Brazil’s Nuclear Agenda
By Mr. Trend talks a bit about the resumption of the Brazilian (civilian) nuclear power program:
The power plant was originally decreed in the 1970s as part of the military dictatorship’s demonstration of how Brazil was finally attaining the levels of “development” it required to assume it’s rightful place in the world (in what I would call Brazil’s historical “order and progress” complex). The idea of the power plant was borne equally out of the fact that many members of the military brass saw nuclear power as the next necessary step to achieve progress in Brazil, as well as being influenced by broader geopolitical factors, including Argentina gaining nuclear power. Interestingly, the public met such plans with an at-best lukewarm response in Brazil when they first came up, but after Jimmy Carter heavily pushed Brazil not to turn to nuclear power, it attained a level of popular nationalism the military government itself could never have achieved on its own, thereby giving the project far greater popular legitimacy as well. Brazil ultimately gained its nuclear technology and capabilities via help from West Germany, and began working on two reactors. The third, begun in 1986, was quickly abandoned as Brazil entered inflation rates in the hundreds and even thousands in the late-1980s and 1990s. Now, with a booming economy and a growing need for energy, Lula has authorized resuming construction of the third reactor.
There are a few interesting things going on here. One is the prestige component of even peaceful nuclear energy; the program was apparently seen by the military dictatorship as having national pride benefits completely apart from the economic value of the reactors. This, I think, is one of the most serious problems with the kind of non-proliferation policies that neoconservatives like to pursue. In building non-proliferation strategy around the idea that the United States (or Israel, or whoever else) will prevent proliferation simply by threatening to bomb the target country, we overlook the fact that the pursuit of national prestige is often the driving force behind a nuclear program, and that the threat of airstrikes is a uniquely poor way to allow a target to maintain its prestige. In the Brazilian case the program was civil, and the US threats non-military, but the outcome predictable; the coercive effort ended up making the program radically more popular.
I have to say that I’m a bit curious about what this resumption portends for Brazil’s nuclear military ambitions. While Brazil hasn’t really made noises about developing its own nuclear weapons, there’s been a lot of talk about Brazil building a nuclear submarine force. This also seems driven almost purely by prestige considerations, as the tasks that Brazil envisions for the nuclear submarine (protecting offshore oil installations) can be handled just as capably by conventional submarines.