the respect of national
sovereignty and autonomous policy making. Nevertheless, the region functions well from the
perspective of Brazilian development and global power projection. Arguably Brazil’s main priority has
moved from South American cooperation to its cooperation with the other members of BRICS. The
coalition has become an increasingly important player in key multilateral institutions. This has created a
situation in which the traditional Western powers increasingly need to negotiate matters of security and
economic governance with emerging powers.
Multipolarity key to preventing nuclear war
Dyer, ’04 (Gwynne, military historian and lecturer on international affairs, “The End of War”, Toronto
Star, 12/30/2004, http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1230-05.htm)
War is deeply embedded in our history and our culture, probably since before we were even fully
human, but weaning ourselves away from it should not be a bigger mountain to climb than some of the
other changes we have already made in the way we live, given the right incentives. And we have
certainly been given the right incentives: The holiday from history that we have enjoyed since the early
'90s may be drawing to an end, and another great-power war, fought next time with nuclear weapons,
may be lurking in our future. The "firebreak" against nuclear weapons use that we began building after
Hiroshima and Nagasaki has held for well over half a century now. But the proliferation of nuclear
weapons to new powers is a major challenge to the stability of the system. So are the coming crises,
mostly environmental in origin, which will hit some countries much harder than others, and may drive
some to desperation. Add in the huge impending shifts in the great-power system as China and India
grow to rival the United States in GDP over the next 30 or 40 years and it will be hard to keep things
from spinning out of control. With good luck and good management, we may be able to ride out the
next half-century without the first-magnitude catastrophe of a global nuclear war, but the potential
certainly exists for a major die-back of human population. We cannot command the good luck, but good
management is something we can choose to provide. It depends, above all, on preserving and extending
the multilateral system that we have been building since the end of World War II. The rising powers
must be absorbed into a system that emphasizes co-operation and makes room for them, rather than
one that deals in confrontation and raw military power. If they are obliged to play the traditional greatpower game of winners and losers, then history will repeat itself and everybody loses. Our hopes for
mitigating the severity of the coming environmental crises also depend on early and concerted global
action of a sort that can only happen in a basically co-operative international system. When the great
powers are locked into a military confrontation, there is simply not enough spare attention, let alone
enough trust, to make deals on those issues, so the highest priority at the moment is to keep the
multilateral approach alive and avoid a drift back into alliance systems and arms races. And there is no
point in dreaming that we can leap straight into some never-land of universal brotherhood; we will have
to confront these challenges and solve the problem of war within the context of the existing state
system.
-- solves bric/multipol
Brazil key to multipolarity
Bodman and Wolfensohn, 11 - U.S. secretary of energy from 2005 to 2009, a BS from Cornell University
and a PhD from MIT, where he was also associate professor of chemical engineering, James D.
Wolfensohn is chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, chairman of Citigroup’s international advisory
board, and adviser to Citigroup’s senior management on global strategy and on international matters,
He is a honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations, Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at Harvard Business School, (“Global Brazil
and U.S.-Brazil Relations,” Independent Task Force Report No. 66, Council on Foreign Relations, July 12th,
2011, http://www.cfr.org/brazil/global-brazil-us-brazil-relations/p25407)//HAL
Brazil is and will remain an integral force in the evolution of a multipolar world. It ranks as the world’s
fifth-largest landmass, fifth-largest population, and eighth-largest economy. Brazil, which may become
the world’s fifth-largest economy by 2016, is the B in the BRICs (along with Russia, India, and China*), a
grouping of growth markets that accounted for 23 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) in
2010 and will collectively reach $25 trillion to overtake the U.S. economy within the next decade. Brazil’s
economic prowess places it in a leadership position in Latin America and in the world and boosts the
region’s strategic importance globally, especially for the United States.
Brazil is key to BRIC
Laidi, 11 – Professor at the European Center of the Johns Hopkins Bologna, Research Professor at the
Centre d’Etudes Européennes de Sciences Po (The BRICs Against the West?” CERI STRATEGY PAPERS, N°
11 – Hors Série, Novembre 2011,
http://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/sites/sciencespo.fr.ceri/files/n11_112011.pdf)//HAL
Brazil: the BRICS as an identity support This brings us to Brazil, which is unquestionably one of the
central BRICS actors. Under the leadership of Lula and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Amorim,
Brazil played a significant role in the emergence of the BRICS. As mentioned earlier, it was a driving
force in forming the Cancun front. More recently, with Turkey, it was central to a political maneuver to
counter the Americans with regard to Iran by attempting to negotiate a trilateral agreement with
Teheran on nuclear waste reprocessing. Brazil sees the BRICS as an intermediary political circle in
between the West – and particularly the United States, with which it enjoys close relations – and Latin
America, which forms its natural economic and political sphere of influence. The complementarity of
Brasilia’s objectives is expressed in the fact that Lula both centrally integrated Brazil into the BRICS and
crucially contributed to the creation of UNASUR.
instability
Brazil is maintaining Latin American stability now—delivering public goods better than the US
boosting confidence
Tessman, 12 - Ph.D. Political Science, University of Colorado, assistant professor of International Affairs
and associate director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (Globis) at the University of Georgia
(Brock F., “System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu,” May 22nd, 2012, Taylor
and Francis Online)//HAL
A Council on Foreign Relations Task Force Report recommended that specific Brazil desks be created
within the State Department and National Security Council, and suggests that “U.S. policymakers
recognize Brazil’s standing as a global actor, treat its emergence as an opportunity for the United
States, and work with Brazil to develop complementary policies.”66 Thus, the best way to think of the
evolving relationship between Brazil and the United States is not in terms of a nascent security
competition, but as a joint acknowledgement that Brazil is emerging as a clear regional leader, and that
both states share a desire for Brazil to take on some of the same responsibilities and pursue some of
the same basic interests that the United States has in the past.67 Is it possible, then, that Brazil’s
approach to regional leadership is an example of Type B strategic hedging behavior? If so, one would
expect Brazilian foreign policy in South America to address concerns about the potential loss of public
goods or subsidies that the United States has historically provided.68 As the regional hegemon in Latin
and South America for over a century, the United States provided public goods in the region because it
is “large enough, wealthy enough, and most importantly, has enough stake in the public good in
question to pay its entire cost.”69 In addition to the less tangible (and more debatable) public good of
“regional stability,” the United States has also provided more identifiable public goods like security from
external threats, intra-regional conflict mediation, and greater monetary stability for several South
American states that were experiencing severe debt crises. Brazil—primarily through the creation of
UNASUR and the associated South American Defense Council—is driving the development of regional
institutions that are increasingly successful at generating the public goods that the United States used
to deliver to the region.70 There are significant signs that this evolution is generating confidence
throughout South America. As Peter J. Meyer explains in his 2011 Congressional Research Service
Report, “the successes of UNASUR have instilled a confidence in South American nations that the region
can resolve internal problems without having to turn to extra-regional powers, such as the United
States.”71 Although there is no reason to doubt that the United States is still committed to the defense
of South America (and the entire hemisphere) from external threats, it is important to note that, in
pushing to establish the South American Defense Council (CDS), Brazil is interested in taking steps
toward true security autonomy for the region. Operating within the UNASUR context, the CDS aims for
a defense policy that succeeds in “enhancing multilateral military cooperation, promoting confidence
and security building measures and fostering defense industry exchange.”72 Although many of the
objectives identified by the CDS are similar to those sought by the Organization of American States
(OAS), Brazil is increasingly demonstrating a preference for building regional forums that do not include
the United States. In many ways, this tendency can be seen as an attempt to escape the shadow of US
influence: until 2005, no US-supported candidate had ever lost a bid to be secretary-general of the OAS.
73 As John Chipman and James L. Smith note, the new South American Defense Council is “inclined to
be, in foreign terms, a third-way actor in Latin America: respectful of desires for Latin American
emancipation from a heavily burdened past with America, but willing to strike strong bilateral
relationships where these are sought.”74 Brazil is also bolstering security ties via the India-Brazil-South
Africa triad (IBSA), whichinclude biannual naval exercises that facilitate coordination between the
countries in terms of search and rescue operations as well as shipping security.75
That solves global warfare
Rochlin, 94 [James Francis, Professor of Political Science at Okanagan U. College, Discovering the
Americas: The Evolution of Canadian Foreign Policy Towards Latin America, 130-131, Wake Early Bird
File]
While there were economic motivations for Canadian policy in Central America, security
considerations were perhaps more important. Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in
the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions of declining U.S.
influence in the region – which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable
divisions of wealth in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression,
under-development, mounting external debt, anti-American sentiment produced by decades of
subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on – were linked to the prospect of
explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the Central American imbroglio was viewed as
a fuse which could ignite a cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time worried
that in a worstcase scenario, instability created by a regional war, beginning in Central America and
spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy Washington to the extent that the United
States would be unable to perform adequately its important hegemonic role in the international
arena – a concern expressed by the director of research for Canada’s Standing Committee Report on
Central America. It was feared that such a predicament could generate increased global instability
and perhaps even a hegemonic war . This is one of the motivations which led Canada to become
involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as Contadora, as will be discussed in the next
chapter.
-- hardliners scenario
Latin America instability empowers Brazilian hardliners
Millett 02 PhD, Senior Fellow at the North-South Center, Oppenheimer Chair of Modern Warfighting
Strategy at the U.S. Marine Corps University, Professor Emeritus of History at Southern Illinois University
at Edwardsville (Richard L. Millet Oct. 2002 Strategic Studies Institute, Colombia's Conflicts: The
Spillover Effects of a Wider War) //KY
While the spillover of Colombia’s conflicts has exacerbated the problems of the region significantly and
has reduced the resources available to confront mounting political and economic dilemmas, it is by no
means the principal cause of these problems. The economies and/or the political leadership of every
one of Colombia’s neighbors are in jeopardy. In part, this stems from global economic problems further
fueled by volatile commodity prices, the U.S. recession and the Argentine economic collapse, declines in
investor confidence, and the difficulties of adjusting to a globalized economy. Even more, it reflects the
failure of political leadership, dogged by traditions of corruption and divisive politics. In Ecuador and
Brazil, no party can count on a majority in Congress, and high levels of uncertainty cloud upcoming
presidential elections. The governments in Peru and Panama must deal with the heritage of past
corruption, with a growing perception of them as weak and 28 incompetent, and with steadily declining
levels of popular support. In Venezuela, President Chavez came to power largely because of a massive
public rejection of the traditional political class, but he has become a symbol of divisiveness instead of
unity, facing the constant threat of ouster by constitutional or by unconstitutional means. This mix of
political and economic crisis provides the fertile ground in which the alliance of political and criminal
violence thrives. It undermines efforts to stabilize democracy and install anything approaching the rule
of law. An August 2002 poll showed this trend widespread throughout Latin America. Citizens
increasingly blamed the political class for their problems and half said they “wouldn’t mind if an
authoritarian government came to power.” Support for free market economics also showed a sharp
decline.98 Venezuela’s political crisis is the ultimate wild card in efforts to promote any regional
response to Colombia’s conflicts. Until that is resolved, finding any common agenda will be nearly
impossible. Brazil’s regional power ambitions, combined with its suspicions of any outside involvement
in the Amazon Basin, the traditional enmity between Peru and Ecuador and between Venezuela and
Colombia, and the extreme weakness of the Panamanian security apparatus, are also obstacles which
will be difficult to overcome.
Brazil hardliner takeover causes nuclear war
Schulz, 2k Ph.D., Chair of Political Science at Cleveland State U., fmr. Research Professor of National
Security at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army College, (Donald E. Schulz, March 2k. Strategic
Studies Institute, The United States and Latin America: Shaping an Elusive Future) //KY
Until recently, the primary U.S. concern about Brazil has been that it might acquire nuclear weapons and
delivery systems. In the 1970s, the Brazilian military embarked on a secret program to develop an atom
bomb. By the late 1980s, both Brazil and Argentina were aggressively pursuing nuclear development
programs that had clear military spin-offs.54 There were powerful military and civilian advocates of
developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles within both countries. Today, however, the situation
has changed. As a result of political leadership transitions in both countries, Brazil and Argentina now
appear firmly committed to restricting their nuclear programs to peaceful purposes. They have entered
into various nuclear-related agreements with each other—most notably the quadripartite
comprehensive safeguards agreement (1991), which permits the inspection of all their nuclear
installations by the International Atomic Energy 26 Agency—and have joined the Missile Technology
Control Regime. Even so, no one can be certain about the future. As Scott Tollefson has observed: . . .
the military application of Brazil’s nuclear and space programs depends less on technological
considerations than on political will. While technological constraints present a formidable barrier to
achieving nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, that barrier is not insurmountable. The critical element,
therefore, in determining the applications of Brazil’s nuclear and space technologies will be primarily
political.55 Put simply, if changes in political leadership were instrumental in redirecting Brazil’s nuclear
program towards peaceful purposes, future political upheavals could still produce a reversion to
previous orientations. Civilian supremacy is not so strong that it could not be swept away by a coup,
especially if the legitimacy of the current democratic experiment were to be undermined by economic
crisis and growing poverty/inequality. Nor are civilian leaders necessarily less militaristic or more
committed to democracy than the military. The example of Peru’s Fujimori comes immediately to mind.
How serious a threat might Brazil potentially be? It has been estimated that if the nuclear plant at Angra
dos Reis (Angra I) were only producing at 30 percent capacity, it could produce five 20-kiloton weapons
a year. If production from other plants were included, Brazil would have a capability three times greater
than India or Pakistan. Furthermore, its defense industry already has a substantial missile producing
capability. On the other hand, the country has a very limited capacity to project its military power via air
and sealift or to sustain its forces over long distances. And though a 1983 law authorizes significant
military manpower increases (which could place Brazil at a numerical level slightly higher than France,
Iran and Pakistan), such growth will be restricted by a lack of economic resources. Indeed, the
development of all these military potentials has been, and will continue to be, 27 severely constrained
by a lack of money. (Which is one reason Brazil decided to engage in arms control with Argentina in the
first place.) 56 In short, a restoration of Brazilian militarism, imbued with nationalistic ambitions for
great power status, is not unthinkable, and such a regime could present some fairly serious problems.
That government would probably need foreign as well as domestic enemies to help justify its existence.
One obvious candidate would be the United States, which would presumably be critical of any return to
dictatorial rule. Beyond this, moreover, the spectre of a predatory international community, covetous of
the riches of the Amazon, could help rally political support to the regime. For years, some Brazilian
military officers have been warning of “foreign intervention.” Indeed, as far back as 1991 General
Antenor de Santa Cruz Abreu, then chief of the Military Command of the Amazon, threatened to
transform the region into a “new Vietnam” if developed countries tried to “internationalize” the
Amazon. Subsequently, in 1993, U.S.-Guyanese combined military exercises near the Brazilian border
provoked an angry response from many high-ranking Brazilian officers. 57
-- solves stability
Brazil soft power is key to Latin American multilateral organizations success – the
impact is regional instability
Bodman, Wolfensohn, and Sweig, 11 – ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Former
Secretary of Energy, Former Deputy Secretary, US Treasury Department, AND MBA from Harvard
University, Former President, World Bank, AND PhD, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Council on
Foreign Relations (Samuel W., AND James D., AND Julia E., July 2011, “Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil
Relations: Independent Task Force No. 66,” Council on Foreign Relations)//Hensel
¶ Multilateral Organizations¶ ¶ Brazil’s regional and global ambitions are not mutually exclusive. Mercosul
and Unasul fit into a larger Brazilian endeavor to establish South America— a land mass that has
historically lacked a cohesive identity— as an attractive trade bloc and global strategic actor, with Brazil
as its anchor.¶ ¶ Rhetorically, at least, Brazil has prioritized regional integration, and it stands at the helm
of a number of Latin American multilateral institutions, notably Mercosul, Unasul, and the still largely
unarticulated Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (Community of Latin American
States, or CELAC). True to form, Brazil tends to play down its leadership role within these still-evolving
organizations.¶ ¶ Mercosul includes Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay as full members and Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru as associate members; Venezuela’s incorporation as a full member still
awaits approval from the Paraguayan congress. Mercosul’s revitalization was a stated priority for Lula
entering office in 2003; though progress has been slow, full members reached a consensus on the
distribution of customs revenue and agreed to eliminate the double charge of the common external
tariff in August 2010.¶ ¶ Brazil was instrumental in the 2004 formation of Unasul, which aims to create a
single South American market and to foster economic and infrastructure cooperation and development.
In 2008, Brazil led the way to form the South American Defense Council as a cooperative security
suborganization under Unasul. Unasul serves as an alternative to the OAS and seeks to provide regional
solutions to regional problems. At the same time, Unasul, which adopted a democratic charter in 2010
and is generally more focused on political and social issues than Mercosul, balances the Venezueladominated Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America, or ALBA). Unasul has been most effective at ad hoc mediation, diffusing
Ecuador’s police uprising and Colombia-Venezuela tensions in 2010.¶ ¶ CELAC, founded in 2010, is the
descendent of the Rio Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Summit; still in its early stages of
formation, CELAC would be the first formal association of states to include every Latin American and
Caribbean nation and exclude the United States and Canada. A meeting of CELAC presidents would help
elucidate the Rousseff administration’s approach to Venezuela, among other countries.¶ ¶ Conclusions
and Recommendations¶ ¶ As Brazil deepens its roots in South America and strengthens multilateral
institutions like Mercosul and Unasul, the Task Force welcomes Brazil’s growing role in South American
diplomacy, conflict prevention, peace, and security efforts. The Task Force supports the creation and
consolidation of effective regional institutions and understands that Brazil’s and the region’s emphasis
on multilateralism is an intrinsic dimension of their foreign policies, necessary to ensure a stable and
peaceful democratic environment. Though the United States is not, nor should it be, a formal member
of these subregional institutions, the Task Force encourages the United States to work with Unasul,
Mercosul, and eventually CELAC to establish and define channels for communication.
Brazil regional leadership is key conflict diffuser in the region—empirics
Tessman, 12 - Ph.D. Political Science, University of Colorado, assistant professor of International Affairs
and associate director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (Globis) at the University of Georgia
(Brock F., “System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu,” May 22nd, 2012, Taylor
and Francis Online)//HAL
These capabilities may become increasingly important if US naval strength is increasingly directed away
from the South Atlantic and toward the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Through UNASUR, Brazil is also
taking on greater responsibility for regional conflict mediation that used to be reserved for the United
States or the OAS. This is needed in light of the massive losses in diplomatic capital that Washington
experienced in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq invasion and the election of several left-leaning
governments in key South American states. It is relatively easy to identify recent, and successful,
instances of Brazilian conflict mediation through UNASUR. In the summer of 2010, Colombian president
Alvaro Uribe accused the Chavez government in Venezuela of harboring Colombian rebel groups like
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chavez responded to the allegations by cutting off
diplomatic relations with Colombia. Brazil immediately offered to mediate the conflict within the
context of UNASUR, and diplomatic relations were restored after Lula managed to get Chavez and the
newly elected Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos to sit down and clear the air. Given its
controversial linkages with the Colombian government, and its strong anti-Venezuelan stance, it would
have been nearly impossible for the United States to accomplish what Brazil did. Moreover, by acting
through UNASUR, Brazil is able to mediate in an efficient manner. As McCall Breuer explains,
“supranational infrastructure provides a structure through which Brazil can project its leadership
without having to divert more resources than necessary from the everyday functioning of its own
government, military, and economic machinery.”76 With Brazil playing an influential role, UNASUR also
contributed to the resolution of conflicts in Bolivia in 2008 and Ecuador in September 2010.77
Brazil solves Latin American conflict through diplomatic pressure
Shifter, 13 --- Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign
Service (Michael, March 11th, 2013 Foreign Policy “The Empire Makes Nice: Is it time for a Venezuela
reset?”
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/11/the_empire_makes_nice_venezuela_hugo_chavez)/
/JES
A peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC (which uses Venezuelan territory as a
sanctuary and was supported by Chávez) would reduce a key source of instability in the wider region. To
anticipate potential turmoil in Venezuela in the coming period, Washington should be consulting
regularly and at the highest levels with South American allies, especially Colombia and Brazil, who have
the most at stake should the security situation deteriorate. Although many commentators have drawn
attention to Cuba's role in the Venezuelan transition, and have particularly highlighted Cuba's huge
dependence on Venezuelan oil and money, Brazil will probably end up being just as influential as the
situation unfolds. South America's undisputed superpower -- whose leverage on Venezuela stems from
key exports, especially food, and political backing -- is chiefly interested in maintaining social peace
within its own neighborhood In keeping with Brazil's own governance and political evolution in recent
years, Brasilia will aim to keep the situation in Venezuela under control and to encourage moderation,
gradualism, and communication on both sides. It does not want trouble on its borders. Venezuela's
recent entry into the Brazil-led MERCOSUR trade group will makes this issue of even greater concern for
President Dilma Rousseff's government. In this respect, there is ample coincidence of interests between
Washington and Brasília.
answers to:
heg turns da
Brazilian leadership doesn’t kill US hegemony
Malamud, 11 – research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) of the University of Lisbon. PhD in
Political Science from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. (Andres, “A Leader Without
Followers? The Growing Divergence Between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign
Policy,” LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, © 2011 University of Miami, MALAMUD: BRAZIL’S
FOREIGN POLICY,
http://americo.usal.es/iberoame/sites/default/files/malamud_brasil_leader_without_followers.pdf)//H
AL
To be sure, Brazil has not become indifferent to the region. However, its ambitions are increasingly
defensive rather than offensive. The main goal is no longer to integrate South America into a regional
bloc with a single voice but to limit damages that could spill over its borders or stain its international
image as regional pacifier. Now, it seems sufficient to stabilize the region and prevent political
instability, economic turmoil, and border conflicts. The name of the game is to keep quiet rather than
lead the neighborhood, since preventing trouble in its backyard seems to be a necessary condition for
Brazil to consolidate its global gains. Given that Brazil is not a revisionist power that intends to upset the
system but rather a reformist one that wishes to enter it, damage control has become its central task.
This has turned a would-be leader into a fireman or, as Carlos Quenan once paraphrased from
economics jargon, a leader of last resort. Thus, as The Economist (2008b) aptly remarked, “it may be the
rising power in the Americas but Brazil is finding that diplomatic ambition can prompt resentment.” By
trying to mitigate this resentment, the country may find itself closer to the category of a traditional
rather than an emerging middle power. In other words, it can aspire to a leading role on the global stage
as long as it goes it alone.
Brazil isn’t threatening to U.S. global primacy
Sotero and Armijo, 7 – Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and Armijo is an independent research professional at Portland State
University and holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Political Science (Paulo and Leslie Elliott, “BRAZIL: TO
BE OR NOT TO BE A BRIC?” ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2007, pp. 43-70, Google Scholar)//HAL
One reason that Brazil is less easily conceptualized as a BRIC is that its rise is hardly perceived as
threatening in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo. Unlike China, Russia, or even India, Brazil is a
Western power, securely and nearly inevitably allied with the United States and Western Europe.
Though geography does not fully determine a country’s strategic options, as illustrated by the case of
Cuba and more recently by the overtures of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez to Iran, Byelorussia, and
Russia, it clearly limits them. A nation that shares the culture and values of the Western world, Brazil is
the only one of the BRICs in the area of influence of the sole remaining superpower. Within a militarysecurity framing of international relations, Brazil’s vast territory seems a safe area to the powers that
dominate contemporary global security arrangements, and thus a hardly noticeable one. Even within
Brazil, for decades foreign policy principally has been about commercial relations, not security issues,
although the challenge of protection of the Amazon alone should be enough to justify some deep
thinking about the subject. As Brazilian international relations scholar Monica Herz recently observed,
“Foreign policy and defense policy have been detached from one another in Brazil, and this is a concern
for the military and for several other sectors [in Brazilian society]. This debate has to be faced.”10 The
long de facto alliance with the United States is the product of both history and geography.11 A former
colony that was briefly (1808-1821) the political center of a declining European empire before its
independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil emerged in 1889 as the world’s largest republic,
encompassing more than half of the territory of South America. The proclamation of the republic by the
military put an end to a stable constitutional monarchy that had ignored the industrial revolution and
ruled a slavery-based economic system whose legacy is visible to this day in the country’s high rates of
social and economic inequality. Then as now Brazil’s leaders saw their national interest as convergent
with that of the United States. The country’s first name was the “United States of Brazil.” Jose Maria da
Silva Paranhos, the Baron of Rio Branco, Brazil’s foremost diplomat in the final decades of the monarchy,
its foreign minister from 1902 to 1912, and founder of its first modern diplomatic corps, early on
recognized the emergence of the United States as a world power. Guided by Brazil’s interest in
countering British influence in South America, particularly in the River Plate basin, Rio Branco reoriented
the axis of Brazil’s external relations from London to Washington. With active U.S. support in important
cases, as in arbitration by the administration of U.S. President Grover Cleveland in the 1895 Treaty of
Missões dispute with Argentina, and its tacit backing in others, as in the settlement of the territory of
Acre with Bolivia in 1903, Brazil’s pending territorial disputes with neighboring nations were all resolved
by diplomatic means in Brazil’s favor, ensuring the country its continental size and its hold on most of
the Amazon basin. Over the subsequent century Rio Branco’s vision of the advantages of cultivating
good relations with the United States has proven prescient. An affinity with the United States has not
meant automatic alignment, nor has it precluded periods of tension, during which Brazilian leaders
sometimes have been quite skillful at playing their European, often German, cards. One such episode
was during the early 1940s, when populist and intermittently authoritarian President Getulio Vargas
(1930-1945, 1950-1954) negotiated with both the Nazis and the Americans to see which side would
offer better inducements in exchange for military bases and refueling rights—or in the case of the Axis
powers, strict neutrality. Following the war, President Harry Truman followed through on Roosevelt’s
promises of helping to complete construction of a steel mill in Volta Redonda and offering crucial
technical assistance in designing Brazil’s first comprehensive industrial development plan.12 Brazilian
expectations of a massive inflow of American investment after the war, however, were frustrated. By
the mid 1960s, Brazil-U.S. relations were driven by Washington’s cold-war strategy. Despite
Washington’s support for the coup that brought the armed forces to power in 1964, divergent interests
soon would cause conflict. During the early 1970s the United States provided technical collaboration
for Brazil’s first nuclear power plant—until Brazil’s then military leaders chafed at the controls and
inspections required by the Americans, and turned instead to West Germany.13 Of course, Brazil indeed
had a covert weapons program, though it was something of an open secret, being intended more for
deterrence and power assertion (somewhat implausibly directed mainly at Argentina) than actual
weapons development. Following redemocratization in 1985 and the 1988 constitution’s explicit ban on
nuclear weapons, in 1990 Congress launched an inquiry into the secret nuclear program. President
Collor dramatized the new Brazilian position by staging the presidential photo opportunity noted earlier.
