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 Brazils Winning Blend, INSEAD,
www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=52407)//Hensel
Weak spots in Brazils soft power Brazils soft power matrix does, however, have
a number of weak spots which may over time undermine the countrys credibility
and attractiveness in the eyes of the world. A first weakness is the quality of
education, a key factor of prestige in todays knowledge economy. Brazil is the
only BRIC country not to have any universities listed in the top 100 of the worlds
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. Brazils global projection also
suffers from a number of domestic problems which continue to blight society and
damage the countrys global image. Despite considerable progress in reducing
crime in recent years, Brazils 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 Brazils 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 longstanding weakness into a strength. In August 2012, the Brazilian Supreme Court
opened what many describe as the biggest corruption trial in Brazils 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 riseinternal 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; Brazils high taxation
(around 39 percent of GDP), which even left-leaning President Lula has described as
punishing to investors; and other issues that limit Brazils 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, Brazils future status in the international system thus
depends crucially on how well the countrys 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 Stnder, 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, Brazils 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 Brazils 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
Brazils 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 Brazils 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 Brazils 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 (ONeil & 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
Brazils 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 Masters 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, Brazils
Soft Power and Dilmas 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_dilemma/)//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 Incio
Lula da Silva, marked a diplomatic tour de force for the country. But recent
negative media attention - highlighting FIFAs fear that the stadiums wont 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 years corruption
scandals among President Rousseffs high ranking officials, first Brazils 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 Brazils forthcoming sport diplomacy initiatives
will have a positive long-term impact on the population.

-- oil
Brazils 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 Brazils Oil Hopes, Strives to
Regain Lost Swagger, 3/26/13,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/world/americas/petrobras-brazils-oil-giantstruggles-to-regain-lost-swagger.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)//JES
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazils 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 nations 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 nations 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 Brazils rise as a global powerhouse, Petrobras
embodies the sluggishness of the nations 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 Colombias
national oil company. That fall has accentuated an increasingly bitter debate here
over PresidentDilma Rousseffs attempts to use Petrobras to shield the Brazilian
population from the nations 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 short-term 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 Incio 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 governments
priority was lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Those betting against us,
she warned, will suffer serious financial and political losses. Bolstering Ms.
Rousseffs 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 Itabora, a city near
Rio de Janeiro. He said he was pleased with his salary of about $800 a month.

Where I was, I didnt have enough to have a savings account, he said. Now I do.
But while Petrobras has helped keep Brazils 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 countrys thirst for oil,
forcing it to import foreign gasoline and sell it at a loss. After Brazil made its deepsea 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 Petrobrass
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 So
Paulo, one of Brazils most influential newspapers, said in a recent editorial.
Compounding matters, Brazils demand for gasoline surged about 20 percent in 2012, reflecting a carmanufacturing 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. Rousseffs administration, for instance,
has hewed to measures aimed at reviving the countrys 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 Petrobrass 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, its wont 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:
BRAZILS FOREIGN POLICY,
http://americo.usal.es/iberoame/sites/default/files/malamud_brasil_leader_without_f
ollowers.pdf)//HAL
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, its 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 20062011 U.S. non-government 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 Chvez government, tens of thousand of
Venezuelans apply for U.S. nonimmigrant visas every year, including many
thousands of Chvez loyalists.

