Nikolas Kozloff

As the WikiLeaks scandal drags on, a portrait is emerging of Brazil, and suffice it to say it is not too flattering. A rising power with global aspirations, Brazil has a lot more political and economic muscle than, say Venezuela or Bolivia. Yet, time and again the Lula administration takes a very meek approach toward the United States or, even worse, goes along with Washington's geopolitical machinations.

In previous articles, I discussed the Machiavellian scheming of Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, who has sought to thwart the Ministry of Foreign Relations, also known as Itamaraty, in an effort to redirect foreign policy toward the United States. After reviewing those documents, I expected upcoming caches to paint a more progressive picture of Itamaraty's dealings. However, recently released cables certainly don't paint Brazilian diplomats as a particularly principled bunch either.
 
Though American diplomats under Obama fret that "U.S.-Brazil cooperation is often limited by Brazil's unwillingness to speak out against anti-democratic actions in the hemisphere (Venezuela and Cuba)," nonetheless they note that "military-to-military relations are good and growing, and most of the Brazilian military understands the potential benefits of partnership with the United States." Meanwhile, "cooperation on law enforcement issues, such as counternarcotics, container security, and intelligence sharing, is excellent and improving." Diplomats noted other areas of mutual interest including climate change and bio-fuels, neither of which bodes well for the environment [for more on this see my online articles regarding Brazilian obstructionism at the Copenhagen climate summit and its backroom deals with the United States].

Key in solidifying the diplomatic relationship with the U.S. is Minister Jobim, a political figure wielding considerable influence within the Lula administration. During a meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela in late 2009, a "friendly and engaged" Jobim said that Brazil had no problem with the United States signing a defense agreement with Colombia. In another separate meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, Jobim "stressed the importance of regional stability for Brazil, but cautioned that Brazil resists being labeled the regional leader because they do not see it as helpful in resolving problems."

One reason that Jobim may have been reluctant to challenge the U.S. within the Andean region has to do with weapons purchases and the expanding role of the military in Brazilian society. During his meeting with Valenzuela, Jobim expressed interest in purchasing Global Super Hornet F18 fighter planes from Boeing. Though many Brazilians have an unpleasant view of the armed forces as a result of the repressive military dictatorship of 1964-1985, Lula has recently moved the defense industry center stage. In tandem with such desires, "Jobim highlighted the fact that Brazil's new National Defense Strategy was crafted to ensure the defense sector would be an 'enabler of development.'"

García, Amorim and Rousseff: A Machiavellian Bunch

Brazilian diplomats are less partial to the U.S. agenda than Jobim, though they clearly don't want to rock the boat too much. In conversations with Valenzuela, Presidential Foreign Policy Advisor Marco Aurelio García characterized Hugo Chávez as a politician who "has no sense of proportion." García however did suggest that Valenzuela head to Caracas in an effort to improve U.S.-Venezuelan relations. In response, Valenzuela was non-committal, noting that it was "difficult to ignore both the provocative statements by Chávez and his authoritarian tendencies." If García pressed Valenzuela any further on the matter, a cable released by Wikileaks makes no mention. As the conversation continued, García sought to reassure the visiting U.S. diplomat that Brazil was a "responsible" partner and dished on other leftist nations in South America. For example, García "described Ecuador's and Bolivia's political systems as 'rotten'; and called the future of Argentina 'a big question mark,' depending on whether the Kirchners recover or not." In the separate meeting with Jones, García stated that Brazil supported a U.S. free trade deal with Colombia. In a revealing aside, Lula Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff, who succeeds to the presidency of Brazil shortly, remarked that it was "disconcerting" to be confronted with questions from the press regarding United States bases in Colombia. "According to Rousseff," one cable notes, "issues such as this open the door for radicals who want to create problems in the region."

Speaking with Jones, the conversation then turned to the matter of the coup in Honduras. Though García supported the return of ousted leader and Chávez protégé Manuel Zelaya, the Brazilian was quick to add that Zelaya should be of little concern to Washington as he was "not a dangerous revolutionary." There was no need to worry, García added, noting that returning Zelaya to power "will not lead to significant changes." At that point, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim chimed in, proudly announcing that even though Chávez had wanted to make Zelaya into a martyr, Brazil had at long last convinced the Venezuelan leader that "only the United States can influence what happens in Honduras" and needed to be consulted. Hoping to mollify U.S. diplomats on Iran, Amorim characterized Brazil's ties to the Islamic Republic as "not deep, but pragmatic" and dominated by commercial concerns. He said the nature of the alliance should not be "overvalued" as the two nations "were not buddies." Echoing Amorim, García added that Brazil's engagement with the Islamic Republic was merely "a bet" which might not work. García described Lula's reception of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "not warm."
 