More recently, Brazil-U.S. relations have been tested by trade tensions, discussed below. Nonetheless,
and as has happened repeatedly in the past, Brazil finds that cooperation with the United States, with
which it shares liberaldemocratic values and a neighborhood, remains an anchor of its foreign policy.
biofuels turn
SQ anti-deforestation measures solve your impact – growth increases solvency
Hochstetler and Viola, 12 – CIGI Chair of Governance in the Americas in the Balsillie School of
International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, AND, PhD in
Political Science from the University of Sao Paulo, Full Professor at the Institute of International
Relations, University of Brasilia (Kathryn and Eduardo, July 24th, 2012, Environmental Politics, “Brazil and
the politics of climate change: beyond the global commons,” Volume 21, Issue 5
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.698884 //JES)//HAL
The domestic politics of improving deforestation control Between 2005 and 2011, Brazil broke with its
historic trends by dramatically lowering Amazonian deforestation from an annual average of almost
21,000 km2 in 2000–2004 to 7000 km2 in 2009. This reduced its total GHG emissions by about 30%
(Brazil 2010b). Annual deforestation rates have always varied in Brazil, with some rough correlation
with national economic growth (see Figure 1). What is unusual about the recent drop in deforestation is
that it coincided with a sustained period of strong economic growth that included a commodity export
boom. Deforestation is still high, but the figures suggest that Brazil might be gaining leverage on one of
its most persistent environmental problems (Nepstad et al. 2009, Macedo et al. 2012). A number of
gradual changes have enhanced the legal architecture in the Amazon (still far from complete), in effect
trading clearer ownership of land and forests for greater public oversight of the use made of them. A
legal modification in 1996 began the process by reforming the Forest Code to raise the required setaside forest areas from 50 to 80% of individual Amazonian plots. Between 2000 and 2006, significant
areas were transferred to protected status, totalling 51% of remaining Amazon forest area (Nepstad et
al. 2009, p. 1350). Amendments to the National Forest Code in 2006 also allowed forests in federal
public lands to be transferred to private agents for sustainable management and commercial use; the
amendments established a Forest Service. A Federal Executive Order in 2009 (458/2009) issued land
titles in the Amazon, legalising to different degrees past land appropriations and deforestation. The
environmental movement heavily resisted the decree, but other analysts argue that the new law could
create private property obligations as well as rights for a vast coalition of legal landowners. Further
Forest Code revisions developing in 2012 would weaken sustainable forest management, e.g. by
allowing deforestation along rivers, but are unlikely to reverse the gains in controlling large scale
deforestation. The large and powerful agricultural coalition in Congress passed the bill over President
Dilma Rousseff’s objections in an April vote. Brazil has long had trouble implementing conservation in
its protected areas (Hochstetler and Keck 2007, p. 2), but stronger institutional capacity and more
effective law enforcement since 2003 have improved outcomes. These changes were developed during
Marina Silva’s tenure as Minister of Environment (2003–2008) and deepened under her successors.
Silva, who grew up as a rubber tapper in the Amazon region, began the process of slowly drawing
Amazonian state authorities into cooperation with the federal government. She required states to
develop plans to reduce deforestation and the federal government did real-time monitoring of the
results. Raids resulted in jail terms for some federal and state agency employees (Macedo et al. 2012,
p. 4). Governmental efforts were supported by national and international NGOs, who raised public
awareness and helped pressure the beef and soy industries to keep Amazon deforesters out of their
supply chains (Nepstad et al. 2009, p. 1350, Macedo et al. 2012). Other components of recent forest
policy aim to provide positive incentives for conservation. In 2007, a pilot programme called the ‘Forest
Protection Payment’ transferred a small amount of cash to local residents for their contribution to
maintaining the integrity of forests. In 2008, President Lula established the Amazonian Fund by
executive order, with the express purpose of capturing donations designated for prevention,
monitoring, and combat of deforestation. The Fund is administered by the Brazilian National
Development Bank (BNDES), which has already approved funding for projects totalling some $120
million. In 2009, BNDES announced the most important donation agreements to date, with Norway’s
Foreign Affairs Ministry promising as much as $ 1 billion if progress containing deforestation is
maintained (Nepstad et al. 2009). Evolving forest related negotiation positions As long as Brazilian
deforestation was high, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry resisted extending the CDM to carbon sinks and
forests. In doing so, it allied with the European Union against other forest countries, blocking an
important potential line of development of the international agreements. Despite having some of the
most important biodiversity and carbon stocks in forest in the world, Brazilian negotiators worried that
making them part of global agreements would eventually open Brazil to international liability for the
high rates of deforestation in the Amazon that the Brazilian government evidently could not control.
This position was strongly supported by rural agricultural and timber elites, dominant in state-level
politics in the Amazon and with a strong bloc in the National Congress (Viola 2004). The ‘Baptists’ of the
Ministry of Environment, the governments of some Amazonian states, and NGOs all argued against
Brazil’s opposition to extending the CDM to forests, but they lost until recently (Viola and Franchini
2012). As deforestation rates started dropping sharply in 2005, Brazil almost immediately changed its
international negotiating proposals. Brazil deviated from its historic position to propose the creation of
a global fund for forest conservation already at the 12th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC
inNairobi in December 2006. According to the Brazilian proposal, Annex 1 countries and corporations
would contribute to a fund that would distribute financial resources according to the performance of
countries in voluntarily reducing deforestation rates. This was the first time that Brazil accepted linking
deforestation rates to global financial tools. Despite this proposal, Brazilian negotiators retained their
traditional objection to carbon markets for forests until 2009. Interest calculations subsequently
brought the first ‘bootlegger’ into the climate action coalition. When the Kyoto Protocol was activated
in February 2005, Brazil had the first CDM project registered (Friberg 2009, p. 404). The CDM projects
promised new investment flows and possibly new technologies. Yet Brazil’s carbon profile meant that it
had comparatively few CDM investment opportunities, and China and India gained much larger shares.
This outcome was especially galling to governors and mayors in the Amazonian states, which lag far
behind the modern parts of the country in wealth and investment. They joined environmental NGOs in
strongly criticising their governments for blocking a similar global mechanism that would bring them
investments for forest conservation, especially after they had begun to reduce deforestation. The
Amazonian governors created a coalition in 2009 to actively push for a change of government strategy
(Nepstad et al. 2009). Following these developments, the Ministry of the Environment finally overcame
the entrenched opposition among the Foreign Ministry’s diplomats and actively contributed to the
development of a new forest instrument (REDDþ, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation) in Copenhagen. Climate action as good business Another ‘bootlegger’ ally emerged
following Barack Obama’s election in the United States in 2008. Brazilian reformist forces were already
trying to convince the federal authorities to assume a leadership role in the global climate negotiations,
which they now expected to move forward rapidly. The US House of Representatives in fact passed the
Waxman-Markey Climate Bill in June of 2009. It created the United States’ first legal framework for
national climate action and included a border tax adjustment for products coming from countries that
did not have similar emissions controls (Zhang 2010). The bill died in the Senate, but the evident shape
of eventual US action galvanised a proactive response from Brazilian industry. Three corporate
coalitions launched documents in September 2009 asking the government to modify Brazil’s climate
stances both domestically and internationally (Viola 2010). Most of the firms involved in the coalitions
were exporters to developed markets and believed that the US law would pass the Senate and quickly
be followed by similar legislation in all developed countries. The firms believed that, since Brazil had
already reduced deforestation and carbon emissions and exporting firms were mostly in low carbon
sectors, Brazil should adopt a new responsible climate policy. They hoped the country would thus avoid
the border tax adjustments and even gain a competitive advantage over China, India, and other higher
carbon emerging economies. The first coalition – ‘Open letter to Brazil about climate change’ – included
22 large national corporations from middle to high carbon intensive sectors. It was led by Brazilian
multinational Vale, the second largest iron ore producer in the world. This coalition demanded a clear
Brazilian commitment, including a steeper decline in deforestation and a reduction in the growth curve
of emissions from energy and cattle raising. The second coalition – ‘Alliance of Corporations in Favor of
the Climate’ – was formed by agribusiness corporations, and made only vague proposals, with some
emphasis on deforestation control. This was the least reform-oriented coalition because it is extremely
heterogeneous, ranging from climate friendly ethanol producers to climate conservative meatpacking
firms. National and transnational corporations that have a long-term climate vision formed the third
coalition, led by utilities and energy corporations. This coalition – ‘The Coalition of Corporations for
Climate’ – proposed more ambitious goals than the others, including setting a peak date for Brazilian
emissions between 2015 and 2020 and mandatory emissions reductions (Viola and Franchini 2012).
Brazil is focusing on deforestation control and Kyoto protocol proves Brazil solve global solutions to
warming
Hochstetler and Viola, 12 – CIGI Chair of Governance in the Americas in the Balsillie School of
International Affairs and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, AND, PhD in
Political Science from the University of Sao Paulo, Full Professor at the Institute of International
Relations, University of Brasilia (Kathryn and Eduardo, July 24th, 2012, Environmental Politics, “Brazil and
the politics of climate change: beyond the global commons,” Volume 21, Issue 5
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.698884 //JES)//HAL
Brazil promised a set of actions to reduce 2020 emissions by 36.1–38.9% below what they would
otherwise have been, while South Africa promised a similar 34% reduction. China and India have
committed to reduce their emission intensity, with China aiming to lower its carbon dioxide emissions
per unit of GDP by 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2020, and India promising a drop of 20–25% in the
same time frame. In Cancu´n, they agreed to the possibility of monitoring, oversight, and verification as
well as international consultation and analysis, although the details still have to be negotiated. In the
next section, we trace the changes that pushed Brazil to make its unprecedented commitment to
climate action. Baptists and bootleggers: the domestic politics of climate policy in Brazil Brazil occupies
a unique position in the global carbon cycle. Unlike its fellow BASIC countries, carbon emissions from
the modern sector of the economy – industry, energy, and transportation – are already quite low in
Brazil. An energy sector strongly grounded in renewable energies like hydropower and biofuels
accounts for this outcome. Instead, land use and land use change, especially deforestation, accounted
for 61% of Brazil’s GHG emissions in the Second National Emissions Inventory Communication of 2005,
while agriculture contributed another 19% (Brazil 2010a). Between Brazil’s first GHG inventory in 1994
and the second in 2005, annual emissions from deforestation grew 55%, from 800 million tons of CO2
to 1.25 billion (Brazil 2004, 2010a). These features form a backdrop for Brazil’s evolving climate stances.
Brazil has always had some actors with strong principled commitments to national climate action –
those DeSombre (2000) would call ‘Baptists’. Through most of Brazil’s participation in global climate
negotiations, they failed to influence national representatives who preferred to stress the historical
responsibility of developed countries to act first. In this section, we survey Brazil’s initial climate
positions. We then trace the multiple domestic changes after the mid-2000s that eventually culminated
in new international negotiating positions at the end of that decade. These included surprising new
success at controlling deforestation, the new prominence of actors who supported climate action for
instrumental reasons (‘bootleggers’), and public support for climate action that even spilled into the
2010 presidential election. Brazil in the Kyoto negotiations – the starting position In the initial years of
climate negotiations, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Science and Technology led Brazilian
delegations to climate meetings. In the Kyoto negotiation process (1996–2001), they were guided by a
definition of Brazil’s national interest that tracked closely with its broader foreign policy (Burges 2009).
This affirmed the right to development as a fundamental component of world order, and asserted a
leadership role for Brazil commensurate with the growth in its international stature during the Cardoso
administrations (1995–2002). Unlike its stance in the 1972 Stockholm Conference, Brazil also affirmed a
vision of development with environmental sustainability, but asked that developed countries provide
funding for climate mitigation in developing countries (Viola 2002, 2004). Brazil also argued strongly in
the Kyoto negotiations that national shares of carbon emissions should be calculated on the basis of
their historical accumulation since the mid-nineteenth century, reflecting carbon dioxide’s persistence
in the atmosphere (Roberts and Park 2007, p. 146). In 1997, Brazil suggested a financial mechanism that
would provide compensation for developing countries that voluntarily undertook GHG mitigation. As
these positions suggest, Brazilians were not climate ‘deniers’, but believed that developed countries
bore the responsibility for binding international obligations to address climate change (Lahsen 2004).
The G77 supported this position (Williams 2005). While Annex 1 countries rejected rationales of
historic responsibility, Brazil worked closely with the United States to develop what became the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Kyoto Protocol (Friberg 2009, p. 398). Already in the 1990s,
‘Baptists’ argued for principled reasons that Brazil should adopt a stronger and more active position in
favour of national climate action. Environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) often agreed
that developed countries had a special historical responsibility for climate change, but they still thought
their national representatives drew too much on ‘mindsets characterized by zero-sum thinking and
national economic interests’ (Lahsen 2004, pp. 155–157). Environmentalists had many allies in the
Ministry of Environment (Hochstetler and Keck 2007), but it did not play a major role in international
negotiations at this time. In Cardoso’s second administration, Brazil supported the final stages of
negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol with its division between the responsibilities of developed and
developing states, especially after the United States withdrew from the Protocol in 2001. Brazil helped
pull together the alliance between the European Union, Japan, and emerging countries that made the
final agreements possible. After the push to approve the Kyoto protocol, climate politics again took a
back seat in Brazil, with new president Lula da Silva’s administration after 2003 showing the familiar
divisions and sporadic attention to climate change of his predecessor. The political debate focused on
economic growth at home and reassertion of Brazil’s claims to sovereignty and global leadership
abroad, especially in the South (Burges 2009). Just a few years later, however, the domestic
developments that broadened the coalition in favour of climate action began to unfold.
--biofuels good
Brazil is k2 biofuels
Bound, 8 – Lead Policy Advisor on Innovation Systems at NESTA, Senior Researcher at Demos think
tank and a Demos Associate, (Kristen, “brazil: the natural knowledge economy,” The Atlas of Ideas, July
2008, Google Scholar, ftp://ftp.mct.gov.br/Biblioteca/15405Brazil_natural_knowledge_economy.pdf)//HAL
Key outputs from the science and innovation system Publications One way to measure Brazil’s progress
in science and innovation is to look at bibliometrics: the analysis of scientific publications and citations.
According to the Thompson ISI database, Brazil is the 15th largest producer of scientific publications in
the world.35 It rose from 23rd place in 1999, growing at around 8 per cent per year (see Figure 4),
dramatically outstripping other Latin American countries and overtaking countries with significant
science bases such as Belgium and Israel in the process.36 And this doesn’t show the whole picture, as
there are a number of other databases not included in this figure. One of the most interesting is SciELO
(Scientific Electronic Library Online).38 This open access science resource was created in 1997, and is
maintained by FAPESP and the Latin American & Caribbean Health Sciences Information Centre
(BIREME). Over 37,000 articles are freely available to download in Portuguese, Spanish and English;
Brazil accounts for 69 per cent of articles.39We can get an idea about where Brazil’s strengths lie by
looking at the areas of science that produce the most publications. The largest concentrations of
publications are in agriculture, biology and earth and space sciences – a clustering that some analysts
have called a ‘bioenvironmental model’, also found elsewhere in Latin America.40 It is worth noting
that biomedical sciences and biotechnology tend to produce more publications the world over, so the
high number of publications in these fields is not by itself surprising. However, the relative weight of
agricultural science is three times higher, and of biology 2.6 times higher, in Brazil’s publications than
the average for the world as a whole, underlining Brazil’s comparative advantages in these ‘natural
knowledge-economy’ areas. That said, there are also a number of high impact contributions (as
measured by the number of times subsequent articles have cited these publications) in neurosciences,
cardiovascular surgery, and human genetics and genetic sequencing.41 Eighty per cent of research
projects are developed in public universities and research institutes.42 The production of scientific
publications is not evenly distributed throughout the country, and there is a strong concentration in the
South East region. The University of São Paulo accounts for almost a quarter of Brazil’s scientific
publications alone.43 Patents Another key output of the science and innovation system is patents. The
rise in patents has failed to keep pace with the rise in publications, pointing to potential weaknesses in
the commercialisation of knowledge. In 2005, Brazil accounted for about 1.8 per cent of SCIE-indexed
publications but only 0.08 per cent of USPTO patent applications. Brazilian patenting activity trebled
between 1985 and 2005, a faster rate of growth than its Latin American neighbours, Mexico and
Argentina. But its competitors in other regions have been growing much faster. The starkest illustration
of this is South Korea: in 1985, the number of Brazilian applications to the USPTO was 60 per cent of
the Korean total; by 2005, it was just 2 per cent. In 1985, Brazil had almost twice as many USPTO patent
applications as Singapore and India combined. By 2005, Singapore was producing more than three
times as many as Brazil, and India almost five times as many. As late as 1997, Brazil was producing
more USPTO patent applications than China. Yet, as Figure 5 shows, less than 10 years later China was
producing seven times as many.Mapping the frontiers: portraits of science Having reviewed the overall
character of the Brazilian science and innovation system, it is helpful to examine some of its frontier
fields in more detail. Biofuels As discussed earlier, a great deal of political and scientific debate now
surrounds the development of biofuels. The Centre for Strategic Management and Studies (CGEE),
which has just completed a major study on the future of ethanol in Brazil, estimates that in the past 30
years, US$207 million has so far been invested in biofuels research in Brazil. In the most recent national
industrial policy (published in May 2008) the government pledged to raise bioethanol production to
23.3 billion litres by 2010.48 Apart from the size of its production, Brazil is set apart from other biofuel
producing countries by its use of sugar cane to produce ethanol, and for the sugar cane biotechnology
required. In 2003, Brazilian scientists completed the identification of 40,000 sugar cane genes.
Compared to US bioethanol, produced from corn, sugar cane ethanol has an energy balance up to five
times higher.49 Brazil has a more recent history in biodiesel than ethanol. The first national programme
on biodiesel production and usage, PNPB, was launched in 2005; 2 per cent of petrol-based diesel must
be replaced by animal or plant biodiesel, rising to 5 per cent by 2013.50 How sustainable are biofuels?
The social and environmental dilemmas raised by biofuels are manifold. It will be disastrous if crops
end up being grown to fuel the cars of the rich while the poor starve, as some campaigners are
suggesting. At the same time this is a complex situation, and one in which the debate is often
oversimplified, neglecting other political and trade reasons for food insecurity. In some situations,
subsidies for biofuel production could impact on food availability. Yet globally, only 1 per cent of arable
land is used now for biofuel production, with a prospective coverage of 3 or 4 per cent by 2030. In
Brazil,sugar cane for bioethanol is produced on only 5 per cent of the country’s cultivated land.51
Twenty billion litres of bioethanol are produced from 3.5 million hectares. Based on the Brazilian
experience, to achieve a blend of 10 per cent of bioethanol from sugar cane in the global gasoline
consumption today, less than 25 million hectares of land would be required. But not all biofuels
cultivation will be based on the Brazilian model. There are also additional environmental concerns
relating to water and fertilizer use. Cultivating its leadership position in biofuels, particularly the
advisory role it is assuming in the developing world, brings huge responsibility for Brazil. It needs to
ensure that the biofuels industry can be truly sustainable, and lead by example in the way it balances
competing priorities.
Biofuels solve inevitable oil wars
Ventura 12—Essayist and cultural critic @ Austin Chronicle (Michael Ventura, “Letters at 3AM: A Big
Picture and a Long Game,” Austin Chronicle, Fri., Oct. 19, 2012, pg.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-10-19/letters-at-3am-a-big-picture-and-a-longgame/)//HAL
It's like Alice watching the Queen of Hearts play cards and croquet: "Three times so far this year, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the regional war-fighting commanders have assembled at [Marine Corps Base
Quantico, Va.], where a giant map of the world, larger than a basketball court, was laid out on the
ground. ... The generals and admirals walked the world and worked their way through a series of
potential national security crises. ... 'Strategic seminar' is the name Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has chosen for these daylong sessions" (The New York Times online, Sept.
12).¶ Let's walk this immense map. We'll stroll roughly 5,500 miles from the Strait of Gibraltar eastward
to the Afghan-Pakistani border. Then let's amble another 7,000 miles from Kazakhstan in Asia to Angola
in Africa. In the area we've walked, alliances overlap and contradict one another—and are further
complicated by trade routes, oil fields, rebels, pirates, and terrorists—and the United States has
positioned itself in such a way that its chain can be yanked from almost any direction.¶ Focus on oil.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (www.eia.gov), in 2011, 69% of U.S. oil
originated in five countries, listed by volume: Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Of
the next 10 largest sources, six are in the area we've walked: three in the Persian Gulf—Iraq, Kuwait, and
Oman; three in Africa—Angola, Algeria, and Chad.¶ Imagine some general scenarios: A destabilized
Tunisia impacts bordering Algeria. A destabilized Libya impacts bordering Algeria and Chad. Chad,
destabilized by a destabilized Libya, in turn destabilizes Nigeria.¶ Move west from Africa. A destabilized
Yemen impacts neighboring Saudi Arabia and Oman. A belligerent Iran impacts Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, and Oman.¶ Draw lines of possible crises this way and that, and the generals, admirals, and war
commanders walking the big map must be bumping into one another with alarming frequency any way
they turn. All for imported oil.¶ Oil dependence has put the United States in a strategically vulnerable
and ultimately untenable position. There's no way we can cover all that turf indefinitely. We've neither
the money nor the manpower.¶ One issue is clear: The cessation of our participation in Iraq and
Afghanistan won't affect the overall situation.¶ "Large numbers of MRAPs [armored troop carriers] ... in
Iraq and Afghanistan [will be] stored in Italy, where they could be transported for contingencies across
Africa" (The New York Times online, July 27). "Contingencies" is a neutral word for war.¶ In 2008,
President George W. Bush authorized "the newest regional headquarters, Africa Command" (The New
York Times, Oct. 5, 2008, p.8). "Africom" is based in Stuttgart, Germany, "owing to local [African]
sensitivities." Its commander, Gen. William E. Ward, "rejected criticisms that Africa Command would
result in a militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically structured for cooperative
efforts," though he didn't define what that meant.¶ Whatever it meant, President Obama has appointed
a new commander. Gen. David M. Rodriguez is an officer of "extensive combat experience. ... [He]
served two tours in Iraq and two tours in Afghanistan ... and later [was] deputy commander of allied
forces there with responsibility for day-to-day management of the war. ... [Rodriguez] was one of the
architects" of Obama's Afghan surge (The New York Times online, Sept. 19).¶ Sounds like the Pentagon
and the White House anticipate action in Africa.¶ The July 27 report cited above added that "MRAPs
would be sent to warehouses in the western Pacific" and "significant numbers are stored in Southwest
Asia."¶ The U.S. is building a base in Darwin, on the northwest tip of Australia, "as a new center of
operations in Asia as it seeks to ... grapple with China's rise" (The New York Times, Nov. 15, 2011, p.6).¶
Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta
crisscrossed the western Pacific from China to New Zealand assuring everybody that we're not trying to
"contain" China; we're merely, in Panetta's words, continuing "to be what we have been now for seven
decades: the pivotal military power in the Asia-Pacific region" (The New York Times online, Sept. 13).¶
But something is true today that has not been true for most of those seven decades. According to the
Central Intelligence Agency (www.cia.gov), China is the No. 1 trading partner of Australia, Japan, South
Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Taiwan, and Thailand. And China is a major
commercial player with everybody else in the region.¶ We're defending these Pacific countries against
their major trading partner?¶ "'What worries us is having to choose [between the U.S. and China]—we
don't want to be in that position,' said the foreign minister of Indonesia" (The New York Times online,
June 1). You bet they don't.¶ China, Japan, and others are jockeying for some seemingly worthless (even
uninhabited) islands in the South and East China seas.¶ "Quarrels over these hunks of volcanic rock
wouldn't matter much except that China, Vietnam, and the Philippines are running into one another in
the race for oil" (The New York Times, Nov. 13, 2011, p.SR4). It's about offshore drilling, that report says.