The U.S. can maintain hegemonic influence sq policies ensure

its sustainability

Valencia, 11 (Robert, COHA Research Fellow, After Bin Ladens Demise, Are U.S.Latin American Relations At Bay Again?, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 5/20/11,
http://www.coha.org/after-bin-ladens-demise-are-u-s-latin-american-relations-at-bayagain/, 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 Salvadoreven in the midst of the Libyan crisisleading 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 Washingtons most strategic ally in South America. Some of the
administrations critics argue that, almost conspiratorially, the U.S. is far more
interested in sweeping Bogots human rights derelictions under the rug in order to
get ahead with its free trade wishes with Colombia. It seems as though Americas
economic interests trump its desire to carry out a good faith examination of
Colombias 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 longrunning 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 7181, 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 Braslia 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 Brigago
(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 Srgio 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.
Braslia 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 Chvez
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 Braslia 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 Rousseffs leadership style destroys
Brazils 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 Masters 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, Brazils
Soft Power and Dilmas 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_dilemma/)//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 countrys soft
power. Under Lula, Brazils 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 non-alignment with Western powers such as the United States.
On taking office, it seemed at first that Ms. Rousseff would maintain Lulas 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 Brazils 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 Far-Flung 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 guns-versusbutter 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 Brazils 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, Brazils 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 countrys positions and
opinions, facilitated in no small part by President Lulas 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 Brazils 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 regions 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 1990sin 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 nations energy policies may be enhanced or reformed to promote the nations
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)//JES
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 Chinas new
presence? The only clear answer is in the case of Brazil, where there is
signicant 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, Chinas 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 Caribeos (CELAC)
or Unin 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 regions 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, Bansk 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/participantpapers/2011/april/biec-roa-nua/ivan_kovac_participant_paper_-_mexico_and_brazilforging_the_regional_players_role.pdf>, p. 11-12)//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 - -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 Brazils 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 NYTs 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 So 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&mirid=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
Africas 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 genocidein 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 wont 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_aids-preventionaids-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 inward-looking 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 epidemics 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-veryambitious 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 cant 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 doesnt 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 Councils 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 ve 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 Yeltsins Russia sought a military
solution in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, despite the lessons of the lateSoviet failure in Afghanistan. Only in defeat did Russias weak democracy penalise
the regime for the new disaster, and then not decisively.

Democracy doesnt 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: Historys 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 Israeli-Palestinian relations, but the regional
implication was zero. Not one state threatened to ght 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 isnt that bad- has health benets
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, Brazils 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 Brazils 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 countrys 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 headlineMany
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 Chinas 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 wont 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 Citigroups international advisory board, and adviser to Citigroups
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 12 th, 2011, http://www.cfr.org/brazil/globalbrazil-us-brazil-relations/p25407)//HAL
Despite Brazils 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
Brazils hinterland with the Pacific Ocean. Reductions in land-use and agricultural
emissions compete with Brazils growing agricultural sector. Even the proposed
reduction plans have limited capacity and can offset each otherexpanding 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 Brazils 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 prot 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/us-example-offers-hope-for-cuttingcarbon-emissions.html?_r=1&)
Even if every American coal-red power plant were to close, that would not
make up for the coal-based 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 worlds 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 Italys 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
human-induced 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 benet 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 --- theyll 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/theworld-in-2030-are-we-on-the-path-to-convergence-or-divergence/, 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 wont 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 countrys 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 socalled populist, an apparently anti-American, anti-market 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) Brazils air force had designed two atomic bomb devices.4
However, Brazils secret nuclear-weapons program, and the countrys consequent
refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 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 decades end, Brazil and Argentina each had opened its nuclear-power facilities
to mutual inspection. Having realized that they neither needed nor wanted nuclear
weapons, Brazils 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 militarys
nuclearbomb program. Subsequently, Brazil signed all of the major international
arms control treaties. With the worlds sixth-largest deposits of uranium, and the
capacity to enrich it, Brazil also has accepted the covenants of internationallylegitimated 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%20intermediate%20state%20and%20regional%20power%20%20action,%20power%20and%20responsabilities.pdf)//HAL
USBrazil 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.
USBrazil 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 Brazils foreign affairs as well as in the US
hemispheric agenda. Though USBrazil 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 USBrazil 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 latters 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 Brazils 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. Brazils 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 Washington-based
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 20032004, as both
countries co-chaired the process, the FTAA negotiations lost their way and turned
into a USMercosur 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 Washingtons 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 USBrazil 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 7-51,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 warprone 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 Eurasias 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
Eurasias 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 tosuch 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 Arabiamight take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that
would intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia, pessimismregarding
the regions 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 realisms
sanguine portrayal is all of the research that undermines its conception of state
preferences. Defensive realisms optimism about what would happen if the
United States retrenched is very much dependent on itsparticularand highly
restrictiveassumption about state preferences; once we relax this assumption,
then much of its basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the prediction of postAmerican 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 worlds 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, Brazils 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
strategys 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 Ethanols 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 changes 107 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 res, 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: Whats
Happening to the Worlds Biggest Rain Forest?,
http://science.time.com/2012/01/18/amazonia-whats-happening-to-the-worldsbiggest-rain-forest/)//JES
Id say you have to see the Amazon for yourself to understand how vast it is, but
Ive been thereand even I cant imagine it. The rain forest is more than 2 million