What Does Brazil Stand For?

Reading the WikiLeaks cables, it is clear that Brazilian officials are exceedingly fixated on their image and on demonstrating to the United States that their country is a responsible player which stands for political stability, i.e. not leftist radicalization or populist rule. Though Lula pursued a quirky foreign policy at times, Rousseff's aside suggests she may opt for moderation rather than adventurism when crafting her own foreign policy over the next couple of years. For Venezuela and Bolivia, the not so subtle message from the WikiLeaks scandal is clear: while Brazil will not destabilize neighboring countries, neither can it be trusted.

To read the article, click here.

To read the article, click here.

To read the article click here.

A five part series. To read part I, click here. To read part II, click here. For part III click here. For part IV, click here. For part V, click here.

To read the article at Council on Hemispheric Affairs, click here.

To read the article, click here.

It’s everyone’s worst nightmare: being caught in an underground subway in the midst of a power outage. Yet, that is exactly what happened recently when Brazilian commuters in the city of São Paulo were trapped inside trains and literally had to be pulled out of subway cars. In addition to sparking problems in public transport, the blackout or apagão led to hospital emergencies and the shutting down of several airports. In all the power outage darkened approximately half of the South American nation, affecting sixty million people.

In recent years Brazil has become an economic powerhouse yet the blackout exposed vulnerabilities in the country’s infrastructure. In the wake of the power outage, government officials intent on sustaining high economic growth have tried to figure out what might have gone wrong with the country’s electrical grid. Initial reports blamed the power outage on the massive Itaipu hydroelectric dam though a spokesperson for the facility said there had been no problem at the plant.

Itaipu, the official stated, was solely responsible for power generation and the failure occurred in the transmission line. Perhaps, the Energy and Mines Minister declared, a chance atmospheric event like a storm could have disconnected Itaipu. While the authorities conduct further investigations into the matter, some are concerned about the scope of the apagão and have demanded a more detailed explanation.

In addition to power outages there are other, more profound problems associated with hydropower, problems that now concern us all. Indeed, hydroelectric plants lead to emissions of methane which are formed when vegetation decomposes at the bottom of reservoirs devoid of oxygen. The methane is either released slowly as it bubbles up in the reservoir or rapidly when water passes through turbines.

One Brazilian dam, Balbina, flooded about 920 square miles of rainforest when it was completed and during the first three years of its existence the actual reservoir emitted 23 million tons of carbon dioxide and 140,000 tons of methane. Dr. Philip Fearnside, a scientist who I interviewed for my upcoming book No Rain In the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects The Entire Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2010), has calculated that during this time Balbina’s greenhouse gas output was four times that of a coal-fired plant producing the same amount of power.

The news is particularly troubling as methane is twenty times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon. Environmentalists say that methane gas produced by forests inundated by hydroelectric projects accounts for one-fifth of Brazil’s greenhouse gas contribution to global warming.

How concerned should we be about dams and their effect on Earth’s climate? According to researchers, the world’s reservoirs release 20 percent of the total methane from all known sources connected to human activity, including livestock, fossil fuels, and landfills. Experts say that same methane released by dams, meanwhile, accounts for 4 percent of total global warming while reservoirs contribute approximately 4 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity.

The issue of hydro power has been climbing up the political agenda of the world’s leading scientists: in 2006 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included emissions from artificially flooded regions in its greenhouse gas inventory. That hasn’t stopped Brazilian policymakers however from proceeding full throttle with their plans for Amazonian dams and currently the country relies on hydropower for more than 80% of its electricity. In particular, the government has pushed a controversial dam project called Belo Monte. Scientists have raised the alarm bell about the complex, which will cause an increase in greenhouse gas emissions due to the decomposition of organic matter within the stagnant water of the reservoir.

President Lula has said that developing hydro power in the Amazon is essential if the country wants to sustain more than 5 percent growth. The mere fact, however, that Brazil is afflicted by chronic energy problems does not mean that Lula must sacrifice the rainforest to hydro power and thereby intensify climate pressures. Indeed, critics charge that Lula’s dam building is merely designed to satisfy big business which gobbles up energy so as to export tropical commodities.

With all of the social drawbacks associated with hydro power, not to mention the implications for climate change, why won’t authorities consider meeting Brazil’s future energy needs through alternative means? Environmentalists argue that the Lula government should upgrade existing energy systems and push through rapid development of wind, solar, and biomass technologies. If Lula adopted such clean technologies Brazil could meet its electricity needs through 2020 and actually save $15 billion in the process.