"The South China Sea alone is estimated to have 61 billion barrels of petroleum—oil and gas—plus 54
billion yet to be discovered." Oil again.¶ In the long game, who wins influence over the area? The United
States or China? Put it another way: Who wins? The depleted, financially struggling, politically
deadlocked nation many thousands of miles away or the money- and manpower-rich rising nation
playing in its own pool? (After all, the disputed areas are called the South and East China Seas.)¶ Again,
the U.S. is setting itself up in a strategically untenable position.¶ Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said, "We
buy too much fossil fuels from potentially or actually volatile places on earth" (NPR online, Sept. 26,
2011).¶ But the unexpected always happens, and that NPR report reveals something most unexpected:
Of all U.S. federal institutions, the Navy and Air Force lead in seeking a nonviolent, eco-friendly path out
of America's strategic morass. They "have been busy testing their aircraft ... on jet biofuel. ... [T]he Navy
has launched a project to invest up to half a billion dollars in biofuel refineries. Mabus says he is
committed to getting 50 percent of the Navy's fuel for aircraft and surface ships from renewable sources
by 2020 because dependence on foreign oil makes the U.S. military vulnerable."¶ Predictably, "the
biofuel program has struck a nerve among Republicans," who are trying to limit military biofuel use by
law (The New York Times online, Aug. 27). Their Big Oil donors know that if a military market makes
biofuels cheap, then America's airlines, railways, and truckers will want it too, and other oil-dependent
nations will follow our lead.¶ Mostly for the sake of oil, the Obama administration's strategies extend
U.S. military reach beyond practical limits—limits that Mitt Romney, if elected, plans to strain still
further. But the military has come up with an elegant solution: Strategically and environmentally, a U.S.
military powered by biofuels could be a 21st century game-changer that ends the oil wars and drains Big
Oil's political dominance.¶ That is a real possibility. It is also possible that, walking a map bigger than a
basketball court, our commanders will bump into one another indefinitely, attempting to defend an
indefensible strategy.
Biofuels decrease CO2
La Rovere, 11 – Ph.D. in Economics, by the School of High Studies in Social Sciences, University of
Paris, France and Professor of the Energy Planning Program. Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (EMILIO
LEBRE La Rovere, André Santos Pereira, and André Felipe Simões, "Biofuels and sustainable energy
development in Brazil." World Development 39.6 (2011): 1026-1036,
http://www.lima.coppe.ufrj.br/files/Rovere%20et%20al%202011%20-%20Biofuels.pdf)//HAL
Another positive environmental impact of ethanol is related to climate change mitigation through
greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The use of ethanol and bagasse as a fuel has allowed for avoiding a
substantial amount of GHG emissions in the last 30 years (up to a peak of 10 million tons of carbon per
year—MtC/y). Indeed, the net amount of GHG emissions avoided by sugarcane ethanol and bagasse in
Brazil has been evaluated at 9.45 MtC for the year 1990–91. The carbon released into the atmosphere
when bagasse and ethanol are burnt as fuel is compensated for by an equivalent quantity of carbon that
the sugarcane absorbs during its growth. Accounting only for the replacement of gasoline, the use of
ethanol has avoided the release into the atmosphere of an average of 5.86 MtC per year from 1980 to
1990 (Macedo, 1998). Results are summarized in Table 3 below using 1990–91 as a base year. As well as
for ethanol vis-a`-visits fossil equivalent (gasoline), greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from biodiesel
vis-a`-vis mineral diesel depend on several factors, such as local climate condition, energy used in crops
production (mechanization, fertilizers), crops productivity and others. Ethanol and biodiesel net GHG
emissions are very case specific. Studies show that GHG emission reduction due to one liter of ethanol
replacing one liter of gasoline ranges from 19% to 47% per kilometer (well-to-wheels, from biomass
production to the vehicle) in the case of corn ethanol, from 35% to 56% in the case of sugar beet and of
92% in the case of sugarcane ethanol, thanks to its more favorable energy balance (Macedo, 1998).
Indeed, for each unit of fossil energy used in sugar cane production, harvesting, and transportation, as
well as in the ethanol processing, 9.3 units of renewable energy are produced in 2005–06. This may
reach 11.6 in 2020 with the spread of already commercial technologies. For anhydrous ethanol
production, the total GHG emission was 436 kg CO2 eq/m3 ethanol in 2005–06, decreasing to 345 kg
CO2 eq/m3 ethanol in 2020. Regarding hydrous ethanol, the avoided GHG emissions depends on the
final use. Still in 2005–06, 2,181 kg CO2 eq/m3 ethanol in neat-ethanol cars and 2,323 kg CO2 eq/m3
ethanol in E25 cars. 2 These figures are based on the best available and comprehensive data for the
Brazilian Center-south Region, which accounts for the bulk of ethanol national production (Macedo,
Seabrab, & Silvac, 2008). Regarding biodiesel GHG net emissions, there is not a study available yet for
the Brazilian specific conditions. However, it is possible to say that there is a great potential for GHG
emission reductions due to biodiesel production and use in Brazil. Studies applied to the colza biodiesel
in Europe show that GHG emission reduction from its use for replacing one liter of mineral diesel ranges
from 44% to 66% per kilometer (well-to-wheels) (IEA, 2004). The Brazilian agricultural circumstances
influencing GHG emissions, especially climate, crops variety, and energy intensity in oil crops cultures
are more favorable than in Europe. Using methanol (from fossil fuels—naphtha) in the
transesterification process for biodiesel production, CO2 emissions are reduced by 78% compared with
diesel oil displaced. When ethanol is used for biodiesel production, CO2 emissions reductions made
possible by substituting biodiesel for diesel oil may reach nearly 100%, as in the case of ethanol
substitution for gasoline.
russia turn
Their author concedes three alt causes to Russia expansionism:
First – Cuba and Panama Naval Interdiction
Zeihan, 8 – bachelors in political science @ Truman State University; post graduate degree in Asian
Studies @ University of Otago; Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor; Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce (Peter Zeihan, September 15th, 2008, Stratfor “The Russian Resurgence and the
New-Old Front”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20080915_russian_resurgence_and_new_old_front)//JES
It is a fairly straightforward exercise to predict where Russian activity will reach its deepest. One only
needs to revisit Cold War history. Future Russian efforts can be broken down into three broad
categories: naval interdiction, drug facilitation and direct territorial challenge. ¶ Naval Interdiction¶ Naval
interdiction represents the longest sustained fear of American policymakers. Among the earliest U.S.
foreign efforts after securing the mainland was asserting control over the various waterways used for
approaching North America. Key in this American geopolitical imperative is the neutralization of Cuba.
All the naval power-projection capabilities in the world mean very little if Cuba is both hostile and
serving as a basing ground for an extra-hemispheric power. ¶ The U.S. Gulf Coast is not only the heart of
the country’s energy industry, but the body of water that allows the United States to function as a
unified polity and economy. The Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi river basins all drain to New Orleans and
the Gulf of Mexico. The economic strength of these basins depends upon access to oceanic shipping. A
hostile power in Cuba could fairly easily seal both the Straits of Florida and the Yucatan Channel,
reducing the Gulf of Mexico to little more than a lake.¶ Building on the idea of naval interdiction, there is
another key asset the Soviets targeted at which the Russians are sure to attempt a reprise: the Panama
Canal. For both economic and military reasons, it is enormously convenient to not have to sail around
the Americas, especially because U.S. economic and military power is based on maritime ¶ power and
access. In the Cold War, the Soviets established friendly relations with Nicaragua and arranged for a
favorable political evolution on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Like Cuba, these two locations are of
dubious importance by themselves. But take them together — and add in a Soviet air base at each
location as well as in Cuba — and there is a triangle of Soviet airpower that can threaten access to the
Panama Canal.
Second – Drug Facilitation
Zeihan, 8 – bachelors in political science @ Truman State University; post graduate degree in Asian
Studies @ University of Otago; Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor; Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce (Peter Zeihan, September 15th, 2008, Stratfor “The Russian Resurgence and the
New-Old Front”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20080915_russian_resurgence_and_new_old_front)//JES
The drug trade undermines American society from within, generating massive costs for social stability,
law enforcement, the health system and trade. During the Cold War, the Soviets dabbled with narcotics
producers and smugglers, from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to the highland
coca farmers of Bolivia. It is not so much that the Soviets encouraged the drug trade directly, but that
they encouraged any group they saw as ideologically useful.¶ STRATFOR expects future Russian
involvement in such activities to eclipse those of the past. After the Soviet fall, many FSB agents were
forced to find new means to financially support themselves. (Remember it was not until 1999 that
Vladimir Putin took over the Russian government and began treating Russian intelligence like a bona
fide state asset again.) The Soviet fall led many FSB agents, who already possessed more than a passing
familiarity with things such as smuggling and organized crime, directly into the heart of such activities.
Most of those agents are — formally or not — back in the service of the Russian government, now with
a decade of gritty experience on the less savory side of intelligence under their belts. And they now have
a deeply personal financial interest in the outcome of future operations. ¶ Drug groups do not need
cash from the Russians, but they do need weaponry and a touch of training — needs which dovetail
perfectly with the Russians’ strengths. Obviously, Russian state involvement in such areas will be far
from overt; it just does not do to ship weapons to the FARC or to one side of the brewing Bolivian civil
war with CNN watching. But this is a challenge the Russians are good at meeting. One of Russia’s current
deputy prime ministers, Igor Sechin, was the USSR’s point man for weapons smuggling to much of Latin
America and the Middle East. This really is old hat for them.
Third – Mexican destabilization
Zeihan, 8 – bachelors in political science @ Truman State University; post graduate degree in Asian
Studies @ University of Otago; Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor; Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce (Peter Zeihan, September 15th, 2008, Stratfor “The Russian Resurgence and the
New-Old Front”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20080915_russian_resurgence_and_new_old_front)//JES
*Stratfor is the company this qualified guy is vice president of
¶ U.S. Stability¶ Finally, there is the issue of direct threats to U.S. stability, and this point rests solely on
Mexico. With more than 100 million people, a growing economy and Atlantic and Pacific ports, Mexico is
the only country in the Western Hemisphere that could theoretically (which is hardly to say inevitably)
threaten U.S. dominance in North America. During the Cold War, Russian intelligence gave Mexico more
than its share of jolts in efforts to cause chronic problems for the United States. In fact, the Mexico City
KGB station was, and remains today, the biggest in the world. The Mexico City riots of 1968 were in part
Soviet-inspired, and while ultimately unsuccessful at overthrowing the Mexican government, they
remain a testament to the reach of Soviet intelligence. The security problems that would be created by
the presence of a hostile state the size of Mexico on the southern U.S. border are as obvious as they
would be dangerous. ¶ As with involvement in drug activities, which incidentally are likely to overlap in
Mexico, STRATFOR expects Russia to be particularly active in destabilizing Mexico in the years ahead.
But while an anti-American state is still a Russian goal, it is not their only option. The Mexican drug
cartels have reached such strength that the Mexican government’s control over large portions of the
country is an open question. Failure of the Mexican state is something that must be considered even
before the Russians get involved. And simply doing with the Mexican cartels what the Soviets once did
with anti-American militant groups the world over could suffice to tip the balance. ¶ In many regards,
Mexico as a failed state would be a worse result for Washington than a hostile united Mexico. A hostile
Mexico could be intimidated, sanctioned or even invaded, effectively browbeaten into submission. But a
failed Mexico would not restrict the drug trade at all. The border would be chaos, and the implications
of that go well beyond drugs. One of the United States’ largest trading partners could well devolve into a
seething anarchy that could not help but leak into the U.S. proper. ¶ Whether Mexico becomes staunchly
anti-American or devolves into the violent chaos of a failed state does not matter much to the Russians.
Either one would threaten the United States with a staggering problem that no amount of resources
could quickly or easily fix. And the Russians right now are shopping around for staggering problems with
which to threaten the United States. ¶ In terms of cost-benefit analysis, all of these options are nobrainers. Threatening naval interdiction simply requires a few jets. Encouraging the drug trade can be
done with a few weapons shipments. Destabilizing a country just requires some creativity. However,
countering such activities requires a massive outlay of intelligence and military assets — often into areas
that are politically and militarily hostile, if not outright inaccessible. In many ways, this is containment in
reverse.
And Russian anti-american objectives have no terminal impact
Zeihan, 8 – bachelors in political science @ Truman State University; post graduate degree in Asian
Studies @ University of Otago; Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor; Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce (Peter Zeihan, September 15th, 2008, Stratfor “The Russian Resurgence and the
New-Old Front”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20080915_russian_resurgence_and_new_old_front)//JES
The next stage — drug facilitation — is somewhat trickier. South America is a wide and varying land with
very little to offer Russian interests. Most of the states are commodity providers, much like the Soviet
Union was and Russia is today, so they are seen as economic competitors. Politically, they are useful as
anti-American bastions, so the Kremlin encourages such behavior whenever possible. But even if every
country in South America were run by anti-American governments, it would not overly concern
Washington; these states, alone or en masse, lack the ability to threaten American interests … in all
ways but one.
dollar turn
No dollar replacement in Latin America
Weibel, 11 (Mauricio, “EU crisis pushes billions of dollars into Latin America,” DPA, BUSINESS AND
FINANCIAL NEWS, 11/15/11, lexis, Tashma)
Nov. 15--SANTIAGO -- Billions of dollars continue to flow into Latin America amid the ongoing economic
crisis in Europe and the United States. "Today Latin America is seen as an interesting alternative for
foreign direct investment, given the lower demand in developed countries," Daniel Titelman, head of
Development Studies at the UN's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),
told dpa. According to the ECLAC, foreign direct investment in Latin America grew by 54 percent, or 82
billion dollars, in the first half of this year. Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia alone received a total of 68
billion dollars over that period. Foreign direct investment was joined by short-term funds and exports,
which alone amounted to more than 100 billion dollars from January to June. "The challenge for the
region is to get that capital to finance productive investment," Titelman said, as he called for
restructuring Latin America's financial markets. The ECLAC official noted that China is crucial for the
future of South America, and stressed that Latin America will continue to benefit from extra funds for as
long as Europe and the United States continue to grow, even if they do so modestly.
Latin American banks are resilient --- no collapse
Malkin, 11 (Elisabeth, “Pushing Latin American Banks to Lend,” The New York Times, 11/29/11,
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/pushing-latin-american-banks-to-lend/, Tashma)
MEXICO CITY — As economic turmoil whiplashes banks in Europe and poses new threats to American
financial institutions, the view from Latin America is very different. Well off the radar screen of the
global economic crisis, Latin America’s banks have proven their sturdiness, emerging relatively
unscathed from the collapse. The problem, according to a study released by the World Bank on
Tuesday, is that they just don’t lend very much. Latin America’s banking crises are well behind it, part of
the detritus of economic mismanagement in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, regulators, particularly in
the region’s most developed countries, have focused on ensuring the banks’ stability and resiliency.
Worries about a contagion effect on the Latin American subsidiaries of European and North American
banks are held in check because they have to follow local capital requirements.
-- inflation impact
No hyperinflation
Baker, 10 (Dean, Co-director, Center for Economic Policy and Research, September 2010,
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/deficits-2010-9.pdf)
For these reasons, any inflation that resulted from the Fed’s decision to buy large amounts of debt at
present would be a plus for the economy rather than something to be feared. If inflation threatened to
get out of control, then it would be a serious problem, but there is little possibility that this could
happen given the depth of the downturn. Furthermore, inflation does not just begin skyrocketing
overnight in developed economies. Inflation increases gradually in response to excess demand. If there
was evidence that tight labor markets or bottlenecks in production were creating inflationary pressures,
then the Fed would have plenty of time to reverse course and adopt policies to slow the economy. In
short, the decision to buy large amounts of debt at present holds little risk.
Money supply is down four trillion in last five years
Brown, 12 (Ellen, attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, 9/21/12, “Why QE3 Won’t
Jumpstart the Economy—and What Would” https://webofdebt.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/why-qe3wont-jumpstart-the-economy-and-what-would-2/)
None of these moves would drive the economy into hyperinflation. According to the Fed’s figures, as of July 2010,
the money supply was actually $4 trillion LESS than it was in 2008. That means that as of that date, $4
trillion more needed to be pumped into the money supply just to get the economy back to where it was
before the banking crisis hit.
Their epistemological basis is flawed --- hyperinflation theories are non-falsifiable and it’s at a 50 year
low
Karabell, 13 (Zachary Karabell, PhD from Harvard, historian, money manager and economist, president of River Twice Research, where he
analyzes economic and political trends, 1/18/13, “Inflation Hawks Are Waging War Against Their Own Hallucinations”,
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/inflation-hawks-are-waging-war-against-their-own-hallucinations/267333/)
Earlier this week the
Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly inflation report. The numbers came in at
1.7 percent a year for all items. Excluding the ever-volatile food and energy, it was 1.9 percent. That's about as low as
inflation has been in the last 50 years. Only 1986 (1.1 percent), 1998 and 2001 (1.6 percent), 2008 (0.1 percent) and 2010 (1.5
percent) have come in lower, and a few years in the mid-2000s registered the same. The disappearance of inflation over the past 20
years, however, has barely dented the pervasive belief that inflation remains one of the greatest threats to
economic stability. These convictions persist in spite of all evidence to the contrary: Inflation is nowhere
visible. For many, that is just proof that we are living in a lull -- a phony war soon to be disrupted when that age-old enemy reappears and
wreaks havoc. At the Federal Reserve -- legally mandated guardian of price stability and responsible for monitoring and containing
inflation -- the president of the Richmond Fed, Jeffrey Lacker, has been warning that the current policy of very low interest rates
and expansion of the balance sheet is almost certain to spark inflation in the near future. In Europe, those views are even
more deeply held. The German Bundesbank -- still seared by memories of hyperinflation in the 1920s and the collapse of political order that
gave rise to the Nazis -- remains ever vigilant. Its president, Jens Weidman, is strongly opposed to many of the recent sovereign bailouts to
preserve the euro on the grounds that good money chasing bad will spark inflation. These officials tend to be firm yet measured in their
concern ‑ something that cannot be said of populist politicians and analysis. The Tea Party is fueled not just by debt animus but by a deepseated belief that "real" inflation is much higher than what the government reports, and it insists that the spending habits of the government
will end in the collapse of the dollar, hyperinflation and the government's de facto stealing from hard-working Americans' money. That is the
fear of gold bugs, and added to the mix are the views of former Representative Ron Paul and his son, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), that the Fed is
putting the United States in inflation peril. Many professional investors and economists
are similarly convinced that the
current policies of zero interest rates and deficit spending are setting the stage for massive inflation. How
to explain the inverse relationship between inflation concerns and inflation realities? Yes, low inflation in recent years has been juxtaposed with
modest economic growth and wage stagnation for most Americans ‑ as well as for most Europeans and Japanese. Given that perceptions of
economic well-being are ultimately tied to disposable income, these forces have largely canceled each other out. In addition, people tend to be
acutely aware of the volatility of energy and food prices, which have spiked - and then receded - many times in past years. Yet even with food
and fuel, inflation
perceptions can be deceptive. Many people are aware that the price of a loaf of bread
has risen from less than 40 cents in the 1970s to an average of more than $2 today. Food prices have also risen periodically
over the past few years in the face of global demand and droughts. That cements a perception of inflation. Yet over the past few
decades, food as an overall percent of income has gone down, down and down. In 1972, Americans
spent 15 percent of their disposable income on food; today, that figure is 11 percent. The only shift has been in
eating out ‑ people spend more on restaurants and much less on food at home. And that has happened even as incomes have stagnated.
Gasoline, which has fluctuated widely, has maintained a steady share of disposable income for decades, at about 3.5 percent, which is now
decreasing because of production from shale oil deposits and ever-more-efficient vehicles. One of the strongest arguments for vigilance against
inflation comes from economists following the dicta of Milton Friedman that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." In
that view, the actions of governments and central bankers are the determining factor, and the experience of the 20th century was that inflation
often followed government policies, especially promiscuous government spending. Since that is what happened in the past, many are
firmly convinced that it will, perforce, happen in the future. One pernicious cliché is that history repeats
itself. It doesn't. Historians repeat each other ‑ and economists then pile on with theorems based on a
limited amount of history that then constitute "laws" of economics. Unquestionably, inflation was a systemic threat
not just in the 20th century but for centuries before. Thus the absence of inflation today is explained as an anomaly soon
to end; an artificial state of affairs generated by easy-money policies of governments and central banks around
the world; or a false statement in that inflation is underreported by governments interested in pretending it doesn't exist. The virtue of
these arguments is that they are not falsifiable. You can't prove there isn't a government conspiracy
about "real" inflation, and you can't prove that something isn't about to happen. If you argue that there has been
a systemic shift - that, say, technology and globalization have combined to send manufactured goods ever lower (with food as much a
manufactured good as a computer) - you can easily be dismissed for foolishly contending that "this time it's different." What, then, is the
statute of limitations for inflation? How long must there be low, low inflation before the risk of it is judged as de minimus? Yes, it might rear up
in future. Yes, past patterns may prove correct. It would be foolish not to be on guard about the possibility and the risk ‑ just as it would be
foolish not to forget that we still live in a world suffused with nuclear weapons. Yet it would be equally foolish to
ignore the
weight of evidence about low inflation everywhere around the globe, not just for the past few years but
over the past few decades. The consequences of planning for a war that never happens can be just as
deleterious as fighting that war unprepared. If inflation is not the proximate risk of today's economy,
then we are radically misjudging our problems and missing solutions. If inflation is not a dire threat, then
we need not be so concerned about government spending or central bank policy. We should instead focus on
the ability of our national economies and the global economic system to generate sustainable living
standards for billions of people. Right now, so many are so fixated on inflation that these other challenges receive short shrift. If inflation
revives, that fixation may be justified. If not, we will have squandered our time chasing echoes instead of meeting our present with eyes wide
open to the possibilities of the future.
**AFF**
uniqueness
brazil leadership low
generic
Brazil soft power is terminally screwed
Casanova and Kassum, 13 – PhD, Senior Lecturer of Management, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate
School of Management, Cornell University, AND MA in International Relations, Independent Consultant,
International Economic Relations, Buenos Aires (Lourdes AND Julian, June 5, 2013, “From Soft to Hard
Power: In Search of Brazil’s Winning Blend,” INSEAD,
www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=52407)//Hensel
¶ Weak spots in Brazil’s soft power¶ ¶ Brazil’s soft power matrix does, however, have a number of weak
spots which may over time undermine the country’s credibility and attractiveness in the eyes of the
world. A first weakness is the quality of education , a key factor of prestige in today’s knowledge
economy. Brazil is the only BRIC country not to have any universities listed in the top 100 of the world’s
major university rankings. Its largest and most reputable university, the University of Sao Paolo, ranked
only 139th in the 2012-2013 edition of the QS World University Ranking. The degree of
internationalization of Brazilian universities and the presence of Brazilian students abroad are also very
low. In 2011, there were a mere 9,000 Brazilians on US campuses, compared with 260,000 Chinese and
Indian students. To reverse this trend, the government of Brazil launched a program called “Science
Without Borders” in July 2011, which provides scholarships to Brazilian undergraduate students for one
year of study in US universities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.¶ ¶
Brazil’s global projection also suffers from a number of domestic problems which continue to blight
society and damage the country’s global image. Despite considerable progress in reducing crime in
recent years, Brazil’s murder rate remains more than four times higher than in the United States. The
wave of homicides that followed a police strike in Salvador in February 2012 suggests that the problem
of urban violence runs deep and could take years to be resolved.¶ ¶ Corruption is another ill often
associated with Brazil. Graft scandals involving Brazil’s politicians and businesses have become so
frequent that they triggered a wave of popular protests across Brazilian cities throughout 2011. The
country may, however, be in a position to turn this long-standing weakness into a strength. In August
2012, the Brazilian Supreme Court opened what many describe as the biggest corruption trial in Brazil’s
history. The trial, which is to look into a cash-for-votes scheme involving 36 officials from the former
Lula administration, has being hailed as a sign of political health in a country that has long been marred
by impunity.
-- econ
No Brazil rise—internal issues
Sotero and Armijo, 7 – Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and Armijo is an independent research professional at Portland State
University and holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Political Science (Paulo and Leslie Elliott, “BRAZIL: TO
BE OR NOT TO BE A BRIC?” ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2007, pp. 43-70, Google Scholar)//HAL
The contradictory trends of loss of competitiveness combined with gains on the social front have fed an
intense and wide-ranging national debate amplified by an open and competitive media that keeps the
core economic and political choices confronting the country highly visible. There is an ample and
growing societal consensus on many of the essential “structural” reforms that Brazil still must confront:
the growing cost of the public sector; the poor quality of public education; the unfairness and lack of
equity in the social security system; Brazil’s high taxation (around 39 percent of GDP), which even leftleaning President Lula has described as “punishing to investors;” and other issues that limit Brazil’s
prospects at home and competitiveness in the world economy. The difficulty in finding solutions derives
in large measure from the nature of democratic life, made dysfunctional at times in Brazil by a political
system built to protect the privileges of the powerful in a still very unequal and unjust society. In
common with the other three BRICs countries considered in this volume, Brazil’s future status in the
international system thus depends crucially on how well the country’s leaders manage its domestic
challenges. In Brazil these challenges are overwhelmingly ones of economic management. Only if they
are met will Brazil play a global role in the twenty-first century.
