BRazilian-American relations

The recent meeting between President Obama and Brazilian President Rousseff exemplified the reasons the Administration has amassed critics of its foreign affairs goals and conduct.

Downplaying the traditional priorities of allying with governments that either (or both) advance U.S. interests or share similar governmental structures, the current White House has concentrated on issues such as climate change, and seeking to open up relations with nations that America had become estranged from, in most cases, for very legitimate reasons.

Part of the groundswell of dismay arises from statements that do not match American goals, or facts-in-being.

In recent remarks at a joint press conference with Brazilian President Rousseff, a socialist who has worked with Marxist guerillas, President Obama stated:

“I very much appreciate President Rousseff and Brazil’s strong support for our new opening toward Cuba…we’re working to deepen our defense cooperation. Under President Rousseff’s leadership, two important agreements were approved by Brazil’s Congress last week and are now in effect. Going forward, it will be easier for our two militaries to train together, to share more information and technology, and to cooperate during missions such as disaster response and peacekeeping.”

The fact is, Brazil’s foreign policy is not moving in a direction favorable to the United States, despite any window dressing. As noted by Latin America Goes Global,

“The predominant strain today in Brazilian foreign policy, however, runs counter to Washington’s traditional vision of leading a liberal international order in which the United States remains primus inter pares. Brazil’s aspiration to lead the Global South toward a more multipolar system, that gained predominance under President Luis Inâcio Lula da Silva, is evident across a wide range of issues. From its increasingly close alignment with Russia and China in the BRICS group to its drive to create multiple regional organizations that exclude the U.S., Brazil is charting its own course of strategic autonomy that is often designed to counterbalance U.S. leadership in the world…

“It has also sided with Russia in its grab of Crimea by standing on the sidelines despite Moscow’s gross violation of international law, a principle Brazil holds dear. And it has said little about the ongoing human rights abuses in ideologically allied countries like Venezuela and Cuba or economic partners like China.”

President Obama also stated that Brazil is “working… to uphold democracy and human rights across Latin America….I believe that Brazil’s leadership in the region, as well as its own journey to democracy and a market economy can make it an important partner as we work to create more opportunities and prosperity for the Cuban people.”
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What are the facts? President Rousseff has been in office since January of 2011. Despite that, according to Amnestyusa,

“Degrading labor conditions persisted across Brazil. In May, the UN Special Rapporteur on ‘contemporary forms of slavery’ visited Brazil…. She urged the federal authorities to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow for the expropriation of land where forced labor is used. The amendment, which was proposed in 1999, remained stalled in Congress at the end of the year. By the end of the year the National Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders had expanded its operations to six states. However, inconsistent funding and a lack of co-ordination between state and federal authorities meant that many human rights defenders included in the program remained without protection.”

Human Rights Watch also describes a less than free nation. According to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, state security forces injured or detained 178 journalists who covered demonstrations in various parts of the country in the year leading up to the 2014 World Cup. A federal access to information law went into effect in 2012; a majority of states have since passed implementing legislation. The law establishes that the public should have unfettered access to information regarding violations of fundamental rights. Brazil took an important step by enacting the Brazilian Digital Bill of Rights in April 2014. The Bill of Rights includes protection for the right to privacy and free expression online, and serves to reinforce application of the rule of law in the digital sphere. The law establishes Brazilian support for net neutrality as a guiding principle for future Internet developments. It has yet to be implemented.”

The United Nations remains critical as well. A UNESCO study notes “Despite considerable and innovative work in promoting human rights, Brazil still has some challenges: there is no expressive understanding of the universality and indivisibility of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. There is still a large number of people who continue to encounter major difficulties in exercising their citizenship and their basic rights.”