Sounds like a proposal worth exploring, but predictably the electrical sector has wasted no time in attacking environmentalists for being utopian and naive. To retrofit older dams and cut transmission losses is simply wishful thinking, the powerful lobbying group has charged. One expert reports that hydroelectric projects die hard in Brazil. “It’s like a Dracula movie,” he says. “Every 20 years or so, it surges up out of the coffin. You have to drive the stake back through the thing and make it go away again.”

Where is all the money coming from for these hydroelectric initiatives you ask? One chief culprit is the Brazilian National Development Bank, the financial arm of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade. Because of the incestuous relationship between the government and hydropower, it’s politically difficult to challenge these boondoggle projects.

But just in case you thought methane-producing dams were a strictly Brazilian affair, consider that the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is also expected to contribute financially to hydro electric projects despite heavy lobbying from environmental and human rights groups that have been urging the bank to steer clear of such initiatives.

Moving away from hydropower and solving our climate conundrum will require political leadership in Brazil but also significant international cooperation. As we move forward in crucial climate change negotiations, the Global North needs to do much more to invest in truly green technology such as wind, solar, and waves. Instead of sponsoring hydropower, large financial institutions as well as affluent countries should provide clean energy transfers to such nations as Brazil.

Failure to act now could exact a heavy environmental toll and condemn Brazil to a vicious energy-climate trap. Consider the case of an earlier, 2001 apagão: in that year, a blackout crippled the country and authorities were forced to decree emergency measures, including a ban on power-hungry floodlights. A special government task force (nicknamed the “Blackout Ministry”) called for the switching off of lighting on streets, beaches, and squares. In the midst of the energy crisis some Rio business leaders feared a crime wave and called for the army to be deployed in the event of power cuts.

Meanwhile, panic-stricken citizens stocked up on candles, generators, and flashlights. When the rationing went into effect, cutbacks obliged schools and businesses to close and disrupted transportation, trade, and leisure. As street lighting in most major cities was cut 35 percent, police night shifts were increased and even Brazilians’ prized night games of soccer were prohibited.

The connection between hydro power and climate change is becoming all too painfully clear. Consider: the immediate cause of the 2001 energy crisis and blackout was a severe drought–the worst in more than sixty years. When the dry spell hit, water levels at hydroelectric plants fell to less than one-third of capacity.

In the long run hydro power may be caught in a vicious cycle of its own making: as large boondoggle projects such as Belo Monte proliferate, they may emit harmful greenhouse gases and thus contribute to climate change and increasing drought. But if global warming dries up parts of the Amazon, Belo Monte and other dams like it could wind up being white elephants as there won’t be much water left to harness.

When you can’t stamp out progressive social change, the next step is to try to desperately derail it or otherwise water it down. That’s exactly the kind of strategy pursued by the likes of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who concluded a South American tour a year ago designed to ostracize the bad countries, namely Venezuela, Bolivia, and increasingly Argentina, and to cultivate ties with the good countries such as Brazil and Chile. Having woken up to the fact that its free trade and neo-liberal agenda for the region lay in tatters, and that wielding a Big Stick to defang its enemies could not work politically, the Bush White House pursued stealthy diplomacy. Rice’s strategy was to divide and rule, to contain radical social change and to steer it within acceptable boundaries. Because South America was headed on a new trajectory which was more independent of Washington, Rice hoped that the "responsible" left as exemplified by Brazil’s Lula and Chile’s Bachelet would steer the region away from the likes of Venezuela’s Chávez and Bolivian President Morales.

One year later with a fresh Democratic administration in Washington, what is the U.S. attitude towards different left leaning regimes in South America? That is the question posed by a recent article in Time magazine, provocatively headlined "Brazil’s Lula: A Bridge to Latin American Left?" The article implies that Bush did not dutifully look out for U.S. interests in South America, and this created "a problem" because it allowed for the expansion of the anti-U.S. left throughout the region.

Thankfully for Time magazine, it now looks as if Brazil will act as a broker between the United States and Venezuela, paving the way for a possible diplomatic rapprochement. In his first meeting with a Latin leader, Obama sat down with Brazilian President Lula da Silva in Washington on Saturday. During the encounter, Lula told his U.S. counterpart that America should do its utmost to improve ties with Venezuela and Bolivia and to build a relationship based on trust and not interference.