No Brazilian growth
Linde et al 13 - Associate Professor at Roskilde University and member of the International
Development Research Group in the Department of Society and Globalization (Birger Skydsgaard, with
Pernille van Kleef, Philipp Ständer, Sander Specht and Simon Hjorth, “Global Brazil and the Political
Economy of the Brazilian Model,” January 2nd, 2013, http://rudar.ruc.dk:8080/handle/1800/9714
However recently, Brazil’s prospects became shallow again. After three years of a sluggish world
economy, growth in Brazil is as well close to stagnation. Brazilian politicians repeatedly emphasize
Brazil’s determination to protect its economic gains, be it against Mexican or Chinese car manufacturing
or against upwards pressures on the Brazilian currency by US deflationary programs. While especially
Brazil’s administration coins portentous terms such as a looming currency or trade war, academia
discusses controversially the challenges of the new Brazil. Ruchir Sharma, an analyst and researcher
from Morgan Stanley, argues in the Journal on Foreign Relations that “Brazil’s consumer boom has been
driven by income from commodity sales” to China (2012:87). Since, he expects Chinese growth and
resource demand to drop during the next years, he concludes that Brazilian dependence on these
exports would put an end to Brazil’s boom. His debatable claim caused several responses, which
concluded that his analysis ignores the central role of political and economic stability for the consumer
boom. Moreover, it does not account for progress made in addressing domestic challenges over the
last decade, these factors are seen as stabilizers for the Brazilian economy that would make it less
vulnerable than Sharma suggests (O’Neil & Lapper 2012). Looking into the debate, the observer wonders
how Brazil arrived at its current position and what shaped the Brazil of the 21st century? Furthermore,
Brazil is infamous for a set of challenges, that makes production in Brazil relatively expensive and is
routinely criticized by Western observers as results of the prioritization on welfare spending, which puts
Brazil into an inferior position among emerging markets (Sharma 2012). Particularly, lack of skilled
labor, underdeveloped infrastructure and high labor costs are blamed to harm Brazilian
competitiveness. Thus, this paper asks to which extend these obstacles challenge Brazil’s growth
perspectives and in how far these challenges are structural problems of the Brazilian state.
-- social
Alt cause to decline – World Cup and Olympics, and corruption
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
As the host of both the next football World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016, Brazil has an
opportunity to show the world the vitality of its emerging power in an area about which it is
passionate - sports. The decisions to award the events to Brazil, which were won by the government of
former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, marked a diplomatic tour de force for the country. But
recent negative media attention - highlighting FIFA’s fear that the stadiums won’t be ready in time for
the games - shows that convincing the world of your prowess is not enough, one must successfully host
the events. This past year’s corruption scandals among President Rousseff’s high ranking officials, first
Brazil’s Sports Minister and then the head of the Brazilian football confederation this past March, are
partly to blame for the delay. Although most of the 12 stadiums are on schedule, many are over budget
and being constructed on taxpayer tabs. It remains to be seen if the exposed challenges of execution are
symptoms of a larger problem of underdevelopment and whether Brazil’s forthcoming sport diplomacy
initiatives will have a positive long-term impact on the population.
-- oil
Brazil’s Petrobras failure has led to leadership collapse and U.S. reemergence
Romero, 13 – Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times; braduated with honors from Harvard
College with a degree in History and Literature (Simon Romero, March 26th, 2013, New York Times
“Petrobras, Once Symbol of Brazil’s Oil Hopes, Strives to Regain Lost Swagger,” 3/26/13,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/world/americas/petrobras-brazils-oil-giant-struggles-to-regainlost-swagger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//JES
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s oil production is falling, casting doubt on what was supposed to be an oil
bonanza. Imports of gasoline are rising rapidly, exposing the country to the whims of global energy
markets. Even the nation’s ethanol industry, once envied as a model of renewable energy, has had to
import ethanol from the United States. Half a decade has passed since Brazilians celebrated the
discovery of huge amounts of oil in deep-sea fields by the national oil company, Petrobras, triumphantly
positioning the country to surge into the top ranks of global producers. But now another kind of energy
shock is unfolding: the colossal company, long known for its might, is losing the race to keep up with the
nation’s growing energy demands. Saddled with a nationalist mandate to buy ships, oil platforms and
other equipment from lethargic Brazilian companies, the oil giant is now facing soaring debt, major
projects mired in delays and older fields, once prodigious, that are yielding less oil. The undersea bounty
in its grasp also remains devilishly complex to exploit. Now, instead of symbolizing Brazil’s rise as a
global powerhouse, Petrobras embodies the sluggishness of the nation’s economy itself, which, after
racing ahead at 7.5 percent in 2010, slowed to less than 1 percent last year, eclipsed by growth in other
Latin American nations like Mexico and Peru. Until recently, Petrobras was second in value only to
ExxonMobil among publicly traded energy companies. But its fortunes have tumbled to the point that it
is now worth less than Colombia’s national oil company. That fall has accentuated an increasingly bitter
debate here over PresidentDilma Rousseff’s attempts to use Petrobras to shield the Brazilian population
from the nation’s economic slowdown. “Petrobras was once thought indestructible, but that is no longer
the case,” said Adriano Pires, a prominent Brazilian energy consultant. “Petrobras is now a tool of shortterm economic policy, used to protect domestic industry from competition and fight inflation. This
disastrous process will intensify if it is not reversed.” Ms. Rousseff, like her predecessor and political
mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has relied heavily on state companies like Petrobras to create jobs and
spur the economy. As a result, the president and her top advisers argue, unemployment remains near
historic lows, an approach in economic management that contrasts sharply with Europe and the United
States. In a recent speech, Ms. Rousseff explained that her government’s priority was lifting millions of
Brazilians out of poverty. “Those betting against us,” she warned, “will suffer serious financial and
political losses.” Bolstering Ms. Rousseff’s approval ratings going into a presidential election in 2014,
Petrobras is building new refineries, pursuing offshore oil and buying most of its equipment from
Brazilian companies, all of which have created tens of thousands of jobs and delivered some tangible
political benefits. “My life is better,” said Adinael Soares Silva, 38, a welder at a Petrobras refinery under
construction in Itaboraí, a city near Rio de Janeiro. He said he was pleased with his salary of about $800
a month. “Where I was, I didn’t have enough to have a savings account,” he said. “Now I do.” But while
Petrobras has helped keep Brazil’s unemployment low, around 5.4 percent, a growing chorus of critics
points to the obvious problems at the company, including its backlog of projects and an inability to
satisfy the country’s thirst for oil, forcing it to import foreign gasoline and sell it at a loss. After Brazil
made its deep-sea oil discoveries in 2007, the government pushed to put Petrobras firmly in control of
the new areas, a move that critics say could strain the company even further. It was a marked departure
from the 1990s, when authorities ended Petrobras’s monopoly as part of a radical restructuring of the
economy. Petrobras remained under state control but was exposed to market forces, emerging as a
hybrid nimbly competing with foreign oil companies. Today, Petrobras seems far less nimble. In 2012, its
production fell 2 percent, the first such decline in years. The international energy industry is also
changing, especially in the United States, as momentum shifts toward extracting oil and natural gas from
onshore shale formations. Brazil is thought to have large shale reserves itself, but the government
remains focused on its costly deep-sea megaprojects. “The United States is redrawing the global
petroleum map , while in Brazil euphoria has given way to inertia,” Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s
most influential newspapers, said in a recent editorial. Compounding matters, Brazil’s demand for gasoline surged
about 20 percent in 2012, reflecting a car-manufacturing industry that has boomed partly as a result of government efforts to lift production.
Petrobras still lacks enough refineries able to process crude oil, forcing it to buy increasing amounts of
gasoline from abroad. And it is still losing money on gasoline imports as the government keeps domestic
fuel prices relatively low, to keep inflation from accelerating in a slow-growing economy. Energy analysts
contend that the government is using Petrobras to further its own political objectives. Ms. Rousseff’s administration, for
instance, has hewed to measures aimed at reviving the country’s shipbuilding industry, by requiring
Petrobras to buy many of its ships and oil platforms from Brazilian shipyards. But these ventures have
struggled with large cost overruns of their own, sometimes delivering vessels late or not at all, cutting
into Petrobras’s hopes of meeting ambitious production targets. Then there are the delays at oil refineries under
construction. One such complex, in Pernambuco State, was conceived in 2005 as a way for Brazil to forge
closer political ties with oil-rich Venezuela. Eight years later, Venezuela has yet to invest in the project, which has faced
various delays as Petrobras shoulders the entire cost of building it.
soft power inev
Soft power is inevitable – World Cup and Olympics
Leahy, 13 – Brazil bureau chief, Financial Times (Joe, February 22, 2013, “Brazil: the first big 'soft'
power,” Financial Times, ProQuest)//Hensel
It is a Brazil whose global standing has rarely been higher. Its agriculture feeds the planet. ¶ It has good
relations with virtually every country in the world, from the US to North Korea. It has curbed, though not
yet halted completely, the destruction of the Amazon. And it is preparing to host the World Cup next
year and the Olympics two years later - a feat few countries have ever attempted.¶ If the games are
successful - which they probably will be, despite Brazil's reputation for having a very relaxed attitude to
planning - they will help seal the country's image globally as one of the world's emerging powers. Not
a military power, bristling with missiles and troubled by messy border disputes like China or India, but
the first big "soft" power, a kind of Canada writ large but with Carnival thrown in.
brazil not pursuing lead
generic
Brazilian is not pursuing a dominant role in Latin America – even if leadership is high, it’s won’t pursue
a large role in the globe
Malamud, 11 – research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS) of the University of Lisbon. PhD in
Political Science from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. (Andres, “A Leader Without
Followers? The Growing Divergence Between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign
Policy,” LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, © 2011 University of Miami, MALAMUD: BRAZIL’S
FOREIGN POLICY,
http://americo.usal.es/iberoame/sites/default/files/malamud_brasil_leader_without_followers.pdf)//H
AL
To be sure, Brazil has not become indifferent to the region. However, its ambitions are increasingly
defensive rather than offensive. The main goal is no longer to integrate South America into a regional
bloc with a single voice but to limit damages that could spill over its borders or stain its international
image as regional pacifier. Now, it seems sufficient to stabilize the region and prevent political
instability, economic turmoil, and border conflicts. The name of the game is to keep quiet rather than
lead the neighborhood, since preventing trouble in its backyard seems to be a necessary condition for
Brazil to consolidate its global gains. Given that Brazil is not a revisionist power that intends to upset the
system but rather a reformist one that wishes to enter it, damage control has become its central task.
This has turned a would-be leader into a fireman or, as Carlos Quenan once paraphrased from
economics jargon, a leader of last resort. Thus, as The Economist (2008b) aptly remarked, “it may be the
rising power in the Americas but Brazil is finding that diplomatic ambition can prompt resentment.” By
trying to mitigate this resentment, the country may find itself closer to the category of a traditional
rather than an emerging middle power. In other words, it can aspire to a leading role on the global stage
as long as it goes it alone.
u.s. leadership high
generic
Maintaining hegemonic influence in Latin America is still possible – indicators of
decline are exaggerated
Duddy, 13 (Patrick, U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2007 until 2010 and is currently visiting senior
lecturer at Duke University, and Frank O. Mora, incoming director of the Latin American and Caribbean
Center, Florida International University, and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense, Western
Hemisphere, “Latin America: Is U.S. influence waning?; WESTERN HEMISPHERE,” The Miami Herald,
5/1/13, lexis, Tashma)
As President Obama travels to Mexico and Costa Rica, it’s likely the pundits will once again underscore
what some perceive to be the eroding influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. Some
will point to the decline in foreign aid or the absence of an overarching policy with an inspiring moniker
like “Alliance for Progress” or “Enterprise Area of the Americas” as evidence that the United States is
failing to embrace the opportunities of a region that is more important to this country than ever. The
reality is a lot more complicated. Forty-two percent of all U.S. exports flow to the Western Hemisphere.
In many ways, U.S. engagement in the Americas is more pervasive than ever, even if more diffused.
That is in part because the peoples of the Western Hemisphere are not waiting for governments to
choreograph their interactions. A more-nuanced assessment inevitably will highlight the complex,
multidimensional ties between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere. In fact, it may be that
we need to change the way we think and talk about the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
We also need to resist the temptation to embrace overly reductive yardsticks for judging our standing in
the hemisphere. As Moises Naim notes in his recent book, The End of Power, there has been an
important change in power distribution in the world away from states toward an expanding and
increasingly mobile set of actors that are dramatically shaping the nature and scope of global
relationships. In Latin America, many of the most substantive and dynamic forms of engagement are
occurring in a web of cross-national relationships involving small and large companies, people-to-people
contact through student exchanges and social media, travel and migration. Trade and investment
remain the most enduring and measurable dimensions of U.S. relations with the region. It is certainly
the case that our economic interests alone would justify more U.S. attention to the region. Many
observers who worry about declining U.S. influence in this area point to the rise of trade with China and
the presence of European companies and investors. While it is true that other countries are important
to the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, it is also still true that the United States is by far
the largest and most important economic partner of the region and trade is growing even with those
countries with which we do not have free trade agreements. An area of immense importance to regional
economies that we often overlook is the exponential growth in travel, tourism and migration. It is
commonplace to note the enormous presence of foreign students in the United States but in 2011,
according to the Institute of International Education, after Europe, Latin America was the second most
popular destination for U.S. university students. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. tourists travel every year
to Latin America and the Caribbean helping to support thousands of jobs. From 2006-2011 U.S. nongovernment organizations, such as churches, think tanks and universities increased the number of
partnerships with their regional cohorts by a factor of four. Remittances to Latin America and the
Caribbean from the United States totaled $64 billion in 2012. Particularly for the smaller economies of
Central America and the Caribbean these flows can sometimes constitute more than 10 percent of gross
domestic product. Finally, one should not underestimate the resiliency of U.S. soft power in the region.
The power of national reputation, popular culture, values and institutions continues to contribute to
U.S. influence in ways that are difficult to measure and impossible to quantify. Example: Despite 14
years of strident anti-American rhetoric during the Chávez government, tens of thousand of
Venezuelans apply for U.S. nonimmigrant visas every year, including many thousands of Chávez loyalists.
The U.S. can maintain hegemonic influence – sq policies ensure it’s sustainability
Valencia, 11 (Robert, COHA Research Fellow, “After Bin Laden’s Demise, Are U.S.-Latin American
Relations At Bay Again?,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 5/20/11, http://www.coha.org/after-binladens-demise-are-u-s-latin-american-relations-at-bay-again/, Tashma)
Nevertheless, President Obama attempted to warm relations with Latin America in the early months of
his administration. Case in point: Sixty days after being sworn in, he attended the fifth Summit of the
Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, stating that the meeting offered “the opportunity of a new beginning”
for the Americas, even expressing opposition to the military coup in Honduras. Most recently, Obama
eased travel restrictions to Cuba and planned a trip to South America, traveling to Brazil, Chile, and El
Salvador—even in the midst of the Libyan crisis—leading some to believe that he might continue
forward with his regional initiatives. However, U.S. commitment to Latin America will hardly face the
burden of proof in the years to come. The Obama administration must choose wisely in their
replacement of Arturo Valenzuela, who recently stepped down as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
for Western Hemisphere Affairs after a somewhat lackluster tenure in that position. In addition, U.S.
trade deals with permanently violent Colombia and eternally corrupt Panama will be voted on by
Congress and the Obama administration in August. This will result in a long overdue endorsement that
will, for many Colombians, seal a pledge to Washington’s most strategic ally in South America. Some of
the administration’s critics argue that, almost conspiratorially, the U.S. is far more interested in
sweeping Bogotá’s human rights ­­­derelictions under the rug in order to get ahead with its free trade
wishes with Colombia. It seems as though America’s economic interests trump its desire to carry out a
good faith examination of Colombia’s chronically spotty human rights performance in order to resolve
the matter honestly. Also, the most urgent issue for the United States, when it comes to Mexico, Central
America, and Colombia, is the war on drugs. In addition to the long-running Plan Colombia funding, the
U.S. has pledged the disbursement of the Merida Initiative budget, allocated for USD 1.6 billion, to
Mexican and Central American authorities attempting to control drug smuggling into the United States .
In this post-bin Laden era, President Obama must not only mend fences with the Middle East and
capitalize global efforts with current and emerging powers, but must also overcome the stigma that
correlates Latin America with a long-broken fixture swinging in the United States’ perennial “backyard.”
He can begin to do so by extending a brand of prosperity and security that is more false than true, which
will in turn continue to distress the United States with socioeconomic strife along the immediate
borders of the region.
-- brazil
US heg unchallenged in Latin America-China and Brazil lack the material power to
counter the US
Brand et al 12, Alexander Brand is Lecturer and Post-Doc Researcher at the Department of Political
Science at the University of Mainz. Susan McEwen-Fial is Lecturer at the Department of Political Science
at the University of Mainz. Wolfgang Muno is Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of
Erfurt. Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann is Lecturer at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of
Erfurt. (04/2012, “BRICs and U.S. Hegemony: Theoretical Reflections on Shifting Power Patterns and
Empirical Evidence from Latin America”,Mainz Papers on International and European Politics (MPIEP)
Paper No. 4, http://international.politics.uni-mainz.de/files/2012/10/mpiep04.pdf,jj)
China has expanded its regional resource base in economic terms and it has used institutional as well as
soft power instruments to smooth its way towards enhanced economic exchange. In terms of
hegemony, however, it seems to lack most of the ingredients to act as a¶ regional hegemon, especially
since most activities are both modest in size and strictly tied to either narrow economic or narrow
diplomatic goals17; Chinese hegemonic aspirations can hardly¶ be detected in the Latin American
region. Brazil has especially fostered institutional cooperation and presented itself as an alternative to
the U.S.; it thus has signaled at least rhetorically¶ a will to balance U.S. hegemony. However, it lacks the
material power base and quite often –¶ given a lot of similar policy objectives – a de facto will to
challenge the U.S. in Latin America as¶ a whole.
link
u.s. link
link turn
Link Turn – US intrusion allows Brazil to reassert its influence in the region
Sotero, 10 – director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, MA
in Journalism and Public Affairs from the American University, adjunct lecturer at Edmund A. Walsh
School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (Paulo, “Brazil's Rising Ambition in a Shifting Global
Balance of Power,” Perspectives on the Changing Global Distribution of Power Volume 30, Issue
Supplement s1, pages 71–81, December 2010)//HAL
Although Brazil has begun to assert itself on the global stage in the twenty-first century, historically the
nation's world perspective has been heavily conditioned by geography. From the early years of the
republic, in the late nineteenth century, the key foreign policy objectives were the consolidation of the
national territory through the peaceful resolution of all border disputes and the pursuit of closer ties
with a then emerging United States. One hundred years later, President Cardoso set Brazil in a new
direction in regional affairs, in order to assert the country's autonomy while pushing for integration with
its immediate neighbours. With the nation's position strengthened by the legitimacy of its democratic
regime and successful economic stabilisation policies, Cardoso sought to define Brazil's sphere of
influence by engaging its South American neighbours in a strategy of economic integration independent
of the US. In September 2000, he convened in Brasília the first-ever summit of South American
presidents (OEI, 2000). Six months later, speaking at the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City,
Cardoso made clear Brazil's scepticism of the continent-wide integration project the United States was
promoting by way of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (Cardoso, 2001, p. 3): ‘the FTAA will
be welcome if its creation is a step towards access to the most dynamic markets; if it is an effective way
to shared rules on anti-dumping; if it reduces non-tariff barriers; if it avoids the protectionist distortions
of the good sanitary rules; if, while protecting intellectual property, it fosters our peoples technological
capacity; and, furthermore, if it goes beyond the Uruguay Round and correct the asymmetries it
enshrined in agricultural trade. If it does not do so, [FTAA] would be irrelevant or, in the worse
hypothesis, undesirable’. Lula stayed the course on regional affairs. In the first year of his government,
Brazil blocked further negotiations of the FTAA. The new president, however, substantially changed
Brazil's style of diplomacy, in favour of a more vocal foreign policy, reflective of his talent as a
charismatic leader who loves the limelight and does well on the stump. In his first trip abroad as
president, he said in Quito, Ecuador, that his country's diplomacy would ‘blossom’. Lula described Brazil
as the region's ‘natural leader’ and proclaimed that the country was ‘ready to assume its greatness’
(Veja, 2003, p. 68). Brazil sought to expand existing regional mechanisms, such as Mercosur, by
proposing the accession of Venezuela, and promoted the creation of new ones, such as the Union of
South American Nations, the South American Defence Council and the Community of Latin America and
Caribbean States in order to promote faster integration. In mid-2004, Brazil assumed the military
command of the UN stabilisation mission in Haiti, a bold move calculated to enhance Brazil's credentials
as a candidate to a permanent seat on the UNSC, according to Clovis Brigagão (Osava, 2006). The
regional activism of the Lula administration led his government to act to defuse the internal crisis in
Bolivia, after forgiving the country's president, Evo Morales, for unceremoniously nationalising
Petrobras assets in Bolivia. Brazil expanded staffs of its embassies in the region and established a total of
35 new ones, mostly in the developing world. The powerful Brazilian National Bank for Development
(BNDES) became an instrument of the regional policy. By 2009, the bank had more than $15.7 billion in
lines of credit extended to countries interested in contracting Brazilian companies' services (BIC, 2009).
Surprisingly, Brazil's activism in regional affairs did not extend to efforts to settle disputes between
neighbours – a point not lost on critics of Lula's Iran initiative. ‘The Iranian adventure is
incomprehensible, especially since there are various conflicts closer to us which we haven't tried, or
haven't managed, to mediate’, noted Sérgio Amaral (The Economist, 17 June 2010). In contrast with the
Cardoso government, which had, with the US, Chile and Argentina, successfully mediated the 1995
border dispute between Peru and Ecuador, the Lula administration did not get involved in a dispute
between Argentina and Uruguay, both Brazil's partners in Mercosur, over the operation of a cellulose
plant on the Uruguayan side of the Uruguay River. Brasília also showed no interest in helping to lower
tensions and avoid a possible military confrontation between Venezuela and Colombia, which border
Brazil. Lula's attempt to bring Caracas and Bogota closer together in August 2010, after Chávez severed
diplomatic relations with Colombia, reacting to accusations of harbouring FARC rebel groups in
Venezuela, had little impact and did not alter the mismatch between Brazil's assertions of leadership at
the global level and its modest interest in assumeing the risks of leadership closer to home, where it
should have a better chance of success. There are various possible reasons for the Lula government's
lack of appetite to mediate in regional conflicts. Such disputes generate little interest and no political
dividends in Brazil. An amalgamation of African descendants indigenous peoples and European and
Asian immigrants who speak Portuguese, Brazilians do not see themselves as Latin Americans.
Historically, they have been quite distant from their immediate neighbours (Bethell, 2009). Moreover,
the region is seen more as a source of potential problems than as presenting opportunities for Brazil. A
survey of senior diplomats, business executives, scholars and opinion-makers conducted in 2001 and
2008 indicated decreased support for pursuing relations with the region (De Souza, 2008). This finding
suggests that South America and Latin America are generally perceived by Brazilian elites as a poor
platform for Brazil to project itself as a global power. Nonetheless, there are a few indications that
suggest that the Lula government has come to see the region as valuable to the exercise of leadership in
so far as it helps to project Brazil's opposition to US dominance. From the early days of the republic,
there has been an anti-American strand among Brazilian elites. This strand is likely to be manifest in the
foreign policy of any government of an ascendant Brazil, the only country emerging in the United
States's so-called ‘back yard’. The US recession and a general disappointment with US President Barack
Obama's timid policies for the hemisphere – on Cuba, trade and regional security – strengthened the
hand of key figures in Lula's foreign policy known for their lack of sympathy to the US, and reinforced a
tendency to distance Brazil from Washington. In the reverberations of the Wall Street collapse, in
December 2008 Brazil convened a summit to launch the Latin America and Caribbean Community of
Nations – an event planned to highlight Brazilian leadership in regional affairs and underline the US's
loss of influence. ‘There is no question that this is about exclusion, about excluding the United States’
(Peter Hakim, quoted in the Barrionuevo, 2008). There was also the ill-disguised confrontation between
Brasília and Washington over how to respond to the June 2009 constitutional crisis in Honduras,
precipitated by a coup against President Manuel Zelaya. The Lula government's unexpected and
ultimately unsuccessful intervention in the Honduras crisis showed again that while Brazil has not
generally sought to assert its regional leadership, it has been more than willing to stand up to the United
States.
Link turn – we control uniqueness – Rousseff’s leadership style destroys Brazil’s credibility as willing to
stand up to the US – the plan creates an opportunity for Brazil to counter the US and regain credibility
within the UN
Ristovic, 12 – Master’s Student, Public Diplomacy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of
Southern California, Research Intern, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
(Aleksandra, April/May 2012, “Brazil’s Soft Power and Dilma’s Dilemma,” PDiN Monitor Volume 3, Issue
4, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/pdin_monitor/article/brazils_soft_power_and_dilmas_dilem
ma/)//Hensel
While Brazil has made great strides in its public diplomacy efforts, the transfer of leadership from Lula to
Rousseff has changed the tone of the country’s soft power. Under Lula, Brazil’s independent voice was
obvious: his charismatic leadership successfully cultivated formal diplomatic ties with every member of
the UN General Assembly even while pursuing an independent foreign policy characterized by its nonalignment with Western powers such as the United States. On taking office, it seemed at first that Ms.