sq. milestwo-thirds the size of the continental United Statesand the river system
of the gigantic basin produces 20% of the worlds freshwater discharge. The forest
holds 100 billion metric tons of carbonequivalent 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. Its safe to say that as the Amazon goes, so goes
the planets environment. The problem is that the Amazon is anything but
secure. As Amazon basin nations like Brazil have grown economically, theyve
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 weeks
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 Nio effect can
produce lengthy droughts, while the corresponding La Nia effect can lead to
increased flow and even flooding. The Nature paper notes that the intact Amazon
forestwith its deep roots that can access soil wateris 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 changethe 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: Its not quite true that the Amazon is being
clear cutas 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 thats being lost is being converted to cropland for soybeans
Brazil is a major produceras well as pastureland for cattle. Still, attempts to curb
deforestation in the Amazon appear to be workingforest 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: Its no surprise that drought increases forest fire in the
Amazonabout 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 emitgases that would otherwise accelerate the warming of the
atmosphere. Disturb the Amazonas were doingand 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 whats really happening within
the forest. But it would be better to understand that nowinstead 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 Brazils ethanol market
globally
Lessa and Roland, 10 professor in International Relations @ University of Brazil
(Antoio Carlos Lessa & Dennis Roland, November 1, 2010 Editions LHarmattan
Relations internationales du Brsil, 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 Brazils and other emerging nations
role in the worlds 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-slashingemissions-reducing-deforestation-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 8s Plus-5
contingent, yet the dialogue on climate protection touches upon this South
American state far less often.[1] What can Brazils 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 countrys 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
Brazils 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 Brazils particular deforestation scenario
introduces the key players perpetuating the Brazilian forests destruction, as well as
the main political and economic pressures/incentives/concerns involved. Also noted
are government anti-deforestation efforts to date. Given Brazils 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 Theres been a lot of fuss lately about burning the forest,
remarked one Brazilian rancher, but everyone knows that its the First World, not
us, thats responsible for the greenhouse effect. Its 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 deforestations 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 Brazils 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 Brazils forests, for example, serve as a carbon sink remains unknown,
with researcher Antnio 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 IPCCs Working Group III, approximately half of the worlds 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 reports final release, analysts must
rely on a summary thereof, which recommends several currently available general
strategies for offsetting deforestations 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 Brazils 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). Brazils 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, Brazils 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 twentyfive 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 Machados 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)//J
ES
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 Sino-Soviet 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 Kremlins 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 Russias near abroad has been Russias near abroad for nearly
300 years. Those locations the Baltics, Austria, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Central
Asia and Mongolia that defined Russias 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 long-range force projection, and
internal U.S. harmony is such that Americas 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 Russias intelligence strengths and Americas
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, Washingtons 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/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu35/394)//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 IndoEuropean, 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
Soviet-style 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 proAmerican 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--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 nearnaval 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 remilitarize 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 staredown. 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/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?
ots591=0c54e3b3-1e9c-be1e-2c24-a6a8c7060233&lng=en&id=104344)//JES
Overall, this is the context within which Russias relations with Latin America should
be placed. BRIC means that Russias relations with Brazil are potentially of the
greatest significance for Moscow in its dealings with Latin America, even though it
could be argued that Russias 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 Ukraines 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
Brazils 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 nano-technology 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 RussoBrazilian 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 Moscows 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 22 nd, 2012, Taylor and Francis
Online)//HAL
Brazils 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 maintaineddespite the increasingly jarring
rhetoric from Hugo Chavezrather warm relations with Venezuela. Perhaps the
clearest example of Type B strategic hedging is found in Brazils 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 Argentinas 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 countrys 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 problemsVenezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuadorare
also those that would have the hardest time obtaining conditional loans from the
IMF. 82 Brazils 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 warsgoes 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/c765ec1a-721b-11e289fb-00144feab49a.html#axzz2Y17JdFTY)//HAL
Latin America is going Brazilian. Previously, it was only Brazil, the regions 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 weeks 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 Larran, Chiles
finance minister, lamented that competitive devaluations of global currencies from
quantitative easing, or QE, could lead to new forms of trade protectionism.
Agustn Carstens, the head of Mexicos 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 Mexicos 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 Crdenas, Colombias finance minister, told the Financial Times.

--inflaiton impact
LA is moving away from the dollardollar 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-romandenarius-the-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 worlds 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 Banks debasement of the dollar by
printing unlimited amounts of money through Quantitative easing (QE). The Federal
Reserves 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 9Editor 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 victoryafter a decades-long struggleover 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 eracoups 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."