Publicly, Lula and Chávez have been political allies for the past several years. Nevertheless, it needs to be said that the Brazilian leader has adopted a more conservative approach towards politics and economics than his Venezuelan counterpart. Both Venezuela and Brazil are energy giants and see themselves as natural political leaders in the wider region. Behind the façade therefore, there may be a slight geopolitical rivalry between the two South American nations. Lula surely does not want a return to the Big Stick of the Bush years, but he would probably like to supplant Venezuela as a regional power so that Brazil can assume its natural place in the South America sun.

Lula may get his wish. The economic picture has shifted dramatically recently and Brazil stands to benefit most in the new geopolitical equation. A year ago the U.S. was not in the midst of a frightening economic mess and Venezuela was getting a much better financial yield on its oil exports. Despite Chávez’s recent victory in his country’s constitutional referendum — which allowed the Venezuelan leader to run indefinitely for reelection — Venezuela is no position to assume a greater regional role right now. Formerly, Chávez was wont to throw around development aid to Bolivia and other nations with reckless abandon, but within the new economic milieu he will be severely constrained in his wider ambitions because of the lower price of oil.

A year ago, Brazil was certainly an important diplomatic player but it has now emerged as perhaps the dominant strategic force in the region. Though Brazil has suffered as a result of the world economic slowdown, the country is still in a better position than many other nations. Indeed, as noted by a recent report by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "while most of the developed world is undergoing a financial crisis, Brazil still retains some positive strength, with the country still recording significant economic and social achievements at home. For this and other reasons arising from the Brazil’s impressive statistics, Lula is emerging as the de facto spokesman for Latin America."

Brazil, the report goes on, is "far better off than the European and American economies. Its banks are solvent, credit, though increasingly viscous, is still flowing from BNDES, Brazil’s national development bank, to favored companies such as Petrobras [the Brazilian state oil firm] and consumers remain more confident than their North American counterparts. The absence of these negative factors that are primarily propelling the crisis abroad is helping to shield Brazil from the worst of the downturn." Interestingly, the report concludes, Brazil may be the only one of 34 major economies to avoid recession in 2009.

With its newfound clout, what does Brazil seek on the international stage? Lula has long coveted a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and may want to become a world energy powerhouse. Indeed, Brazil might seek to supplant Venezuela as the main South American oil supplier to the United States. "Such observations that Obama would welcome Lula as an alternative energy supplier," notes the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "seem to run counter to Lula’s putative pledge to Hugo Chávez, in which he promised to act as an advocate for Venezuela during his meeting with Obama. Is Lula positioning himself as Latin America’s Otto Von Bismarck?"

Within this new "Bismarckian" game of chess Lula may wish to appear as Venezuela’s paternalistic protector while simultaneously looking out for wider Brazilian interests. If Lula could ever bring off a meeting or summit with Chávez and Obama, it would constitute a huge political coup and Brazil’s diplomatic prestige would be enormously enhanced.
There is some indication that Obama might be somewhat amenable to Lula’s entreaties.
Back during the U.S. presidential campaign, Obama was vague about what U.S. foreign policy towards Venezuela ought to be. Reluctant to tackle this hot potato, Obama issued rather contradictory statements about his attitude towards the Andean nation. Now that he has been swept into office, what is Obama’s policy? Judging from the contradictory statements put out by the State Department, the administration is conflicted.

At first, the State Department praised Venezuela’s recent constitutional referendum as free and fair. But then, diplomats reversed course. According to the Wall Street Journal, the positive remarks "set off a furor among Venezuelan opposition activists and some commentators because the description of Venezuela’s referendum seemed markedly different from the tone set by the Bush administration, which repeatedly voiced worry that Mr. Chávez was undermining Venezuela’s democracy."

As the right laid into Obama, the State Department quickly backpedaled. As noted in the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. officials are scrambling to assert that the Obama administration hasn’t softened U.S. policy toward Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez recently won a controversial referendum allowing him to run for office as many times as he wants." The reports suggest that there may be disagreement within the State Department about how to handle Chavez; different factions may not see eye to eye. Like the Carter administration, which had somewhat contradictory policies at different times towards left wing movements in Latin America, Obama has not quite figured out what course he wants to chart.

This lack of coherence in official U.S. policy towards Venezuela suggests that Lula might be able to at least nudge the U.S. in another direction. Given Brazil’s new economic and political clout, and the U.S.’s reduced position world-wide, Lula is in an ideal position to reform regional politics in a dramatic way. Within the new diplomatic triangle between Venezuela, Brazil and the United States, Lula wants his country to be paramount. In the new arrangement, the United States will cease its political interference in South American affairs while Venezuela will become a junior partner to Brazil. If Lula can achieve these ends, he will indeed emerge as a very important figure on the world stage.