Rousseff would maintain Lula’s activist foreign policy that sought to play the middleman between Asia,
Africa, and the developed world. But after one year, it appears that President Rousseff is more inclined
to agree with the U.S. than was her predecessor. This inclination has weakened Brazil’s image as a
country unafraid to oppose U.S. and European policies when necessary.
not zero-sum
US and Brazil competition is not zero-sum
Sweig, 10 – Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies and the
Global Brazil Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (Julia E., “A New Global Player: Brazil's FarFlung Agenda,” Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 2010,
http://www.panzertruppen.org/2012/politica/001.pdf)//HAL
Proximity and interests have likewise compelled the new Brazil to learn to live with this changed
political environment. It is unlikely that either Brazil or the United States will succeed in dominating
diplomacy in Latin America. Old multilateral institutions such as the Organization of American States are
struggling to recover from the distortions of U.S. hegemony and the ambivalence and outright defiance
of some member countries. Without appearing to desire leadership over institutions in the region,
which could possibly induce an anti-Brazil backlash from lesser powers, Brazil is proceeding gingerly to
maximize its interests and minimize conflict. On some issues, real conflict will continue to exist between
the United States and Brazil. But on balance, Brazil is neither fundamentally anti-American nor proAmerican. While Brazil was challenging the United States from Honduras to Colombia to Iran, for
example, it was simultaneously negotiating the first defense cooperation agreement with the United
States since 1977, working with the Obama administration to resolve a dispute over the cotton market,
and maintaining an open channel of communication on climate change and international economic
institutions. The bilateral relationship is likely to hover in this undefined space of neither friend nor
adversary. The Obama and Lula governments have coined the term "global partnership dialogue," a
fuzzy way of acknowledging some interest in building up layers of scaffolding around a house in the very
early stages of construction. The missed opportunity and mixed signals of the Iran episode reflect
strategic differences between the two countries. But global issues still provide fertile ground for them to
cooperate, especially on climate change, in the G-20, through modest joint efforts in alleviating poverty,
and in treating infectious diseases in Haiti and Africa. The biggest and most immediate test for
president-elect Rousseff will be to balance an ambitious domestic agenda with the need to secure
Brazil's international position. Indeed, Brazil is in the catbird seat of global powers: it can afford to
modernize its defense and security establishment without being forced to make wrenching gunsversusbutter choices. To substantially deepen the investments in its people -- on which its new social
contract is based -- Brazil may well have to lower its near-term sights regarding global leadership.
Ultimately, the outcome could be the same: a strong, self-confident Brazil that makes a sizable
contribution to peace and prosperity, not just in the region but globally. Perhaps the single most
important way the United States can influence Brazilian foreign policy is to make clear, in word and
deed, that Washington regards Brazil's rise not as a zero-sum game that threatens U.S. interests but
rather as the emergence of a not-quite-natural, albeit sometimes necessary, global partner.
Brazil and U.S. influence in Latin America is not zero-sum – empirics prove
WWICS, 7 (The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1/24/07, “The Future of U.S.Brazilian Relations”,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1419&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=
213989)
Not a single action taken or decision made by the United States in the last three years has negatively
affected Brazilian interests, claimed Ambassador Roberto Abdenur, before a packed conference room in
what was his last public appearance as Brazil’s ambassador in Washington. When he took the position in
2004, Brazilian indignation with Iraq and over onerous visa procedures and poor treatment of visiting
nationals had caused a temporary strain in the relationship. Other potential obstacles to strengthening
the relationship that were successfully avoided include possible trade sanctions against Brazil over
intellectual piracy, Brazil’s refusal to exempt U.S. troops and officials from the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court, mutual charges of dumping, and U.S. threat to removes its General System
of Preferences for Brazil(which would have negatively affected approximately four billion dollars of
Brazilian exports to the United States). Despite these challenges, Abdenur argued that the bilateral
relationship has reached an unprecedented level of mutual understanding and deference to the other
country’s positions and opinions, facilitated in no small part by President Lula’s pragmatism. Despite the
existence of differences, Brazil-U.S. relations are on a productive platform to foster positive
developments in the future. Lula has put aside his misgivings about some U.S. policies and embraced the
fact that it is in Brazil’s best interests to foster strong relations with the United States, argued Abdenur.
Much to the disdain of Brazil, the United States has mistakenly withdrawn from certain international
discussions and scenarios and erroneously engaged in others, such as climate change and the Middle
East. Additionally, Latin America is overlooked by its Northern neighbor. However, if and when the
United States decides to refocus its energies upon the region, Abdenur is assured that Brazil would be its
natural ally in such an endeavor. Brazil has good relations with all of its neighbors and strategically
occupies a moderate space between the region’s divergent interests and trajectories, as illustrated by its
leading role in the current international efforts to stabilize Haiti and by its contribution to the resolution
of the conflict between Peru and Ecuador in the 1990s—in both cases in close cooperation with the
United States. Abdenur argued that the United States is not the only actor that must take decisive steps
towards a convergence of interests between the two countries: Brazil must stop fearing the United
States and instead embrace it as a partner.
No Link – Dialogues prevent u.s. influence from being zero-sum – That means the Aff sustains energy
intiatives that solve warming
Goldwyn, 13 - President, Goldwyn Global Strategies, House Committee of Foreign Affairs, (David L.,
April 11th, 2013 U.S. House of Representatives Document Repository “The Impact of the Tight Oil and Gas
Boom on Latin America and the Caribbean: Opportunities for Cooperation,” House Committee on
Foreign Affairs; Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere; “Energy Opportunities in Latin America and
the Caribbean” http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA07/20130411/100622/HHRG-113-FA07-WstateGoldwynD-20130411.pdf)//JES
The US has had a number of bilateral and multilateral energy policy forums in the hemisphere over the
years. These forums are platforms to understand market dynamics, share best practices on energy
efficiency and conservation, share understanding on ways to enhance energy production, and exchange
views on how a nation’s energy policies may be enhanced or reformed to promote the nation’s own
policy. These policy dialogues are also essential for building the understanding and relationships that are
essential for trade promotion and conflict resolution. Numerous dialogues and programs have been
enacted since 2008, when I wrote that engagement with the Western Hemisphere needed to be
renewed. Among those are a number of programs and initiatives aimed at energy relations. The Energy
and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) was founded at the invitation of President Obama
following the April 2009 Summit of the Americas, hosted in Trinidad and Tobago. ECPA was intended to
focus on issues including energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner and more efficient use of fossil
fuels, energy poverty, and infrastructure, and Secretary of State Clinton later proposed expanding the
focus to include sustainable forests and land use and climate change adaptation. ECPA brings together
governments and public and private sector partners to implement initiatives and complete projects, and
boasts numerous initiatives in Central and South America and the Caribbean. Among the ECPA Initiatives
are the Colombia Biomass Initiative, which aims to develop a technological plan for the production of
energy from agroindustrial biomass, and the Chile Renewable Energy Center, which is intended to serve
as a tool and resource for the region as it seeks to increase its use of renewable fuels. Both projects are
undertaken in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, which provides technical assistance
and opportunities for collaborative work. Numerous dialogues exist today between the U.S. and Brazil.
The U.S.-Brazil Strategic Energy Dialogue (SED), a presidential-level partnership aiming to deepen energy
cooperation between the two nations, is one of the most significant. Strengthening energy security, the
creation of new jobs and industries and reduction of carbon emissions are key goals of the SED. Major
topics of the dialogue include biofuels, renewables and the sustainable development of oil and gas
resources.
china link turn
China regional dominance hurts Brazilian influence – plan stops brazil-china regional
competition
Tulchin 12 expert in contemporary Latin American studies, specializing in foreign policy and
comparative urban development, Senior Fellow, Mexico and Central America Program at Harvard
University (Joseph Tulchin, “Setting the Agenda: Asia and Latin America in the 21st Century”, pg 21;
http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=clas_publications)//JE
S
This brings me to the third question, which interests me the most. If I were to write a paper on ¶ this
topic, I would focus on the perception in Latin American nations, which varies from country to ¶ country,
of the roles China does or might play in the region. What are the policy responses by Latin ¶ American
nations to China’s new presence? The only clear answer is in the case of Brazil, where ¶ there is
significant tension between the two governments. The Chileans also have taken up the ¶ debate, and
there are signs that if any of the announced Chinese investments in the mining and ¶ energy sectors
actually get off the ground, a serious debate will emerge in Argentina as well. In Ecuador and Venezuela,
noted for their loud rhetorical noises against the US, the Chinese presence ¶ is considered another form
of anti-imperialism and the rise of China evidence of US decline. ¶ At this moment, on balance, China’s
role in Latin America is still ill formed. The problem is not ¶ China but rather the lack of a clear US stance
and a weak policy debate in Latin America. Several ¶ scenarios are possible going forward. One is that
neither the US nor the Latin America nations will ¶ formulate a collective policy to deal with the new
phenomenon, and public discussion will continue ¶ to entertain wild speculations and conspiracy
theories. Another scenario is that Brazil will take the ¶ lead to get the Comunidad de Estados
Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC) or Unión de Naciones ¶ Suramericanas (UNASUR) to formulate a
collective response based on shared values or interests. For ¶ example, it is difficult, but not impossible,
to imagine a concerted effort to formulate rules concerning ¶ investments in natural resources. Can we
imagine a Mercosur policy on China? Can Mexico get the ¶ countries of Central America to join a regional
response to Chinese trade? It is also possible that a ¶ policy based on emphasis of the rule of law will
provide a framework for dealing with any external ¶ influence on the region’s domestic policies.
mexico link
not zero-sum
Thesis of the advantage is wrong – Brazil and Mexico will cooperate as regional
powers.
Kovac 12 – researcher on Latin America, PhD. candidate of international relations; Faculty of Political
Science and International Relations of Matej Bel University, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Researcher on
Mexico; Research Center of the Association for International Affairs, Prague, Czech rep (Ivan Kovac,
October 23, 2012, Cultural Diplomacy “MEXICO AND BRAZIL – FORGING THE REGIONAL PLAYER ́S ROLE”
< http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/content/pdf/participant-papers/2011/april/biec-roanua/ivan_kovac_participant_paper_-_mexico_and_brazil-forging_the_regional_players_role.pdf>, p. 1112)//JES
The future of Latin America will not be characterized by a contest between Mexico and Brazil to gain the
role of the leader since the core of brighter future lies in their cooperation. Another reason is the
existence of centers with different power and ambitions –mainly Mexico and Brazil, the third and slightly
less important one being Venezuela. None of them has the capacity for an overall leadership in the Latin
American region. Mexico has lost the prospect to become the uncontested leader of the region, but has
an option to play a role of a partner and to understand the interests of his own community vis -à -vis the
US that would lead up to the role of facilitator in their mutual interaction. On the other hand, Brazil as
an uncontested leader of South America will face fewer obstacles to achieve its vision of South America.
Problem appear s when taking into account that Brazil’s activities are almost exclusively concentrated in
South America which can be seen as an impediment to achieve the desired position of the leader of the
entire region. Thus, both Mexico and Brazil should opt for mutual co - operation and inter action in their
foreign policies which is the basic prerequisite to get Latin America on the right way once and for all.
venezuela link
not zero-sum
Venezuela Brazil influence not zero-sum the power dynamic is already set – ties have
become strong
Romero 12 – NYT’s writer covering Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, graduated with
honors from Harvard College with a degree in History and Literature. He also studied for one year in the
history department at the University of São Paulo in Brazil (Simon, “With Brazil as Advocate, Venezuela
Joins Trade Bloc: [Foreign Desk],” The New York Times, ProQuest)//HAL
RIO DE JANEIRO -- After wrangling over Venezuela's status for years, Mercosur, the South American
trading bloc, admitted the country as its fifth full member on Tuesday, reflecting the influence wielded
by Brazil, the region's powerhouse. Venezuela's inclusion in Mercosur, founded in 1991 by Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and now clearly dominated by Brazil, followed a long diplomatic struggle.
While Venezuela was provisionally admitted in 2006, its formal entrance was stalled by resistance in
some member nations, notably Paraguay, where the Senate refused to ratify Venezuela's admission. But
Brazil, drawing support from Argentina and Uruguay, overrode those objections by having Paraguay
suspended from membership in Mercosur after the ouster of President Fernando Lugo in June. Brazil
justified the suspension by citing concerns about the impact of Mr. Lugo's removal on Paraguay's
democratic institutions. Once Paraguay was sidelined, the other three nations moved swiftly to
formalize Venezuela's membership. The three nations have been working for some time to forge closer
economic ties to oil-rich Venezuela. Its president, Hugo Chavez, who is campaigning for re-election,
leapt at the opportunity to fully join Mercosur, describing the outmaneuvering of the Paraguayan
Senate as a "failure of U.S. foreign policy." Mr. Chavez, who appeared well rested in Brasilia, his first
international trip since receiving treatment for cancer in Cuba in March, said, "The hand of U.S.
diplomacy was behind that authoritarian Paraguayan enclave." He was an hour late in arriving at the
accession ceremony, and he skirted protocol by insisting on walking up the ramp to the palace of Brazil's
president, Dilma Rousseff, rather than taking an elevator. Her aides acquiesced. The benefits to Brazil of
Venezuela's Mercosur membership were made clear almost immediately when Mr. Chavez signed an
agreement to buy as many as 20 passenger jets from Embraer, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, in a
deal potentially worth $900 million. Mercosur has been grappling with internal disputes over
protectionist measures, largely originating in Argentina, and the rise of another regional bloc, the Pacific
Alliance, whose four members -- Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru -- have enjoyed fast economic
growth. Mercosur's four original members already have a trade surplus of $4.8 billion with Venezuela,
which relies heavily on imports of food and other goods. Brazilian companies have done especially well
there since relations warmed between Mr. Chavez and Ms. Rousseff's predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva. For Brazil, Venezuela holds longer-term strategic importance , in the form of its oil reserves,
estimated to be among the world's largest. Venezuela is known for galloping inflation, food shortages
and unpredictable treatment of foreign investors, but its oil revenues buoy one of Latin America's
largest economies. Still, the way Brazil maneuvered Venezuela into Mercosur makes some critics of Mr.
Chavez apprehensive. They say Brazil is ignoring reports of Mr. Chavez's concentration of power and the
erosion of judicial independence in Venezuela while it expresses concern over Paraguayan democracy.
"This sets a terrible example for the region," said Elsa Cardozo, a professor of political science at Central
University in Venezuela. "It reveals Mercosur's political weakness at a time of precarious protection of
democratic rights in Venezuela."
impact
soft power
africa war defense
No risk of great power conflict over Africa
Barrett 05 Robert, PhD Military & Strategic Studies, U of Calgary,
6/1, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID726162_code327511.pdf?abstractid=726162&m
irid=1
Westerners eager to promote democracy must be wary of African politicians who promise democratic
reform without sincere commitment to the process. Offering money to corrupt leaders in exchange for
their taking small steps away from autocracy may in fact be a way of pushing countries into anocracy. As
such, world financial lenders and interventionists who wield leverage and influence must take
responsibility in considering the ramifications of African nations who adopt democracy in order to
maintain elite political privileges. The obvious reason for this, aside from the potential costs in human
life should conflict arise from hastily constructed democratic reforms, is the fact that Western donors, in
the face of intrastate war would then be faced with channeling funds and resources away from
democratization efforts and toward conflict intervention based on issues of human security. This is a
problem, as Western nations may be increasingly wary of intervening in Africa hotspots after
experiencing firsthand the unpredictable and unforgiving nature of societal warfare in both Somalia and
Rwanda. On a costbenefit basis, the West continues to be somewhat reluctant to get involved in Africa’s
dirty wars, evidenced by its political hesitation when discussing ongoing sanguinary
grassroots conflicts in Africa. Even as the world apologizes for bearing witness to the Rwandan genocide
without having intervened, the U nited S tates, recently using the label ‘genocide’in the context of the
Sudanese conflict (in September of 2004), has only proclaimed sanctions against Sudan, while dismissing
any suggestions at actual intervention (Giry, 2005). Part of the problem is that traditional military and
diplomatic approachs at separating combatants and enforcing ceasefires have yielded little in Africa. No
powerful nations want to get embroiled in conflicts they cannot win – especially those conflicts in which
the intervening nation has very little interest.
Outside powers won’t intervene in African conflicts
Docking 07 Tim, African Affairs Specialist with the United States Institute of Peace, 2007, Taking Sides
Clashing Views on African Issues, p. 376
Since the tragedy in Somalia, the trend has been for Western nations to refuse to send troops into
Africa's hot spots. Jordan recently underscored this point when it expressed frustration with the West's
failure to commit soldiers to the UNAMSIL mission as a reason for the withdrawal of its troops from
Sierra Leone. America's aversion to peacekeeping in Africa also reflects broader U.S. foreign policy on
the continent. Africa occupies a marginal role in American foreign policy in general (a point highlighted
by conference participants).
aids defense
The end of AIDS is within sight
Gerson 11 (Michael Gerson -- Aide to President George W. Bush as Assistant to the President for Policy
and Strategic Planning -- Writer for the Washington Post -- "Putting AIDS on the road to extinction"
November 10th, 2011 charticles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-10/opinions/35282108_1_aidsprevention-aids-treatment-aids-free-generation) SM
After 30 years and 30 million funerals, the end of the global AIDS epidemic is suddenly, unexpectedly,
within sight. It would be a final victory for this clever killer if America were too preoccupied and inwardlooking to notice and act. During the last 18 months, the science of AIDS prevention has been
transformed. Studies have shown dramatic results from male circumcision — a more than 60 percent
reduction in the risk of transmission from women to men. New technologies such as microbicides have
proved effective when used before exposure to the disease. Then, three months ago, came an article in
the New England Journal of Medicinetitled “Prevention of HIV-1 Infection with Early Antiretroviral
Therapy.” The study found a 96 percent decrease in transmission to a heterosexual partner when AIDS
treatment was begun early. Treating AIDS sooner than later is a dramatically effective form of AIDS
prevention. Scientists began considering something previously unimaginable. What if these methods of
AIDS prevention were combined — along with condom use and the prevention of mother-to-child
transmission — and aggressively applied in the most affected regions and among the most vulnerable
groups in Africa? Scientific models project that transmission rates, already declining in most places,
would fall an additional 40 percent to 60 percent. This raises a prospect comparable to medical
achievements such as the eradication of smallpox or advances in cancer treatment. Currently, for every
new AIDS patient put on treatment, about two more become infected. Millions of lives are saved — but
ground is still lost to the disease. With combination prevention, the balance would shift. For every
person who begins treatment, there would be fewer than one who becomes infected. This would
effectively be the epidemic’s end. The Obama administration has officially adopted the goal of “creating
an AIDS-free generation.” “While the finish line is not yet in sight,” said Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton on Tuesday, “we know we can get there, because now we know the route we need to
take. It requires all of us to put a variety of scientifically proven prevention tools to work in concert with
each other.” But the political timing of these scientific breakthroughs is poor. The budget crisis has
resulted in a Darwinian competition for resources. Clinton accompanied her ambitious AIDS objective
with the not-very-ambitious reprogramming of $60 million for demonstration projects in four countries.
Additional resources can eventually be squeezed from existing AIDS programs. In 2004, the cost of
treatment averaged about $1,200 per person. Today, it is less than $350 and still declining. Other donor
nations, along with African countries themselves, can take additional burdens. Yet the objective is not a
minor one. Earlier AIDS treatment in the developing world would expand the pool of people in need of
medicine. In the main U.S. HIV/AIDS program, Africans currently start drugs when their CD4 count — the
measure of immune system strength — is, on average, about 150. Beginning at a CD4 count of 350 —
the recommendation of the World Health Organization — would increase the number of Africans on
treatment by more than 5 million. An aggressive treatment-as-prevention program would start
treatment even earlier. In normal economic times, the case for this effort would be fairly easy.
American spending on all humanitarian aid programs amounts to about 0.7 percent of the budget. What
other marginal spending increase could save millions of lives, end an epidemic and allow public officials
to take part in a historic enterprise as admirable as the Marshall Plan? The proposed prevention
strategies do not involve much culture war controversy. Religious conservatives have no objections to
treatment and are neither shocked nor alarmed by circumcision — an old biblical acquaintance. But with
economic times far from normal, the case is complicated. Ending the global AIDS epidemic would
require a major presidential push. It would also require congressional Republicans to make a human life
exception to austerity. This uphill effort would, however, be aided by a pragmatic argument. Since 2003,
the United States has helped place millions on AIDS treatment. In the process, we have assumed what
economists call a “treatment mortgage” — obligations that can’t be abandoned without catastrophic
consequences. A major prevention effort — reducing the number of new infections to below the
number of new people placed on treatment — is the only morally acceptable strategy that eventually
reduces American commitments on AIDS. Having abruptly gained the scientific tools to defeat this
epidemic, what remains is a test of will and conscience.
AIDS doesn’t lead to war
Security Council Press Release 1, “SC Meets on HIV/AIDS and PKOs, 1-19-01, SC/6992,
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sc6992.doc.htm
KAMALESH SHARMA (India) said India had tried to follow the Council’s reasoning on the issue, because
HIV/AIDS was not, and had not been, a cause of conflict. No country had gone to war because of
AIDS. Resolution 1308 (2000) had, of course, made no such claim, but it did say that the “pandemic is
also exacerbated by conditions of violence and instability”. The evidence did not support that either.
AIDS will be cured in the next five years
Sample 10 (Ian Sample -- PhD in biomedical materials from Queen Mary's, University of London, Science
Corresondent at The Guaradian "Blanket HIV testing 'could see AIDS dying out in 40 years'" February
21st, 2010 powww.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/21/blanket-testing-hiv-aids) SM
Health officials are considering a radical shift in the war against HIV and Aids that would see everyone
tested for the virus and put on a lifetime course of drugs if they are found to be positive. The strategy,
which would involve testing most of the world's population for HIV, aims to reduce the transmission of
the virus that causes Aids to a level at which it dies out completely over the next 40 years. Brian
Williams, professor of epidemiology at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and
Analysis in Stellenbosch, said that transmission of HIV could effectively be halted within five years with
the use of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). "The epidemic of HIV is really one of the worst plagues of human
history," Williams told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.
"I hope we can get to the starting line in one to two years and get complete coverage of patients in five
years. Maybe that's being optimistic, but we're facing Armageddon." Major trials of the strategy are
planned in Africa and the US and will feed into a final decision on whether to adopt the measure as
public health policy in the next two years. The move follows research that shows blanket prescribing of
ARVs could stop HIV transmission and halve cases of Aids-related tuberculosis within 10 years. More
than 30 million people are infected with HIV globally and two million die of the disease each year. While
ARVs have been a huge success in preventing the virus from causing full-blown Aids, scientists estimate
only 12% of those living with the infection receive the drugs. The disease is overwhelmingly prevalent in
sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for a quarter of all HIV/Aids cases globally. Half of these are in South
Africa. In general epidemics, a person with HIV infects between five to 10 others before succumbing to
complications of Aids. Treating patients with ARVs within a year of becoming infected can reduce
transmission tenfold, enough to cause the epidemic to die out. In the trials, people will be offered HIV
tests once a year, either as routine when they visit their GP, or through mobile clinics in more remote
regions. Those testing positive will be put on a lifetime course of ARVs. "Over the past 25 years we have
saved the lives of probably two to three million people using antiretroviral drugs, but almost nothing we
have done has had any impact on transmission of the disease," Williams said. "We have stopped people
dying but we haven't stopped the epidemic." If patients take ARVs when they should, the amount of
virus in their bodies can fall by 10,000 times, to a level at which they are extremely unlikely to pass the
virus on. "The question is, can we use these drugs not only to keep people alive, but also to stop
transmission and I believe that we can. We could effectively stop transmission of HIV in five years."
Scientists estimate that the cost of implementing the strategy in South Africa alone will be $3bn-$4bn a
year. The world currently spends $30bn (£19.4bn) a year on Aids research and treatment, a figure that
some experts believe will double over the next decade. Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a dramatic rise in
cases of tuberculosis among HIV patients, who are also susceptible to other infections because their
immune systems are weakened. "If you factor in all of the costs, in my opinion, doing this would be cost
saving from day one, because the cost of the drugs would be more than balanced by the cost of treating
people for all of these other diseases and then letting them die," Williams said. "We're killing probably
half a million young adults every year in the prime of their life just at the point where they should be
contributing to society and the cost of that to society is enormous," he added. "The only thing that's
more expensive than doing this is not doing this." HIV patients in southern Africa are more likely to take
ARVs when they should than people living in developed countries, according to health officials. The
finding gives doctors hope that the blanket administering of drugs might suppress the virus enough that
it dies out naturally. Last year, scientists reported marginal success of a HIV vaccine following a large
scale trial in Thailand. The vaccine benefited only 31% of those who received it. A vaccine is generally
regarded as worthwhile if it protects more than 70% of those treated.
democracy defense
Democracies go to war – Israel and India both prove
Shaw, 00 (Martin, Professor of International Relations and Politics, University of Sussex, 2000,
“Democracy and peace in the global revolution,” http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/democracy.htm,
Hensel)
In the global era, established liberal-democratic states do not fight each other. But once again, it
obvious that this is not simply because they are democracies, but because they are embedded in the
raft of common Western and global state institutions. Indeed it is not just liberal democracies which do
not fight each other: the major non-Western states (Russia, China, India, Brazil, etc.), whether
democratic or not, are not likely to fight with the dominant Western powers. Outside the Western core
of global state power, however, national centres are more weakly integrated with its institutional
structures, and regional institutions which might inhibit local conflicts are much weaker than they are in
the core. In the Cold War era, interstate rivalries between major regional powers - such as between
Russia and China, India and Pakistan and China, Indonesia and Malaysia, Iran and Iraq, Israel and the
Arab states - led to wars and border incidents. While the integrative tendencies in the emerging global
polity, including the democratisation trends, may increasingly inhibit wars, it clearly remains possible
that such interstate rivalries will generate new wars. It is clear that democratisation in itself is not a
guarantee of war-avoidance in such conficts. Israel, the only internally democratic state in the Middle
East, has also been the most belligerent; Indian democracy has been quite compatible with bellicosity
towards Pakistan. Democratic as well as military governments may see war, so long as it can be kept
limited and relatively cost-free, as a means of boosting popularity. Thus Yeltsin’s Russia sought a military
solution in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, despite the lessons of the late-Soviet failure in
Afghanistan. Only in defeat did Russia’s weak democracy penalise the regime for the new disaster, and
then not decisively.