Quick Analysis

Part 2: America’s Strategic Posture

As we noted in Part 1, the dramatically deteriorating national security picture for the United States and its allies prompted a review of “America’s Strategic Posture.” We present Part 2, reviewing key strategic points. STRATEGY To achieve the most effective strategy for stability in light of the 2027-2035 threat environment, the Commission identifies three necessary changes: ` The United States must develop and effectively implement a truly integrated, whole-of-government strategy to address the 2027-2035 threat environment. The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces. If the United States and its Allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression in the other theater. ` The size and composition of the nuclear force must account for the possibility of combined aggression from Russia and China. U.S. strategy should no longer treat China’s nuclear forces as a “lesser included” threat. The United States needs a nuclear posture capable of simultaneously deterring both countries. The Commission recommends the United States maintain a nuclear strategy consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), based on six fundamental tenets—assured second strike, flexible response, tailored deterrence, extended deterrence and assurance, calculated ambiguity in declaratory policy, hedge against risk—and apply these tenets to address the 2027-2035 threat. STRATEGIC POSTURE In the context of a strategic posture deploying both conventional and nuclear capability, the Commission believes the traditional role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy remains valid and of continuing importance: deterrence of adversaries; assurance of Allies; achieving U.S. objectives should deterrence fail; and hedging against adverse events. The Commission recommends fully and urgently executing the U.S. nuclear modernization Program of Record (POR), which includes replacement of all U.S. nuclear delivery systems, modernization of their warheads, comprehensive modernization of U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), and recapitalizing the nuclear enterprise infrastructure at the DOD and DOE/NNSA. The current modernization program should be supplemented to ensure U.S. nuclear strategy remains effective in a two-nuclear-peer environment. Comprehensive risk-mitigating actions across U.S. nuclear forces must be executed to ensure that delays in modernization programs or early age-out of currently deployed systems do not result in militarily significant shortfalls in deployed nuclear capability. The U.S. strategic nuclear force posture should be modified to: ` Address the larger number of targets due to the growing Chinese nuclear threat. ` Address the possibility that China will field large-scale, counterforce-capable missile forces that pose a threat to U.S. strategic nuclear forces on par with the threat Russia poses to those forces today. ` Assure the United States continues to avoid reliance on executing Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch under attack to retain an effective deterrent. ` Account for advances in Russian and Chinese integrated air and missile defenses (IAMD). The U.S. theater nuclear force posture should be urgently modified to: ` Provide the President a range of militarily effective nuclear response options to deter or counter Russian or Chinese limited nuclear use in theater. ` Address the need for U.S. theater nuclear forces deployed or based in the Asia-Pacific theater. ` Compensate for any shortfall in U.S. and allied non-nuclear capabilities in a sequential or simultaneous two-theater conflict against Russia and China. ` Address advances in Russian and Chinese IAMD. NUCLEAR SECURITY ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION The Commission recommends the DOD and DOE/NNSA strategic infrastructure be expanded to have sufficient capacity to: ` Meet the capability and schedule requirements of the current nuclear modernization POR and the requirements of the force posture modifications recommended by the Commission in time to address the two-peer threat. ` Provide an effective hedge against four forms of risk: technical failure of a warhead or delivery system, programmatic delays, operational loss of delivery systems, and further deterioration of the geopolitical environment. ` Flex to respond to emerging requirements in a timely fashion. To support the proposed strategy, the Commission recommends Congress fund an overhaul and expansion of the capacity of the U.S. nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production infrastructure. Specifically: ` Congress should fund the full range of NNSA’s recapitalization efforts, such as pit production and all operations related to critical materials. ` Congress should forge and sustain bipartisan consensus and year-to-year funding stability to enable the defense industry to respond to innovative DOD contracting approaches and invest with more certainty. ` Congress should enact annual DOD and DOE authorization and appropriation bills before the beginning of each fiscal year. ` Congress should place the purview of all “050” programs (President’s Budget line item for “national security”) that are in NNSA under Defense appropriations subcommittees (House Appropriations Committee-Defense (HAC-D), Senate Appropriations Committee Defense (SAC-D). ` Cabinet Secretaries, working with states and union leaders, should establish and increase the technical education and vocational training programs required to create the nation’s necessary skilled-trades workforce for the nuclear enterprise. The Commission recommends a number of specific actions to expand the capacity and effectiveness of the nation’s infrastructure and supply chain for its strategic capabilities. The Report concludes tomorrow Photo: Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, speaks with members from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as industry leaders at the NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters on Peterson Space Force Base, Colo.(DoD)