Democracy doesn’t solve violence within states – empirics
Ferguson, 06 (Niall, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2006, The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred, p. xxxviii,
Hensel)
Did it matter how states were governed? It has become fashionable among political scientists to posit a
correlation between democracy and peace, on the ground that democracies tend not to go to war with
one another. On that basis, of course, the long-run rise of democracy during the twentieth century
should have reduced the incidence of war. It may have reduced the incidence of war between states;
there is, however, at least some evidence that waves of democratization in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s
were followed by increases in the number of civil wars and wars of secession. This brings us to a central
point. To consider twentieth-century conflict purely in terms of warfare between states is to overlook
the importance of organized violence within states. The most notorious example is, of course, the war
waged by the Nazis and their collaborators against the Jews, nearly six million of whom perished. The
Nazis simultaneously sought to annihilate a variety of other social groups deemed to be ‘unworthy of
life’, notably mentally ill and homosexual Germans, the social elite of occupied Poland and the Sinti and
Roma peoples. In all, more than three million people from these other groups were murdered. Prior to
these events, Stalin had perpetrated comparable acts of violence against national minorities within the
Soviet Union as well as executing or incarcerating millions of Russians guilty or merely suspected of
political dissidence. Of around four million non-Russians who were deported to Siberia and Central Asia,
at least 1.6 million are estimated to have died as a result of the hardships inflicted on them. A minimum
estimate for the total victims of all political violence in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1953 is
twenty-one million. Yet genocide predated totalitarianism. As we shall see, the policies of forced
resettlement and deliberate murder directed against Christian minorities in the last years of the
Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide according to the 1948 definition of the term.
israel defense
Israel/Palestine conflict has never escalated
Satloff, 6 (Robert, Executive Director – Washington Institute, “The Iraq Study Group: Assessing Its
Regional Conclusions”, 12-21, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2549)
The report's greatest analytical leap of faith is the notion that all the key issues in the Middle East are
"inextricably linked." In the past, it was believed that the export of the Iranian revolution would
undermine pro-West regimes throughout the Middle East, or that failure to resolve the IsraeliPalestinian conflict would spark a regional war. Today, the idea of linkage implies that Sunni-Shiite
violence will spread throughout the region. The problem with all these theories is that there is no
evidence to back them up. To the contrary, military success in the Gulf does not translate into
diplomatic success in the Arab-Israeli arena. The Madrid process had a promising opening session, but
when it came down to bargaining it ran up against the reality of Israeli-Palestinian differences.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that local disasters translate into regional disasters. Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran failed to export the revolution despite national efforts. There is no evidence
to support the proposition that Israeli-Palestinian violence has substantial regional repercussions, let
alone that it can lead to regional war. The years 2000 to 2003 saw the worst period of IsraeliPalestinian relations, but the regional implication was zero. Not one state threatened to fight Israel,
the Arab street did not rise to protest, and no Arab regime's stability was threatened. The United
States should not view the Middle East as an organic unit. Iraq's problems are primarily Iraqi in origin
and Iraqi in solution. Iran alone poses a serious challenge, and the Israeli-Palestinian problem is
important to solve because it is the right thing to do.
smoking defense
Smoking isn’t that bad- has health benefits
Sample, 3 [ “Smoking is good for you” - *Ian Sample The Guardian, Wednesday 6 August 2003 citing
Jodi Flaws at the University of Maryland school of
medicine,http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2003/aug/07/shopping.health]//ADB
Smoking Talk to physicians and they'll tell you there are few things you can put in your mouth that are
worse for you than a cigarette. But it's not all doom and gloom. Smokers are at least doing their bit to
slow down the runaway obesity epidemic that is sweeping through the western world. "In many studies,
you often find smokers are slimmer. We've certainly seen it in our studies," says Jodi Flaws at the
University of Maryland school of medicine. "Some people think it's due to certain chemicals in cigarettes
somehow making them burn more calories, but others believe it suppresses appetite. It may well be
both." Drastically upping your chances of cancer and heart disease might not be the best way to avoid
obesity, but it's certainly easier than running round the block. Scientists have also found evidence that
smoking might, in some circumstances, help prevent the onset of various dementias. Many dementias
go hand-in-hand with a loss of chemical receptors in the brain that just happen to be stimulated by
nicotine. Smoking seems to bolster these receptors, and smokers have more of them. The theory is that
smokers may then have more to lose before they start losing their minds. "It does seem that nicotine
has a preventative effect, but the problem is that the other stuff in the cigarette tends to rot everything
else," says Roger Bullock, a specialist in dementia and director of the Kingshill Research Centre in
Swindon. So if your time is nearly up anyway, and you have somehow managed to steer a course past
the Scylla and Charybdis of heart attacks and tumours, smoking might just help you retain your
marbles.
soft power effectiveness
Lack of military backing makes diplomatic and soft power engagements fail
Bertonha 11 – professor of history @ Maringa State University (Joao Fabio Bertonha, January 2nd,
2011 SciELO “Brazil: an emerging military power? The problem of the use of force in Brazilian
international relations in the 21st century” < http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbpi/v53n2/06.pdf>)//JES
Other contentious issues are trade questions or the role of Brazil and Argentina in the UN Security
Council. Such problems, however, are not uncommon in the routine of nations and no-one has ever
gone to war because of that. The Brazilian State makes a great effort not to take regional questions into
the defense field and to show caution in the intentions of its leadership. Mercosur may be understood in
the context of this non-confrontational logic. Concerning the world outside South America, Brazil’s
intentions have never been based on any military power, but on mediation, the righteousness of its
cause, and the performance in the many international organizations the country belongs to (Miyamoto,
2009: 24-26). All of this indicates how the international projection plan so long ago by the Brazilian elite
does not mean taking an aggressive posture toward our neighbors, much less any attempt to modify the
global order by the use of force. Brazil is, to all intents and purposes, a peaceful country which does not
relate its external politics to the capacity of military projection, choosing instead to opt for dialog and
continuous concessions. Nevertheless, there is the question of whether this is the posture assumed by
the Brazilian elite or simply an option that has arisen out of circumstances, derived from the cold
evaluation of Brazil’s strategic possibilities. Alsina Jr. makes a very closely-argued evaluation of this topic
and, in a nutshell, his conclusion is that, regarding the existence of a national tradition for the resolution
of conflicts throughout negotiation, non-confrontational politics is also a reflection of a weakness in
national military power that will last through the 21 st century. Hence, the preponderance of diplomacy
over armed force comes from a conciliatory national identity together with the awareness of the lack of
an effective capacity for the use of force. Thus, the idea that the country rationally chose to maintain its
strength at a low base and to favor negotiation loses strength. It would only be possible if there were a
great capacity for the construction of public policies and their coordination, subordinating the military to
the diplomats, what has never occurred (Alsina Jr., 2009: 183). The Brazilian problem is that for many
reasons (including the country’s relative safety due to its geographic isolation and having few great rivals
in the region) security and defense issues have never received proper attention and the armed forces
have never had significant capacity for the projection of power in the 21 st century, which has inevitably
meant that the international issues have been left to the diplomats.
prolif defense
Empirics prove – no nuke prolif and no impact
Gavin, 9 (Ph.D. in Diplomatic History from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Studies in
Modern European History from Oxford, and a B.A. in Political Science (with honors) from the University
of Chicago, Professor of International Affairs at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the
University of Texas at Austin, “Same as it ever was,” MIT press journals,
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/isec.2010.34.3.7)
One of the greatest fears of nuclear alarmists is that if a key state acquires nuclear weapons, others will
follow. This idea of a nuclear tip- ping point, chain reaction, or “domino” effect, however, is by no means
new. Consider this headline—“Many Nations Ready to Break into Nuclear Club”— from a front-page
article in the Washington Post from June 1981.39 Articles with similar titles can be found from almost
every year since at least the early 1960s. Fears of a tipping point were especially acute in the aftermath
of China’s 1964 detonation of an atomic bomb: it was predicted that India, Indonesia, and Japan might
follow, with consequences worldwide, as “Israel, Sweden, Germany, and other potential nuclear
countries far from China and India would be affected by proliferation in Asia.”40 A U.S. government
document identiaed “at least eleven nations (India, Japan, Israel, Sweden, West Germany, Italy, Canada,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Rumania, and Yugoslavia)” with the capacity to go nuclear, a number
that would soon “grow substantially” to include “South Africa, the United Arab Republic, Spain, Brazil
and Mexico.” and complexity of this problem by creating strong pressures to develop inde- pendent
nuclear forces, which, in turn, could strongly inouence the plans of other potential nuclear
powers.”These predictions were largely wrong. In 1985 the National Intelligence Council noted that for
“almost thirty years the Intelligence Community has been writing about which nations might next get
the bomb.” All of these esti- mates based their largely pessimistic and ultimately incorrect estimates on
fac- tors such as the increased “access to assile materials,” improved technical capabilities in countries,
the likelihood of “chain reactions,” or a “scramble” to proliferation when “even one additional state
demonstrates a nuclear capa- bility.” The 1985 report goes on, “The most striking characteristic of the
present-day nuclear proliferation scene is that, despite the alarms rung by past Estimates, no additional
overt proliferation of nuclear weapons has actually occurred since China tested its bomb in 1964.”
Although “some proliferation of nuclear explosive capabilities and other major proliferation-related
develop- ments have taken place in the past two decades,” they did not have “the damaging,
systemwide impacts that the Intelligence community generally an- ticipated they would.”43
warming defense
Brazil won’t solve warming – conflicting priorities
Bodman and Wolfensohn, 11 - U.S. secretary of energy from 2005 to 2009, a BS from Cornell
University and a PhD from MIT, where he was also associate professor of chemical engineering, James D.
Wolfensohn is chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC,
chairman of Citigroup’s international advisory board, and adviser to Citigroup’s senior management on
global strategy and on international matters, He is a honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution, a
member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree
at Harvard Business School, (“Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations,” Independent Task Force Report
No. 66, Council on Foreign Relations, July 12th, 2011, http://www.cfr.org/brazil/global-brazil-us-brazilrelations/p25407)//HAL
Despite Brazil’s goals, mitigating climate change often conflicts with other governmental priorities, such
as poverty reduction, economic development, and expansion of trade. Reducing Amazon deforestation
competes with large-scale hydropower development and construction of transcontinental highways to
link Brazil’s hinterland with the Pacific Ocean. Reductions in land-use and agricultural emissions
compete with Brazil’s growing agricultural sector. Even the proposed reduction plans have limited
capacity and can offset each other—expanding biofuels and hydropower may result in greater land-use
emissions. The Task Force warns that these conflicts can reduce the effectiveness of GHG reduction
programs and put their sustainability at risk. The Task Force welcomes Brazil’s aggressive position
toward reducing domestic GHG emissions, going materially beyond its obligations under current climate
agreements. Achieving these goals, however, will be complicated by multiple competing priorities of
economic growth, social development, and trade.
Developing countries, lax regulation, and profit maximization means warming is
inevitable
Porter, 13 - writes the Economic Scene column for the Wednesday Business section (March 19,
Eduardo, “A Model for Reducing Emissions” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/business/usexample-offers-hope-for-cutting-carbon-emissions.html?_r=1&)
Even if every American coal-fired power plant were to close, that would not make up for the coalbased generators being built in developing countries like India and China. “Since 2000, the growth in
coal has been 10 times that of renewables,” said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy
Research Associates.¶ Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency in Paris, points out
that if civilization is to avoid catastrophic climate change, only about one third of the 3,000 gigatons of
CO2 contained in the world’s known reserves of oil, gas and coal can be released into the atmosphere.¶
But the world economy does not work as if this were the case — not governments, nor businesses, nor
consumers.¶ “In all my experience as an oil company manager, not a single oil company took into the
picture the problem of CO2,” said Leonardo Maugeri, an energy expert at Harvard who until 2010 was
head of strategy and development for Italy’s state-owned oil company, Eni. “They are all totally devoted
to replacing the reserves they consume every year.”
Their studies prove the existence of warming, not the impact – doomsday predictions
are empirically denied and ignore scientists
John Stossel, Award-winning ABC News correspondent, 2007
The Global Warming Myth?, http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=3061015&page=1
Dr. John Christy, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama at Huntsville said: "I
remember as a college student at the first Earth Day being told it was a certainty that by the year 2000,
the world would be starving and out of energy. Such doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines, but have
proven to be completely false." "Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to humaninduced climate change," he continued, "sound all too familiar and all too exaggerated to me as
someone who actually produces and analyzes climate information." The media, of course, like the
exaggerated claims. Most are based on computer models that purport to predict future climates. But
computer models are lousy at predicting climate because water vapor and cloud effects cause changes
that computers fail to predict. In the mid-1970s, computer models told us we should prepare for global
cooling. Scientists tell reporters that computer models should "be viewed with great skepticism." Well,
why aren't they? The fundamentalist doom mongers also ignore scientists who say the effects of global
warming may be benign. Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas said added CO2 in the atmosphere may
actually benefit the world because more CO2 helps plants grow. Warmer winters would give farmers a
longer harvest season, and might end the droughts in the Sahara Desert. Why don't we hear about this
part of the global warming argument? "It's the money!" said Dr. Baliunas. "Twenty-five billion dollars in
government funding has been spent since 1990 to research global warming. If scientists and researchers
were coming out releasing reports that global warming has little to do with man, and most to do with
just how the planet works, there wouldn't be as much money to study it."
multipolarity
bric defense
No impact --- they’ll just bandwagon with the U.S.
Brilliant, 12 — senior vice president for international affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Myron,
“The World in 2030: Are we on the path to convergence or divergence?”, Global Trends 2030,
5/27/2012, http://gt2030.com/2012/05/27/the-world-in-2030-are-we-on-the-path-to-convergence-ordivergence/, Deech)
While it is true that leaders from Brazil, Russia, China and India now meet to discuss regional and global
issues, this is at this time largely a talk-shop; nothing profound has come out of these discussions.
Certainly, it is hard to see these countries agreeing to map out a radical departure from the existing
international system through alternative institutions. However, these countries will begin to demand
changes to the existing system or they won’t play ball with the mandates issued by these governance
organizations. It is worth noting that most of these countries see directional alignment with the United
States as essential for global stability — even if they at times have different views on critical
geopolitical issues (e.g., five plus one on Iran or six-party talks with North Korea). Certainly, China sees
itself as more of a partner of the United States on economic and security matters than it would India or
Russia, where the dependency and trust factor is even lower. And Brazilian President Dilma made it
quite explicit when she articulated in Washington, D.C. during her winter visit that her country’s
aspiration is to have a strategic relationship with the United States; in contrast, she said Brazil only
wanted a commercial relationship with China.
instability defense
Latin america literally poses no security threat
Naim 6 (Moises, Foreign Policy no157 40-3, 45-7 N/D 2006, editor of foreign policy magazine)
For decades, Latin America's weight in the world has been shrinking. It is not an economic powerhouse,
a security threat, or a population bomb. Even its tragedies pale in comparison to Africa's. The region will
not rise until it ends its search for magic formulas. It may not make for a good sound bite, but patience is
Latin America's biggest deficit of all. Latin America has grown used to living in the backyard of the United
States. For decades, it has been a region where the U.S. government meddled in local politics, fought
communists, and promoted its business interests. Even if the rest of the world wasn't paying attention
to Latin America, the United States occasionally was. Then came September 11, and even the United
States seemed to tune out. Naturally, the world's attention centered almost exclusively on terrorism,
the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, and on the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran. Latin
America became Atlantis--the lost continent. Almost overnight, it disappeared from the maps of
investors, generals, diplomats, and journalists. Indeed, as one commentator recently quipped, Latin
America can't compete on the world stage in any aspect, even as a threat. Unlike anti-Americans
elsewhere, Latin Americans are not willing to die for the sake of their geopolitical hatreds. Latin America
is a nuclear-weapons free zone. Its only weapon of mass destruction is cocaine. In contrast to emerging
markets like India and China, Latin America is a minor economic player whose global significance is
declining. Sure, a few countries export oil and gas, but only Venezuela is in the top league of the world's
energy market. Not even Latin America's disasters seem to elicit global concern anymore. Argentina
experienced a massive financial stroke in 2001, and no one abroad seemed to care. Unlike prior crashes,
no government or international financial institution rushed to bail it out. Latin America doesn't have
Africa's famines, genocides, an HIV/AIDS pandemic, wholesale state failures, or rock stars who routinely
adopt its tragedies. Bono, Bill Gates, and Angelina Jolie worry about Botswana, not Brazil. But just as the
five-year-old war on terror pronounced the necessity of confronting threats where they linger, it also
underscored the dangers of neglect. Like Afghanistan, Latin America shows how quickly and easy it is for
the United States to lose its influence when Washington is distracted by other priorities. In both places,
Washington's disinterest produced a vacuum that was filled by political groups and leaders hostile to the
United States. No, Latin America is not churning out Islamic terrorists as Afghanistan was during the days
of the Taliban. In Latin America, the power gap is being filled by a group of disparate leaders often
lumped together under the banner of populism. On the rare occasions that Latin American countries do
make international news, it's the election of a so-called populist, an apparently anti-American, antimarket leader, that raises hackles. However, Latin America's populists aren't a monolith. Some are
worse for international stability than is usually reported. But some have the potential to chart a new,
positive course for the region. Underlying the ascent of these new leaders are several real, stubborn
threads running through Latin Americans' frustration with the status quo in their countries.
Unfortunately, the United States'---and the rest of the world's--lack of interest in that region means that
the forces that are shaping disparate political movements in Latin America are often glossed over,
misinterpreted, or ignored. Ultimately, though, what matters most is not what the northern giant thinks
or does as much as what half a billion Latin Americans think and do. And in the last couple of decades,
the wild swings in their political behavior have created a highly unstable terrain where building the
institutions indispensable for progress or for fighting poverty has become increasingly difficult. There is
a way out. But it's not the quick fix that too many of Latin America's leaders have promised and that an
impatient population demands.
--hardline defense
No nuclear Brazil
Sotero and Armijo, 7 – Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and Armijo is an independent research professional at Portland State
University and holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Political Science (Paulo and Leslie Elliott, “BRAZIL: TO
BE OR NOT TO BE A BRIC?” ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2007, pp. 43-70, Google Scholar)//HAL
Brazil is also a technologically sophisticated country that has explicitly renounced nuclear weapons since
becoming a stable democracy. It possesses the indigenous capacity to produce fissile material for a
nuclear weapon. In 1990 a Brazilian parliamentary inquiry commission reported that during the years of
military government (1964-1985) Brazil’s air force had designed two atomic bomb devices.4 However,
Brazil’s secret nuclear-weapons program, and the country’s consequent refusal to sign the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) in the 1970s and 1980s, had been directed mainly at deterring neighboring
Argentina, in addition to preserving the principle of not officially recognizing the exclusive rights of any
nation to have nuclear weapons. With redemocratization in both Brazil and Argentina in the early 1980s,
their governments entered into closer political and economic cooperation, one result of which was a
series of bilateral arms control treaties. In 1988 Brazil introduced a non-amendable clause in its newly
adopted, democratic constitution forbidding itself from ever building a nuclear weapon. By the decade’s
end, Brazil and Argentina each had opened its nuclear-power facilities to mutual inspection. Having
realized that they neither needed nor wanted nuclear weapons, Brazil’s leaders made as public a point
as possible of renouncing them. In September 1990 President Fernando Collor (1990-1992) had himself
photographed shoveling dirt down a nuclear test shaft, symbolically burying the military’s nuclearbomb
program. Subsequently, Brazil signed all of the major international arms control treaties. With the
world’s sixth-largest deposits of uranium, and the capacity to enrich it, Brazil also has accepted the
covenants of internationally-legitimated nuclear supplier countries.5 Although the new nuclear policy
posture has never been accepted by nationalists in academia, the military, or the foreign ministry, and
remains a matter of considerable controversy, it is unlikely to be reversed. An even more crucial
requisite for being considered a large emerging power is current and projected economic size, which
many international relations theorists consider the single best indicator of relative power.
turns
heg turn
No positive consequence to rising Brazil but Brazil regional power kills US hegemony
Soares de Lima and Hirst, 6 - PhD in Political Science from Vanderbilt University (1986). Currently
she is a professor at the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP-UERJ) and coordinator of the South
American Politics Observatory, OPSA/UERJ (Maria and Monica, “Brazil as an intermediate state and
regional power: action, choice and responsibilities,” International Affairs, 2006,
http://disciplinas.stoa.usp.br/pluginfile.php/43103/mod_resource/content/1/Brazil%20as%20an%20int
ermediate%20state%20and%20regional%20power%20%20action,%20power%20and%20responsabilities.pdf)//HAL
US–Brazil relations have gone through different phases, oscillating between ‘good’ and ‘cool’ without
ever tipping into open hostility. The two states have shared a notion of ‘limited divergence’ which, while
always avoiding open confrontation, has resulted in frustrations on both sides that have long dominated
their relationship. US–Brazil relations have faced cyclical crises of expectations caused by erroneous
calculations on both sides. Nevertheless, all through the twentieth century, bilateral relations played a
crucial role in Brazil’s foreign affairs as well as in the US hemispheric agenda. Though US–Brazil relations
have always been dominated by an intergovernmental agenda, non-governmental actors have recently
expanded their presence and grown in importance. NGOs, cultural and educational entities, as well as a
diverse set of private economic interests, all now contribute to a complex and increasingly intense
bilateral interaction. As US–Brazil relations have become more complex on both sides, military,
economic, political and cultural interests have led to a more open agenda and introduced a broader
range of concerns and pressures. For the United States, the importance of Brazil in world politics and
international security is small, especially when compared to crucial allies such as Canada and the UK, or
to other states such as Germany, Japan and Russia. For Brazil, the picture is very different. Brazil keeps a
permanent watch on the United States and what it does in world politics, and its foreign policy decisions
consistently involve an assessment of the costs and benefits of convergence with or divergence from the
US. Such caution has increased in the unipolar world, particularly since September 11. Differences
between Brazil and the United States over the latter’s intervention in world and regional crises have
been visible in such episodes as the Gulf War (1991), the crisis in Haiti (1996) and the Kosovo tragedy
(1998). In all cases, the US would have welcomed Brazil’s full support. In summary, stateto-state political
relations between the United States and Brazil primarily aim for prudent coexistence, possible
collaboration and minimal collision. While the United States moves ahead towards the consolidation of
an uncontested power position, Brazil searches for a secure and legitimate economic and political
platform in South America. Brazil’s economic relations with the United States today are far more
complex than they were 30 years ago, covering a multifaceted set of trade negotiations and
financial/monetary pressures. Bilateral trade developments have become inextricably linked to
multilateral trade disputes carried forward at the WTO and to regional trade negotiations. From the
beginning of the Lula administration more innovations were expected in interstate regional trade
negotiations than in the relationship with private investors, the banking system and the Washingtonbased multilateral credit institutions. During the first year of the Lula administration the Free Trade of
the Americas (FTAA) negotiations became the crucial terrain of bilateral relations, and an increasingly
fragile one. Through 2003–2004, as both countries co-chaired the process, the FTAA negotiations lost
their way and turned into a US–Mercosur battlefield, fragmenting into sets of parallel negotiations
between Washington and the other subregional blocs (Caribbean, Central America and Andean
community). Concerns were raised in the US, albeit discreetly, regarding the possibility that a more
active Brazil could assemble South America into a single bloc that would destabilize Washington’s pre-
eminence in the hemisphere. As Brazil aims to become more active in regional affairs, clashes with the
US in regional trade and security issues tend to politicize US hemispheric affairs, and the idea that Brazil
could be forging a unified regional front in negotiations with the United States has gained some impetus
within South American diplomatic and political circles. In fact, however, the inauguration of the Lula
administration has led to a more positive character in the shape and direction of US–Brazil relations. For
Brazil, it is not easy to deal with the constraints imposed by the perennial status of South America as a
US sphere of influence.
US primacy prevents global conflict – diminishing power creates a vacuum that causes
transition wars in multiple places
Brooks et al 13 [Stephen G. Brooks is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.G.
John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton
University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs. He is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University.William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel
Webster Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. “Don't Come Home,
America: The Case against Retrenchment”, Winter 2013, Vol. 37, No. 3, Pages 751,http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/ISEC_a_00107, GDI File]
A core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the emergence of a far
more dangerous global security environment. For one thing, as noted above, the United States’ overseas
presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking provocative action. Perhaps more
important, its core alliance commitments also deter states with aspirations to regional
hegemony from contemplating expansion and make its partners more secure, reducing their incentive
to adopt solutions to their security problems that threaten others and thus stoke security dilemmas. The
contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy is consistent with influential
variants of realist theory. Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would
emerge absent the “American Pacifier” is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer,
who forecasts dangerous multipolar regions replete with security competition, arms races, nuclear
proliferation and associated preventive wartemptations, regional rivalries, and even runs at regional
hegemony and full-scale great power war. 72 How do retrenchment advocates, the bulk of whom are
realists, discount this benefit? Their arguments are complicated, but two capture most of the variation:
(1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries and conflict in Eurasia; or
(2) prevention of rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a
different theory or set of theories, which makes sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex
future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasia’s security setting if the United States truly
disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each of these responses is nonetheless
a weaker argument for retrenchment than advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from
defensive realism as well as other international relations theories that discount the conflict-generating
potential of anarchy under contemporary conditions. 73 Defensive realists maintain that
the high expected costs of territorial conquest, defense dominance, and an array of policies
and practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasia’s major states could
manage regional multipolarity peacefully without theAmerican pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet
on this scholarship, particularly in regions where the kinds of stabilizers that nonrealist theories point
to—such as democratic governance or dense institutional linkages—are either absent or weakly present.
There are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause
before making this bet. First is regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net
security effects of U.S. withdrawal. Regarding each region, there are optimists and pessimists. Few
experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American Europe, but many doubt
European governments will pay the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the
budgetary costs of increasing military outlays. 74 The result might be a Europe that is incapable of
securing itself from various threats that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a
regional conflict akin to the 1990s Balkan wars), lacks capacity for global security missions in which U.S.
leaders might want European participation, and is vulnerable to the influence of outside rising
powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia where the United States has a substantial military
presence? Regarding the Middle East, the balance begins toswing toward pessimists concerned that
states currently backed by Washington— notably Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—might take actions
upon U.S. retrenchment that would intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia,
pessimismregarding the region’s prospects without the American pacifier is pronounced. Arguably the
principal concern expressed by area experts is that Japan and South Korea are likely to obtain a nuclear
capacity and increase their military commitments, which could stoke a destabilizing reaction from
China . It is notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan moved to obtain a nuclear
weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing so by astill-engaged United States. 75 The
second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realism’s sanguine portrayal is all of
the research that undermines its conception of state preferences. Defensive realism’s optimism
about what would happen if the United States retrenched is very much dependent on itsparticular—and
highly restrictive—assumption about state preferences; once we relax this assumption, then much of its
basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the prediction of post-American tranquility throughout
Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is the only relevant state preference, with security defined
narrowly in terms of protection from violent external attacks on the homeland. Under that assumption,
the security problem is largely solved as soon as offense and defense are clearly distinguishable, and
offense is extremely expensive relative to defense. Burgeoning research across the social and
other sciences, however,undermines that core assumption: states have preferences not only for security
but also for prestige, status, and other aims, and theyengage in trade-offs among the various objectives.
76 In addition, they define security not just in terms of territorial protection but in view of many and
varied milieu goals. It follows that even states that are relatively secure may nevertheless engage
in highly competitive behavior. Empirical studies show that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77 In sum,
a bet on a benign postretrenchment Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never allow
these nonsecurity preferences to influence their strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of
scholarly knowledge have predictive leverage, U.S. retrenchment would result
in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least some of the world’s key regions. We
have already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship. Offensive realism predicts
thatthe withdrawal of the American pacifier will
yield either a competitive regional multipolarity complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis
instability, nuclear proliferation, and the like, or bids for regional hegemony, which may be beyond the
capacity of local great powers to contain (and which in any case would generate intensely competitive
behavior, possibly including regional great power war).
biofuels turn
Turn – Brazilian soft power allows the country to expand its biofuel markets
Dalgaard, 12 – PhD @ London School of Economics and Political Science; Graduate Teaching Assistant at
London School of Economics; Assistant Editor at Royal United Services Institute; Researcher at Brazilian
Institute of International Relations; Energy Analyst (Klaus Dalgaard, June 2012, London School of
Econmics and Political Science “The energy statecraft of Brazil: promoting biofuels as an instrument of
Brazilian foreign policy, 2003-2010”
http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/585/1/Dalgaard_Energy_Statecraft_Brazil_2012.pdf)//JES
The ‘conditionalist’ approach to the economic statecraft literature in International Relations and Foreign
Policy Analysis seeks to establish the conditions under which economic instruments of foreign policy are
likely to be effective. This thesis applies these conditions to a specific set of economic instruments of
foreign policy, namely energy resources, the use of which is here referred to as ‘energy statecraft’. The
conditions for successful implementation of energy resources as an instrument of foreign policy set
forth in this study serve as a theoretical framework to test a specific case study of energy statecraft:
Brazilian biofuels. The choice of Brazil as the only case study in this thesis is justified by its uniqueness in
energy statecraft on two different levels: empirical and theoretical. Empirically, among the relatively few
energy-exporting countries that use their energy resources as instruments of their foreign policy, Brazil
is the only one that uses biofuels for that purpose, whereas other countries that implement energy
statecraft mostly do so with petroleum and/or natural gas. Theoretically, Brazil’s promotion of biofuels
to third countries is also unique because it is pursued through soft power – attraction by encouraging
emulation of its own successful experience with biofuels – rather than through hard power: bribes or
coercion. The case study is also analysed in the context of a decade characterised by energy security
concerns, including worries over increasingly scarce traditional energy resources, skyrocketing oil prices,
unreliability of conventional energy supplies, and environmental threats. All of these factors have
boosted the advancement of biofuels worldwide. Finally, the means through which Brazil pursues its
goal of turning ethanol into a global commodity is tested against the conditional criteria set out in the
theoretical framework. The thesis concludes that this particular foreign policy strategy has been
fruitless, with little progress made towards achieving its goal of ‘commoditizing’ ethanol in the short
term, though its long-term prospects seem promising. Theoretically, the strategy’s ineffectiveness is
attributed to the international context in which it took place, rather than any inherent characteristic of
energy resources as an instrument of foreign policy.
Expansion of Brazilian bio-fuel industry decimates the environment – damages the Amazon and
Cerrado and increases transportation emissions
Specht, 13 – Legal Advisor, Pearlmaker Holsteins, Inc., B.A., LSU (Jonathan, April 24, 2013, Environmental
Law and Policy Jounral At U.C. Davis “Raising Cane: Cuban Sugarcane Ethanol’s Economic and
Environmental Effects on the United States”, UC Davis, 4-24-13,
http://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/36/2/specht.pdf)//JES
The full debate over the environmental consequences of the Brazilian biofuel production111 is largely
beyond the scope of this Article. Still, the primary issue in this dispute is worth noting, because it
accentuates one of the most significant differences between the U.S. corn-based ethanol industry and
the potential Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol industry. In Brazil, the expansion of sugarcane production
to meet demand for ethanol production has led to land use changes107 that parallel the expansion of
corn production for ethanol in the United States. Clearing portions of the Amazon rainforest — one
of the most significant repositories of carbon on Earth112 — would represent an environmental cost of
ethanol production that outweighs its benefits. The Amazon region, however, is largely unsuitable for
sugarcane production.113 But, sugarcane production is contributing to destruction of another sensitive
habitat, the bio-diverse Cerrado savannah region of Brazil.114 Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol would
have the environmental benefits of Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol without its most obvious
negative factor, damaging habitat in the Cerrado. The environmental effects of biofuels depend on a
number of factors. Whether or not a given type of biofuel is environmentally beneficial “depends
on what the fuel is, how and where the biomass was produced, what else the land could have
been used for, how the fuel was processed and how it is used.”115 Taken together, these factors point to
sugarcane-based ethanol grown in Cuba as one of the most environmentally friendly biofuels
possible. The environmental benefits of using sugarcane to produce ethanol are numerous. First, it is
much more energy efficient to derive ethanol from sugarcane than corn. Making ethanol from corn
only creates approximately 1.3 times the amount of energy used to produce it, but making
ethanol from sugarcane creates approximately eight times the amount of energy used to produce
it.116 Second, unlike much of the corn presently grown in Great Plains states, sugarcane grown in Latin
America does not need to be irrigated.117 Third, sugarcane requires relatively small amounts of chemical
fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.118 Fourth, whereas most U.S. ethanol refineries are powered by
coal or natural gas,119 sugarcane ethanol refineries can be powered by bagasse, a natural product left
over from the sugar refining process.120 In fact, refineries powered with bagasse can even produce
more electricity than they need and sell. Each of these factors in favor of sugarcane ethanol is true
of ethanol from Brazil as well as of any potential ethanol from Cuba. However, there are
additional environmental factors that clinch Cuban sugarcane-based ethanol as one of the most
environmentally friendly fuel sources available to the United States under current technology.123
First, because Cuba is closer to the United States, transporting ethanol from Cuba to the United States
would require less energy than transporting ethanol from Brazil to the United States (especially if it is
used in Florida, an option further explored in the section on economic effects).124
The Amazon is key to the biosphere – deforestation leads to fires, destroys carbon sinks, speeds up
warming – kills the global environment
Walsh, 12 senior writer for TIME magazine, covering energy and the environment; graduate @
Princeton University; (Bryan, TIME Magazine, “Amazonia: What’s Happening to the World’s Biggest Rain
Forest?”, http://science.time.com/2012/01/18/amazonia-whats-happening-to-the-worlds-biggest-rainforest/)//JES
I’d say you have to see the Amazon for yourself to understand how vast it is, but I’ve been there—and
even I can’t imagine it. The rain forest is more than 2 million sq. miles—two-thirds the size of the
continental United States—and the river system of the gigantic basin produces 20% of the world’s
freshwater discharge. The forest holds 100 billion metric tons of carbon—equivalent to more than 10
years’ worth of global fossil-fuel emissions. And the Amazon is the global capital of wildlife biodiversity,
with more species calling the forest and rivers home than scientists could ever hope to name. It’s safe
to say that as the Amazon goes, so goes the planet’s environment. The problem is that the Amazon is
anything but secure. As Amazon basin nations like Brazil have grown economically, they’ve moved to cut
down the forest, making room for agriculture. (Which, it should be noted, is exactly what Americans did
to their own once vast Eastern forests.) The human population in the Brazilian Amazon has grown from
6 million in 1960 to 25 million in 2010, while forest cover has declined to about 80% of its original area.
Deforestation rates have slowed in recent years, but as a new review in this week’s Nature shows, the
Amazon basin is changing, under pressure from natural variability in the weather, drought, global
warming and deforestation. The question remains: just how resilient is the Amazon? MORE: Rain Forest
for Ransom From the Nature article, written by Eric Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center and
his colleagues: Although the basin-wide carbon balance remains uncertain, evidence is emerging for a
directional change from a possible sink towards a possible source. Where deforestation is widespread at
local and regional scales, the dry season duration is lengthening and wet season discharge is increasing.
We show that the forest is resilient to considerable natural climatic variation, but global and regional
climate change forcings interact with land-use change, logging and fire in complex ways, generally
leading to forest ecosystems that are increasingly vulnerable to degradation. Specifically, researchers
worry about Climate and weather change: Drought is a fact of life, even in the ultra-wet Amazon. The El
Niño effect can produce lengthy droughts, while the corresponding La Niña effect can lead to increased
flow and even flooding. The Nature paper notes that the intact Amazon forest—with its deep roots that
can access soil water—is resistant to normal seasonal droughts, but that the transitional forests and
Cerrado (the tropical savannah) are much more vulnerable. But even the existing forest may find it
difficult to withstand lengthy droughts of the sort that may become more common with climate
change—the severe 2005 drought in the southwestern Amazon resulted in the loss of several tons of
living tree biomass carbon per hectare. Deforestation and land-use change: It’s not quite true that the
Amazon is being clear cut—as the Nature paper describes, more small land holders in the Amazon, even
farmers, keep mature or secondary forests on more than half of their land. Much of the forest that’s
being lost is being converted to cropland for soybeans—Brazil is a major producer—as well as
pastureland for cattle. Still, attempts to curb deforestation in the Amazon appear to be working—forest
clearing has fallen from about 11,000 sq. miles a year in 2004 to less than 3,000 sq. miles a year in 2011.
But if deforestation continues, it could change the very climate of the Amazon, resulting in less
precipitation over the region. There are even models that suggest that deforestation exceeds 40% of the
Amazon basin, a tipping point could be reached that would vastly reduce precipitation and result in a
forest “dieback.” That would be bad. Forest fire: It’s no surprise that drought increases forest fire in the
Amazon—about 15,000 sq. miles of forest burned during the El Nino-influenced drought of 1998. But as
fires become more common, they can reduce rainfall (because of the action of the smoke in the
atmosphere) and retard forest regrowth. Fires keep the Amazon from bouncing back. Greenhouse
gases: Right now the Amazon is a major carbon sink, sucking up and storing some of the greenhouse
gases we emit—gases that would otherwise accelerate the warming of the atmosphere. Disturb the
Amazon—as we’re doing—and the system may become less efficient at storing that carbon, thus
speeding climate change. The good news here is that studies indicate that the mature, intact Amazon
forest is still accumulating carbon. But as the forest is disturbed, it causes a net loss for carbon, and the
Amazon goes from being an ally to an enemy in the fight against warming. The conclusion here is the
Amazon is an unimaginably complex system, once that needs more systematic study before we can
know what’s really happening within the forest. But it would be better to understand that now—instead
of waiting to see the consequences of change.
-- s.p. expands biofuels
Turn – the U.S. closed exports to Brazilian biofuels – expansion of regional prominence reinvigorates
strategic ties to expand Brazil’s ethanol market globally
Lessa and Roland, 10 professor in International Relations @ University of Brazil (Antoio Carlos Lessa &
Dennis Roland, November 1, 2010 Editions L’Harmattan “Relations internationales du Brésil, Les
chemins de la Puissance” Volume 2)//JES
In 2007, during a visit of President Bush to Brazil, both countries signed a Memorandum of
Understanding to Advance Cooperation on Biofuels that was presented as a very significant step of
cooperation. The Memorandum focus on joint research regarding biofuels, mainly ethanol, and on
studies for the creation of an ethanol commodities market. Although the opportunities for cooperation
in this area, including production in third party countries and environmental issues, are still being hailed
as very significant, and Brazil has an important competitive advantage in sugar can ethanol production,
US markets still remain closed to our exports1 . In spite of trade barriers, strategically Brazil is being
viewed by the US in a different light. In 2008, Rice included Brazil by the US in a different light. In 2008,
Rice included Brazil as a “stakeholder of international order” alongside China, India, Russia and South
Africa. In several occasions, Rice also defined Brazil as a “regional leader and global partner”, stressing
the relevance of its social agenda and the progress of the country as “multiethnic diplomacy”. (RICE,
2005 and RICE, 2008). The support from UNSC enlargement was also present. Some analysts as Onis
(2008), Stuphen and Hachigian (2008) stressed Brazil’s and other emerging nations role in the world’s
balance of power, and the need for the US to deepen this relations with these nations as “strategic
partners”. The third phase of current Brazil-US relations is rooted in these changes started by Bush, and
continued by Democrat President Barack Obama.
-- amazon k2 warming
Amazon deforestation – comparatively outweighs emissions – carbon sinks and ghg releases mean it
devastates warming
Eirenne, 9 – graduate in International Affairs @ Carleston University (Arielle K. Eirenne, “From Cutting
Trees
to
Slashing
Emissions:
Reducing
Deforestation
in
Brazil”,
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/49/from-cutting-trees-to-slashing-emissions-reducingdeforestation-in-brazil)//JES
Where, however, does Brazil fit into this equation? Like China and India, Brazil is a prominent, populous
developing country and a member of the Group of 8’s ‘Plus-5’ contingent, yet the dialogue on climate
protection touches upon this South American state far less often.[1] What can Brazil’s leaders contribute
to the global anti-climate change fight, and what political and economic pressures
encourage/discourage their action? Unlike China and India, Brazil produces roughly three-quarters of its
emissions through deforestation (Blunt 2004); hence, though Brazil must continue to implement climate
protection measures in its energy sector, decreased deforestation will be essential to the country’s
emissions-curbing efforts. This paper will thus explore the potential for Brazil to reduce its
deforestation, analyzing the political and economic concerns that its leaders must address if reduction
initiatives are to succeed. Though multiple actors are at work within Brazil’s forests, the principle players
appear to be medium- to large-scale cattle ranchers. Thus, though its deforestation efforts may attempt
to dissuade every manner of deforester, Brazil must focus greatest attention on the ranching group. Key
to this task is the expansion of the Brazilian police presence into the areas where ranchers work. The
analysis begins with an overview of the relationship between deforestation and climate change and of
general proposals for forest preservation. Next, an examination of Brazil’s particular deforestation
scenario introduces the key players perpetuating the Brazilian forest’s destruction, as well as the main
political and economic pressures/incentives/concerns involved. Also noted are government antideforestation efforts to date. Given Brazil’s present situation and the political/economic forces at play,
the discussion shifts to probe potential strategies for dealing with deforestation concerns. Deforestation
as a Driver of Climate Change “There’s been a lot of fuss lately about burning the forest,” remarked one
Brazilian rancher, “but everyone knows that it’s the First World, not us, that’s responsible for the
greenhouse effect. It’s the carbon emissions from all their cars. The amount generated by burning the
forest is miniscule by comparison” (quoted in Le Breton 1993:77). Recent scientific analyses, however,
indicate that few things could be further from the truth. Yes, the burning of fossil fuels is the prime
culprit in climate change, but the Union of Concerned Scientists labels deforestation, combined with
“other land-use changes,” as yielding the second-most greenhouse gas emissions (2007). The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has likewise identified fossil-fuel burning and
deforestation as the top contributors to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, with “most” emissions
in recent years resulting from fossil fuels but a substantial 10 to 30 percent arising from land-use
changes, deforestation foremost among them (2001). Per the 2001 IPCC report, other emission sources
bear minimal impact in comparison.2 Moreover, Moutinho, Schwartzman, and Santilli place
deforestation’s contribution at 20 to 25 percent of global emissions (2005:7). Unfortunately, the current
state of research thus leaves ambiguous the exact proportion of climate change for which deforestation
is responsible, yet these figures suggest that deforestation, aside from contributing the bulk of Brazil’s
emissions, remains a key driver of climate change for the planet as a whole. The phenomenon is likely to
loom large in the future as well: “If current trends continue, tropical deforestation will release about
50% as much carbon to the atmosphere as has been emitted from worldwide combustion of fossil
fuels since the start of the industrial revolution” (Houghton 2005:20).3 The above statistics capture,
albeit imperfectly, one side of the deforestation-climate change dynamic: deforestation releases
emissions, for when chopped trees burn or otherwise decay over time, the carbon once contained
within them flows into the atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide but also as methane and carbon
monoxide (Houghton 2005:13).4 The other way that deforestation harms the climate is that it in some
cases eliminates carbon sinks that could have captured future emissions from other sources. In other
words, forests, by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, “sink” greenhouse gases, and as deforesters
chop down more trees, the world becomes less able to cope with its ever-growing emissions. The
potency of various forests’ sink capacities varies, both over time (Forests and the European Union
Resource Network n.d.) and space. To what extent Brazil’s forests, for example, serve as a carbon sink
remains unknown, with researcher Antônio Manzi suggesting that though sequestration occurs in parts
of Brazil, “each locale has its own specificities” (quoted in Rohter 2003:2). Thus, though the primary
concern about deforestation is the amount of greenhouse gas the practice immediately emits into the
atmosphere, its obliteration of a potential climate-change mitigation tool is likewise of concern.
Prospects for mitigating climate change through reduced deforestation are huge: per the most recent
report from the IPCC’s Working Group III, approximately half of the world’s “mitigation potential” may
lie in the possibility of curbing the phenomenon (2007:21). Unfortunately, the full Working Group III
report, which details suggestions for incorporating forest management into climate change mitigation
initiatives, is not yet available for citation or quotation. Until the report’s final release, analysts must rely
on a summary thereof, which recommends several currently available general strategies for offsetting
deforestation’s impact and/or curbing the phenomenon itself, among them afforestation, reforestation,
and “reduced deforestation” (p. 14). Afforestation entails the replanting of forest on land cleared
several (e.g., 20 to 50) years earlier and used for non-forest purposes in the interim (IPCC 2000:6).
Reforestation, in contrast, involves replanting on land that has been cleared but not yet converted for
alternative (e.g., agricultural) use; this takes place shortly after the deforestation originally occurs (IPCC
2000:6). Both activities, instead of halting deforestation emissions themselves, encourage the
reestablishment of carbon sinks. The wisdom of such practices remains in question, however, for the
Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN) notes that sunk carbon may burst back into
the atmosphere following forest fire, insect infestation, decay, changes in land use, and other
disturbances (n.d.). FERN thus contends that reliance on carbon sinks allows for increased
anthropogenic emissions, which, though able to be sequestered today, may threaten the atmosphere in
the future. Decreasing deforestation in the first place is thus preferable. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows entities from the industrialized world to earn credit
for funding mitigative programs in developing countries, can offer credit for afforestation and
reforestation of areas cleared prior to 1990 (Schlamadinger et al. 2005:26). It cannot, however, provide
credit for prevention of deforestation (Fearnside 2005:686). Parties to Kyoto rejected inclusion of
“deforestation avoidance” for a variety of reasons, including “non-permanence,” the concern that
forests saved today might be destroyed anyway in the future; difficulties in determining exactly how
much deforestation would have occurred under business-as-usual conditions; and the concern that
industrialized countries might embrace the ease of paying to reduce deforestation abroad at the
expense of making domestic cuts in emissions from fossil-fuel burning (Schlamadinger et al. 2005:30).5
Nevertheless, expansion of the CDM or the establishment of a similar compliance mechanism to include
avoidance remains a possibility for the post-Kyoto (i.e., post-2012) period (Schlamadinger et al. 2005).
The Brazilian Context Deforestation has wreaked havoc in both of Brazil’s largest biomes, the Amazon
rainforest and the smaller Cerrado, a region of savannas, woodlands, grass, and forests (see Klink and
Machado 2005:708 on the Cerrado). Brazil’s portion of the Amazon rainforest once stretched over a
region roughly the size of Western Europe (Fearnside 2005:681). For centuries, those settling in Brazil
have chopped away chunks of the forest in order to secure livelihoods, yet until recently, their efforts
have been of relatively limited magnitude. “Almost five centuries of European presence before 1970
deforested an area [100 x 103 km2] only slightly larger than Portugal,” writes Fearnside (2005:681),
whereas in the mere 33 years thereafter, total deforested space (648.5 x 103 km2) had grown larger
than France (547.0 x 103 km2). In 2002 alone, new clearings encompassed more land than the state of
New Jersey (Rohter 2003:2). Similarly, Brazil’s Cerrado withstood centuries of minor settlement by
Native peoples and “backwoodsmen” but has recently fallen prey to large-scale destruction: “All that
has changed, however, and during the last twenty-five or so years the cerrados have been extensively
developed … with the active encouragement of the Brazilian government” (Ratter, Ribeiro, and
Bridgewater 2006:88-89). Klink and Machado estimate that since 1970 or so, settlers have destroyed
over half of the Cerrado (2005:708); though not the entire region was originally forested, leaving the
prevalence of Cerrado deforestation unclear, Klink and Machado’s figures indicate considerable human
interference.
russia turn
Turn – Russia would use the emergence of a hegemonic power in South America to further
expansionism and subverts U.S. power projection
Zeihan, 8 – bachelors in political science @ Truman State University; post graduate degree in Asian
Studies @ University of Otago; Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor; Patterson School of Diplomacy and
International Commerce (Peter Zeihan, September 15th, 2008, Stratfor “The Russian Resurgence and the
New-Old Front”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20080915_russian_resurgence_and_new_old_front)//JES
In the American case specifically, the issue is one of continental control. The United States is the only
country in the world that effectively controls an entire continent. Mexico and Canada have been
sufficiently intimidated so that they can operate independently only in a very limited sense. (Technically,
Australia controls a continent, but with the some 85 percent of its territory unusable, it is more accurate
in geopolitical terms to think of it as a small archipelago with some very long bridges.) This grants the
United States not only a potentially massive internal market, but also the ability to project power
without the fear of facing rearguard security threats. U.S. forces can be focused almost entirely on
offensive operations, whereas potential competitors in Eurasia must constantly be on their guard about
the neighbors. The only thing that could threaten U.S. security would be the rise of a Eurasian
continental hegemon. For the past 60 years, Russia (or the Soviet Union) has been the only entity that
has had a chance of achieving that, largely due to its geographic reach. U.S. strategy for coping with this
is simple: containment, or the creation of a network of allies to hedge in Russian political, economic and
military expansion. NATO is the most obvious manifestation of this policy imperative, while the SinoSoviet split is the most dramatic one. Containment requires that United States counter Russian
expansionism at every turn, crafting a new coalition wherever Russia attempts to break out of the
strategic ring, and if necessary committing direct U.S. forces to the effort. The Korean and Vietnam wars
— both traumatic periods in American history — were manifestations of this effort, as were the Berlin
airlift and the backing of Islamist militants in Afghanistan (who incidentally went on to form al Qaeda). ¶
The Georgian war in August was simply the first effort by a resurging Russia to pulse out, expand its
security buffer and, ideally, in the Kremlin’s plans, break out of the post-Cold War noose that other
powers have tied. The Americans (and others) will react as they did during the Cold War: by building
coalitions to constrain Russian expansion. In Europe, the challenges will be to keep the Germans on
board and to keep NATO cohesive. In the Caucasus, the United States will need to deftly manage its
Turkish alliance and find a means of engaging Iran. In China and Japan, economic conflicts will
undoubtedly take a backseat to security cooperation. ¶ Russia and the United States will struggle in all of
these areas, consisting as they do the Russian borderlands. Most of the locations will feel familiar, as
Russia’s near abroad has been Russia’s near abroad for nearly 300 years. Those locations — the Baltics,
Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Central Asia and Mongolia — that defined Russia’s conflicts in times
gone by will surface again. Such is the tapestry of history: the major powers seeking advantage in the
same places over and over again. ¶ The New Old-Front¶ But not all of those fronts are in Eurasia. So long
as U.S. power projection puts the Russians on the defensive, it is only a matter of time before something
along the cordon cracks and the Russians are either fighting a land war or facing a local insurrection.
Russia must keep U.S. efforts dispersed and captured by events as far away from the Russian periphery
as possible — preferably where Russian strengths can exploit American weakness. ¶ So where is that? ¶
Geography dictates that U.S. strength involves coalition building based on mutual interest and longrange force projection, and internal U.S. harmony is such that America’s intelligence and security
agencies have no need to shine. Unlike Russia, the United States does not have large, unruly, resentful,
conquered populations to keep in line. In contrast, recall that the multiethnic nature of the Russian state
requires a powerful security and intelligence apparatus. No place better reflects Russia’s intelligence
strengths and America’s intelligence weakness than Latin America. ¶ The United States faces no
traditional security threats in its backyard. South America is in essence a hollow continent, populated
only on the edges and thus lacking a deep enough hinterland to ever coalesce into a single hegemonic
power. Central America and southern Mexico are similarly fractured, primarily due to rugged terrain.
Northern Mexico (like Canada) is too economically dependent upon the United States to seriously
consider anything more vibrant than ideological hostility toward Washington. Faced with this kind of
local competition, the United States simply does not worry too much about the rest of the Western
Hemisphere — except when someone comes to visit. ¶ Stretching back to the time of the Monroe
Doctrine, Washington’s Latin American policy has been very simple. The United States does not feel
threatened by any local power, but it feels inordinately threatened by any Eastern Hemispheric power
that could ally with a local entity. Latin American entities cannot greatly harm American interests
themselves, but they can be used as fulcrums by hostile states further abroad to strike at the core of
the United States’ power: its undisputed command of North America. ¶ It is a fairly straightforward
exercise to predict where Russian activity will reach its deepest. One only needs to revisit Cold War
history. Future Russian efforts can be broken down into three broad categories: naval interdiction, drug
facilitation and direct territorial challenge.
Russian imperialism will result in a US/Russian nuclear war
Scaliger, 8 staff writer for the New American (Charles Scaliger, September 30, 2008, The New American
“Fanning the Flames in Georgia, The New American” http://www.thenewamerican.com/worldmainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/394)//CubaFile
An American defense of Georgia could risk nuclear war, yet the Bush administration seems determined
to turn this brush fire into a Cuban Missile Crisis-like stare-down. Occupying the territory between the
Black and Caspian Seas, the rugged Caucasus Mountains, where Europe and Asia meet, is a rough
neighborhood. Home to dozens of different languages belonging to three entirely separate stocks — the
Indo-European, Altaic, and Caucasian proper — and two major world religions, Christianity and Islam,
the Caucasus are both a cultural crossroads and a patchwork of religious and ethnic animosities, some of
them stretching back centuries. In an area where Chechens, Georgians, Armenians, Azeris, Dagestanis,
Ossetians, Kalmyks, Russians, Kurds, Turks, and many other ethnicities and tribes jockey for control of
land and trade routes, conflicts are frequent, often bloody, and almost incomprehensible to those
foreign to the region. One of those long-standing conflicts, the rivalry between Georgia and a small
autonomous region known as South Ossetia, grabbed headlines in August as a result of a quick and
decisive war between Georgia and Russia. The war began when Georgian troops, who had only days
earlier participated in an international military exercise that also included roughly 1,000 Americans,
invaded South Ossetia and laid siege to Tskhinvali, the regional capital. Russia, long an ally of the South
Ossetians (North Ossetia is an autonomous territory or oblast within Russia), counterattacked by land,
sea, and air, routing the Georgian military and occupying South Ossetia, another Georgian region with
secessionist designs named Abkhazia, and a considerable swath of Georgian territory, including the
important Georgian port of Poti on the Black Sea. Western leaders, including George Bush, who have
been grooming Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili for years, responded with self-righteous outrage,
demanding a return to the status quo ante. The war was swiftly cast in the American media as a Sovietstyle power play by Moscow, and dire warnings about a second Cold War were the order of the day. But
as is so often the case, there is much more than meets the eye to the ongoing Georgian conflict, the
latest but surely not the last conflagration in the Caucasus. More Than Meets the Eye The Ossetians,
descendants of the Alans, a warlike tribe which participated in the invasion of the Roman Empire along
with the Vandals and Goths, lived originally along the Don River but were driven south into the Caucasus
in the Middle Ages during the Mongol invasion. Their language belongs to the Indo-European stock and
is closely related to Iranian and Kurdish. Most Ossetians converted to Christianity, and more than 60
percent of them are Christian today, although there is also a sizable Muslim minority. The land where
many Ossetians chose to settle so many centuries ago, Georgia, has one of the oldest cultures on Earth
and was, after Armenia, the second country to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Georgia's
peculiar Caucasian language has a writing system all its own and literature stretching back many
centuries. Because of this, and because of her millennia-long occupancy of a large portion of the central
Caucasus, Georgians have long viewed the Ossetians as modern interlopers, trespassers on hallowed
Georgian territory and undeserving of independence. By contrast with the Ossetians, the Abkhaz people
of Georgia's other breakaway region have been in the Caucasus since time immemorial. Abkhazia,
stretching along the northeast coast of the Black Sea, apparently converted to Christianity in the first
half of the first millennium A.D., and has been by turns an independent state, a Roman conquest, a
principality within the Byzantine Empire, a part of the medieval kingdom of Georgia, and an Ottoman
possession. Like Georgia and Ossetia, Abkhazia became a part of the Russian Empire in the first decade
of the 19th century, and like them was later absorbed into the Soviet Union as a part of the Soviet
Republic of Georgia. When the Soviet Union broke up in the early 1990s, the newly independent nation
of Georgia incorporated the two former Soviet autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia lost little time asserting control over the two restive regions,
launching a war in 1991 against Ossetia, which had been in open revolt for two years. Russia entered the
war on the side of the Ossetians, and after more than a year of bitter fighting and several thousand
deaths, a cease-fire was signed restoring to Ossetia some measure of the autonomy (but not full
independence) that the Georgian parliament had revoked in 1990. Gamsakhurdia, although a genuine
Georgian patriot and longtime dissident against the Soviet government, was, like many of his
compatriots, unwilling to give any political recognition to Georgia's minorities. "Georgia for Georgians"
was a popular slogan at the time of independence, and self-determination on the part of the reviled
Ossetians was not to be -contemplated. No sooner had the Ossetian conflict cooled in the summer of
1992 than Georgia invaded Abkhazia with several thousand troops, using the kidnapping of a Georgian
government minister as a pretext. The Georgians took the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi with little resistance,
but were eventually repulsed and driven from Abkhazia by a large force consisting of Abkhaz militia and
sympathetic minorities from all over the Caucasus — Circassians, Chechens, Cossacks, Ossetians, and
others. The Abkhaz proceeded to expel or kill large numbers of Georgians, in a Balkan-style episode of
"ethnic cleansing" little remarked in the West but possibly costing tens of thousands of lives, both
Abkhaz and Georgian. Eduard Shevardnadze, former foreign minister of the Soviet Union under
Gorbachev and sometime president of Georgia, was in Sukhumi at the time and narrowly escaped
death. From the early '90s to the present day, an uneasy status quo has held sway in both breakaway
republics, with both Georgia and Russia maneuvering for control of the regions. With the ouster of
President Shevardnadze in 2003 and the rise of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian politics have taken a
decidedly pro-American tilt. Georgia sent a very large contingent of troops into Iraq — all of whom were
speedily evacuated and returned to Georgia, with American help, following the outbreak of the August
war — and, along with newly assertive Ukraine, applied for NATO membership. At the same time,
Georgia has become a transit center for oil from the Caspian Sea. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline,
completed in 2005, crosses the country en route to the Turkish coast, and the Baku-Supsa pipeline,
brought online in 1999, ends at the Georgian Black Sea port of Supsa. Given the intractable enmities
bound up in the Georgian conflict, it would seem unwise for America to take sides or otherwise inject its
influence, but that is precisely what the Bush government has chosen to do. Vowing to push for
Georgian entry into NATO, the Bush administration has leveled a steady barrage of criticism against
Moscow for behaving precisely as the United States — or any great power — is wont to behave in its
sphere of influence. "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic
government elected by its people," said President Bush. "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st
century.... Russia's government must respect Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty." Given
recent U.S. military interventions in Haiti and Panama (not to mention Iraq), the Bush administration's
moral posturing over Russia's Georgia adventure (in which a number of Russian peacekeepers were
killed before Moscow ever launched her counterattack) ring hollow, to say the least. Nor is there any
basis for defending Georgia's NATO ambitions, at least from an American point of view. NATO already
commits the United States Armed Forces to defend all sorts of out-of-the-way places of no strategic
value to the United States. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, former Soviet republics all, are already
members; is America ready to start World War III to defend them? Yet that is precisely what the NATO
alliance will require of us, should Russia ever decide to re-annex them, and it will do the same vis-à-vis
Georgia, should this trouble-prone Caucasus state ever become a member. The Chief Motive As events
stand, the Georgia/South Ossetia War, a brief, inconsequential flare-up in a region where the United
States has no business looking for trouble, has already led to near-naval confrontation between Russia
and the United States in the Black Sea. At the time of this writing, Russian bombers are in the Western
Hemisphere (in Venezuela) for the first time since the Cold War, and the United States is threatening
further unspecified measures against Russia for her intransigence. For her part, Russia has withdrawn
her military forces from most of Georgia proper, but has kept large garrisons in both breakaway regions
and formally recognized the independence of both. In spite of the triviality of the Caucasus flare-up, the
powers that be in the West seem bent on antagonizing Russia. Immediately after the Georgian conflict,
the Bush administration announced a deal to station missile interceptors — ostensibly to defend Europe
against Iranian warheads — in Poland. Russia responded by sending long-range bombers to Venezuela
and threatening to re-militarize Cuba. Defense of Georgia or even of her oil pipelines seems inadequate
rationale for potential nuclear war, yet the Bush administration seems determined to turn this regional
brush fire into a Cuban Missile Crisis-like international stare-down. The chief motive for the exaggerated
hullabaloo is the expansion of NATO, which continues to absorb more nations and redefine its
organizational mission almost two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. What was once
touted as a military alliance to defend the West and its interests against the communist menace has
been reinvented as an all-purpose global military force. NATO led the Western European and American
intervention in the various Balkan wars in the 1990s, and NATO forces are now in command of the war
in Afghanistan, a conflict far removed from Cold War animosities. "Presumed dead more often than the
hero in a melodrama," U.S. Ambassador to NATO R. Nicholas Burns wrote in 2003, "the new NATO keeps
on defying the pundits' predictions by adapting itself to a rapidly changing world." Absorption of
Georgia, the Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics has become a prime objective of the NATO
organization, as NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made clear in a recent speech in Tbilisi,
the Georgian capital. "The process of NATO enlargement will continue, with due caution but also with a
clear purpose — to help create a stable, undivided Europe," Scheffer said. "No other country will have a
veto over that process, nor will we allow our strong ties to Georgia to be broken by outside military
intervention and pressure." If the purpose of NATO is now the creation of a "stable, undivided Europe,"
Americans would do well to wonder why America still belongs to the organization. After all, America's
military was created to protect America and her vital interests, not those of Europe, much less the
remote and fractious Caucasus. Yet if the Eurocrats in charge of NATO have their way, Georgia, along
with all her Caucasian broils and her blood feud with Russia, will be drawn into the alliance, an event
that will make war between Washington and Moscow much more likely than it ever was during the Cold
War.
-- brazil k2 russia
Emergence of Brazil as a regional power allows Russia to achieve strategic interests in the west
Smith, 9 – Researcher for UK Defence Academy, PhD in Political Science @ Oxford University (Mark A,
August 2009, “Russia & Latin America: Competition in Washington's "Near Abroad"?”, August,
International Relations and Security Network, http://www.isn.ethz.ch/DigitalLibrary/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=104344)//JES
Overall, this is the context within which Russia’s relations with Latin America should be placed. BRIC
means that Russia’s relations with Brazil are potentially of the greatest significance for Moscow in its
dealings with Latin America, even though it could be argued that Russia’s relationship with Venezuela is
currently the most important bilateral relationship Moscow has with any Latin American state. Brazil –
key BRIC partner.Brazil is becoming a key focus of Moscow due largely to the fact that the two powers
are part of the BRIC formation of states. Russia supports the Brazilian argument that the number of
permanent members of the UN Security Council be expanded. In a joint article published in Rossiyskaya
Gazeta in October 2008, Sergey Lavrov and Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim described Brazil and
Russia as “natural allies”.25 Security Council secretary Nikolay Patrushev had talks in Moscow in
November 2008 with the then Brazilian minister of the Extraordinary Ministry of Strategic Affairs,
Roberto Mangabeira Unger. In October Rosatom head Sergey Kiriyenko visited Brazil. During this visit
Russia offered to sell Brazil modern technology for the deep exploration and production of uranium,
new nuclear power plants and "superconductor technologies" for transmitting energy.26 In February
2008. Brazilian defence minister Nelson Jobim visited Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart
Anatoly Serdyukov.27 Moscow is obviously interested in possible military-technical cooperation with
Brazil. In November 2008 it was reported that Brazil purchased in October twelve Russian Mi-35M
helicopters.28 However Brazil is interested in developing its own armaments industry, and may to a
certain extent see Russia as a competitor in this field. There is interest on both sides in developing
cooperation in the space and IT sectors. Brazil has cooperated with Ukraine in the space sector, setting
up the Alcantara Cyclone Space Centre. The Pivdenmash enterprise in Dnepropetrovsk was to
manufacture the Cyclone-4 rocket to launch satellites. However Ukraine’s financial difficulties resulted
in production delays. Russia proposed to Brazil that an alternative to Cyclone-4 be developed as its fuel
is not environmentally friendly.29 In spring 2008, Russia and Brazil concluded an agreement to develop a
series of launch vehicles as part of Brazil’s Cruzeiro do Sul programme. Russia and Brazil will develop a
rocket based on the Russian Angara vehicle. The first stage of the Brazilian Gamma, Delta and Epsilon
launchers will be powered by a unit based on the RD-191 engine developed for the Angara rocket.
Cooperation with Russia is likely to enable the Brazilian space programme to make significant progress.
When he visited Brazil in November 2008, Medvedev discussed the development of energy cooperation
with Petrobras. Gazprom is to open a representative office in Brazil in 2009, and Medvedev expressed
the hope that the trade turnover would be increased to $10 billion by the end of 2008 (in September
2008 it stood at $6 billion). Medvedev also urged that the structure of trade should change from the
exchange of Brazilian raw materials for Russian mineral fertilizer to greater cooperation in high
technology sectors. Medvedev spoke of developing a technological alliance with Brazil.30 Lavrov and
Amorim spoke in their Rossiyskaya Gazeta article of cooperation in the airplane construction and nanotechnology sectors. The Russian leadership may feel that there is greater scope for technological
cooperation with a BRIC partner such as Brazil than with major western powers, which Moscow may see
as being more likely to try and use technological cooperation as a means of keeping Russia in a
subordinate position. In connection with this planned technological alliance, Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin and Brazilian Vice-President Jose Alencar jointly head a high level commission on cooperation
between the two states. There is a joint Russo-Brazilian working group, which operates under the
auspices of the Russian Federation Security Council and Brazilian Ministry of Strategic Affairs. This is the
first such cooperation organ that Russia has with any Latin American state.31 Medvedev also put much
emphasis on Russo-Brazilian cooperation within the framework of the BRIC grouping of states.32 The
Russian President also sees Brazil as a key partner of Russia in supporting Moscow’s arguments for a
restructuring of the international financial system. The Brazilian leadership, like its Russian counterpart,
has been critical of the role played by the West in global financial management that led to the financial
crisis of 2008.
dollar war turn
Brazil leadership leads to dollar replacement – U.S. action reverses the trend
Tessman, 12 - Ph.D. Political Science, University of Colorado, assistant professor of International
Affairs and associate director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (Globis) at the University of
Georgia (Brock F., “System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu,” May 22nd, 2012,
Taylor and Francis Online)//HAL
Brazil’s approach to mediation is epitomized by its ability to prioritize the long-term goal of integration
over short-term policy victories. For example, Brasilia has continually refrained from punishing
Argentina for trade violations in wake of its 2001 economic crisis and has also maintained—despite the
increasingly jarring rhetoric from Hugo Chavez—rather warm relations with Venezuela. Perhaps the
clearest example of Type B strategic hedging is found in Brazil’s efforts to build regional economic
organizations that can function independently of the United States, western financial institutions, and
the US dollar. In the summer of 2011, UNASUR finance and foreign affairs ministers held a series of
meetings in order to develop a plan that would insulate the region from future economic crises in
Europe and the United States.78 In particular, the UNASUR countries were seeking a strategy that would
successfully reduce their reliance on American-dominated financial institutions like the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, while also allowing the region to move away from the use of US
dollars as the dominant currency for regional trade. As Argentina’s Deputy Economy minister Roberto
Feletti explained, “What was approved by the meeting of ministers as an action plan is to advance in
the design of a multilateral payments system which tends to use local currencies. The tendency is to
gradually replace the U.S. dollar in regional trade.”79 Because Brazil is a heavy exporter and is also the
target of more and more foreign investment, regional dependence on the US dollar is threatening
because the country’s growing reserves are subject to significant depreciation as the dollar falls in
relation to the Brazilian real. While the accumulation of US dollars was at one point seen as a desirable
consequence of a positive trade balance and growing foreign investment, the erosion of the dollar has
led Brazilian leaders to push for the use of local currencies in regional trade and investment.80
Brazilian leaders have also sought to establish a Latin American Reserves Fund Council (FLAR). The FLAR
would supervise a regional reserve bank (Banco del Sur) that would come to the aid of states that were
experiencing balance of payments problems.81 The FLAR would serve as a regional equivalent of the
IMF and would reduce regional dependence on that American-led institution. Like the Asian Monetary
Fund that emerged in the wake of the financial crisis of 1997 and 1998, a Banco del Sur would not be
seen as a tool for confronting western financial institutions, but rather a way to reduce regional
dependence on them. For Brazil, the bank would be a stabilizing force in the region; countries with the
highest potential for balance of payments problems—Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador—are also those
that would have the hardest time obtaining conditional loans from the IMF. 82 Brazil’s military,
diplomatic, and economic approaches to regional leadership in South America are designed to replace
public goods that havehistorically been provided by the United States.
US dollar causes currency wars—goes global
Rathbone, 13 - the Financial Times’ Latin American editor, worked as an economist and a journalist at
the World Bank, graduate of Oxford and Columbia Universities (John Paul, February 12th, 2013,
“Currency fears spread in Latin America,” Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c765ec1a721b-11e2-89fb-00144feab49a.html#axzz2Y17JdFTY)//HAL
Latin America is going Brazilian. Previously, it was only Brazil, the region’s biggest economy, that
complained about the competitive devaluations generated by money-printing in the west, the so-called
currency wars. Now, however, as Japan joins the rush to print money and devalue, the more orthodox
and free-trading Latin economies – investor darlings such as Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru – also
fear catching a bullet. The issue may well dominate this week’s G20 meeting in Moscow, given that
Asian exporters such as South Korea are also worried about currency appreciation. “Not all Latin
American policy makers have used the term currency war,” says Luis Oganes, head of Latin America
research at JPMorgan. But they “are expressing increasing concern and reacting to it”. Last week, Felipe
Larraín, Chile’s finance minister, lamented that competitive devaluations of global currencies from
quantitative easing, or QE, could lead “to new forms of trade protectionism”. Agustín Carstens, the head
of Mexico’s central bank, warned the following day that massive cross-border capital flows could lead to
a “perfect storm” of economic problems. He added that “concerns of asset-price bubbles fed by credit
booms are starting to reappear”. Symptomatic of this was a tweet last Tuesday by Bill Gross, the co-chief
investment officer of Pimco, the bond fund, which praised the Mexican peso as a “great currency” and
that led an almost 1 percentage point jump in the currency. Such concerns are the opposite of those in
more mismanaged Latin economies, such as Venezuela, which devalued on Friday, or Argentina, both of
which are suffering capital outflows. What makes this round of currency war complaints different from
when Brazil coined the phrase in 2010, is that after years of orthodox policy making the Mexican,
Colombian, Peruvian and Chilean economies, which have a combined economic output of $2.1tn, enjoy
lower inflation and interest rates, and smaller budget deficits. And yet they are still suffering. “The term
‘currency wars’ is often used as a scapegoat by policy makers,” says Michael Henderson, Latin America
economist at Capital Economics, a consultancy. “The fact that people such as Mexico’s Carstens are
picking up on the idea lends it more credence.” Certainly, the evidence seems clear. The Mexican,
Chilean, Colombian and Peruvian currencies all appreciated by about 10 per cent against the dollar last
year. The average of their inflation-adjusted, trade weighted currencies is now also 8 per cent above the
10-year average. This has prompted howls of protest from local exporters, and increased pressure on
politicians to “do something” to help. “We firmly criticise the monetary policies of developed economies
which are generating excessive international liquidity and overvaluing currencies such as ours,” Mauricio
Cárdenas, Colombia’s finance minister, told the Financial Times.
--inflaiton impact
LA is moving away from the dollar—dollar collapses the global economy and causes
massive inflation
Guzman, 13 - researcher and writer with a focus on political, economic, media and historical spheres,
graduate of Hunter College in New York City (Timothy Alexander, “Investing in Silver, Moving out of the
Dollar: The Roman Denarius, the American dollar and the Return of Silver?” Global Research, February
04, 2013, http://www.globalresearch.ca/investing-in-silver-weakness-of-the-dollar-the-roman-denariusthe-american-dollar-and-the-return-of-silver/5321610)//HAL
If the US dollar collapses, it will have a dramatic impact on the world economy because the dollar is the
standard unit of currency for commodity markets, especially gold and oil. The U.S. dollar is still the
world’s reserve currency, but the reality is that it can lead the world into an economic depression.
Nations with large external debts will not be able to trade sufficiently to earn the needed income to
service their debts. They will slide into bankruptcy. However, countries such as Russia and China are
taking necessary steps to avoid an economic tsunami caused by a collapse of the US dollar by
announcing in 2010 that they will use their own currencies which is the Russian Ruble and the Chinese
Yuan for bilateral trade. Iran and India decided to trade gold for oil due to US sanctions on Iran because
of its nuclear program. Japan and China announced that they will also trade in their own currencies
despite diplomatic problems involving the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. One thing is certain, the
world is slowly but surely moving away from the US dollar. The cost of living among people who deal
with the US dollar on a daily basis especially by those who live within the United States will see a rapid
decline in the standards of living due to Federal Reserve Bank’s debasement of the dollar by printing
unlimited amounts of money through Quantitative easing (QE). The Federal Reserve’s action will cause
food, clothing and energy prices to soar, which will hurt the average family. As the US Federal Reserve
Bank continues to print dollars, the result will be inflation. It will cause panic on the world markets and
civil unrest among the people who realize that the US dollars they depend on would no longer be able to
buy their basic necessities. What can be done around the world to avoid such a scenario when the
collapse of the dollar is inevitable? History proves that silver can become an alternative currency that
can replace the dollar, although many countries are purchasing large amounts of gold such as Russia and
China with other countries in Latin America and Asia following in the same footsteps. However, silver
will still be a good option. At least you have a choice in which precious metals you can invest in. Silver
has been used for thousands of years as a monetary system for the economies of past civilizations.
Inflation kills the economy – destruction of middle class and political instability
Zakaria 9—Editor of Newsweek, BA from Yale, PhD in pol sci, Harvard. He serves on the board of Yale
University, The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and Shakespeare and Company.
Named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" (Fareed, The Secrets of Stability, 12
December 2009, http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/articles.html)
The second force for stability is the victory—after a decades-long struggle—over the cancer of inflation.
Thirty-five years ago, much of the world was plagued by high inflation, with deep social and political
consequences. Severe inflation can be far more disruptive than a recession, because while recessions
rob you of better jobs and wages that you might have had in the future, inflation robs you of what you
have now by destroying your savings. In many countries in the 1970s, hyperinflation led to the
destruction of the middle class, which was the background condition for many of the political dramas of
the era—coups in Latin America, the suspension of democracy in India, the overthrow of the shah in
Iran. But then in 1979, the tide began to turn when Paul Volcker took over the U.S. Federal Reserve and
waged war against inflation. Over two decades, central banks managed to decisively beat down the
beast. At this point, only one country in the world suffers from -hyperinflation: Zimbabwe. Low inflation
allows people, businesses, and governments to plan for the future, a key precondition for stability.
Extinction
Mead, 98 – Senior Fellow Council on Foreign Relations
LA Times, 8-23
Even with stock markets tottering around the world, the president and the Congress seem determined
to spend the next six months arguing about dress stains. Too bad. The United States and the world are
facing what could grow into the greatest threat to world peace in 60 years. Forget suicide car bombers
and Afghan fanatics. It's the financial markets, not the terrorist training camps that pose the biggest
immediate threat to world peace. How can this be? Think about the mother of all global meltdowns: the
Great Depression that started in 1929. U.S. stocks began to collapse in October, staged a rally, then the
market headed south big time. At the bottom, the Dow Jones industrial average had lost 90% of its
value. Wages plummeted, thousands of banks and brokerages went bankrupt, millions of people lost
their jobs. There were similar horror stories worldwide. But the biggest impact of the Depression on the
United States--and on world history--wasn't money. It was blood: World War II, to be exact. The
Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, undermined the ability of moderates to oppose
Joseph Stalin's power in Russia, and convinced the Japanese military that the country had no choice but
to build an Asian empire, even if that meant war with the United States and Britain. That's the thing
about depressions. They aren't just bad for your 401(k). Let the world economy crash far enough, and
the rules change. We stop playing "The Price is Right" and start up a new round of "Saving Private
Ryan."