Introduction
Much of the literature explaining the establishment of the Southern Common Market—the process of economic integration in South America—focuses on the assumption that it was aimed at diminishing a rivalry between Argentina and Brazil. Elements like antagonism, aggression and mistrust are given weight to describe their relations, especially before Argentina and Brazil re-democratized in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Two elements came to our attention when analyzing the approach that culminated with the Treatise of Asuncion in 1991. First, despite persistently being described as rivals, we found no elements characterizing an interstate rivalry between Argentina and Brazil before the Southern Common Market or “Mercosur” was formed. Second, less emphasis is given to Argentina-Brazil “fraternal relations” and shared domestic, regional and global interests as promoting the process of economic complementation. By contrast, we found common aims motivating the bilateral approach and concerns that could result from security issues already diminished when the Common Market was formed.
The assumption that economic integration served primarily to ease a security dilemma and, to a lesser extent, deal with domestic concerns, would lead one to predict that the integration scheme was unlikely to develop further supra-national institutions (Kaltenhaler and Mora, Reference Kaltenthaler and Mora2002). The recent institutional, economic, regional and international growth of the Southern bloc contrasts with these expectations. The inclusion of Venezuela in June 2012 and agreements signed with global actors such as Russia, China, India and Israel, in addition to the Andean Community (CAN) and the South African Customs Union (SACU), is evidence of aims beyond bilateral and domestic issues (Secretaria Del Mercosur, 2013). As Kaltenhaler and Mora note, the increase in the regional and international scope of the Southern Common Market cannot be explained by hypotheses focusing on security issues and domestic aims as prime drivers for integration. We find this is evidence, in addition for the absence of elements characterizing an interstate rivalry, warranting further analysis of the motivations for Argentina and Brazil to form the Southern Common Market. We show that much of the emphasis on the EU integration model that was used to explain the process of integration in South America does not in fact reflect reality. This is a mainstream bias that could have negative consequences for future policy analysis and formulation if not subject to reconsideration.
One element that should be highlighted—although not the focus of this paper—is related to the Eurocentric theories of integration. The perception of Brazilian-Argentinean relations is heavily influenced by European studies focused on France and Germany, perhaps due to the scholarly bias of European academia in assessing South America. Scholars seem to have inappropriately applied the theoretical explanations for the establishment of the EU to South America, and neglected to consider that not all integration sought in order to promote economic gains, is accompanied by an underlying need to diminish military insecurity. Our longitudinal analysis reveals Argentina and Brazil as having experienced continuous improvements in their bilateral relations, and co-operation steadily increasing regardless of regime type and government in office. This invalidates the rivalry theory and undermines the proposition that security issues played a prime role in defining their relations and motivating economic integration. As with other integrationist schemes at the time, the dyad formed the Common Market after unilateral solutions failed to solve economic difficulties, at a point when development was believed to follow from complementation rather than protectionism. Economic integration was sought to reduce their dependence on international economic fluctuations and to increase competitiveness with regard to the US, Japan and China, as well as to keep pace with other emerging integrationist schemes like the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The Myth of Rivalry
Kaltenthaler and Mora found evidence suggesting that four of the seven hypotheses used to explain the European integration, particularly between France and Germany, could also explain the motivations for Argentina and Brazil to form the Southern Common Market. According to their analysis, economic complementation served primarily to produce co-operation in areas of security and to counter security issues resulting from the long-standing Argentina-Brazil rivalry. As with Germany and France, who created the European Union to alleviate the possible reemergence of hostility born of competition, Argentina and Brazil pushed to integrate the Southern Common Market to “end the more than a century long rivalry and conflict between the two” (2002: 81) and to usher “a new era of political and economic co-operation after years of rivalry for hegemony in South America” (83). They found the market integration also aimed, but to a lesser extent, at achieving unpopular domestic measures, at raising public support by improving their national economies, and at strengthening democratic rule.
Other authors also rely on the assumption that relations between Argentina and Brazil were governed by rivalry before the Southern Common Market was formed. Botto and Tussie (Reference Botto and Tussie2007) present the two states as rivals threatening each other's national security and competing for South American leadership. Carasales (Reference Carasales1995) sees the rivalry as a reflection of their colonial past, characterized by aggressive competition, antagonism and mistrust. Peixoto and Loza (2006) see them as each other's main geo-political menace with rivalry accentuated during military regimes. For Van Klaveren (Reference Van Klaveren1990), Argentina and Brazil's diverging positions on both world wars influenced strategic, economic and political considerations. Guerra-Borges and Ugarteche (Reference Guerra-Borges and Ugarteche2009) found the rivalry emerging after the Second World War for reasons linked to geopolitical strategy and competition for regional predominance. Selcher (Reference Selcher1985) views economic competition and Brazil's growing presence in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, as fueling the rivalry. Simancas (Reference Simancas1999) adds that Brazil strengthened relations with the US to counter Argentina. For Kacowicz (Reference Kacowicz2000) competition included a competitive nuclear technology arms race.
Thus, the Southern Common Market came to be seen as instrumental to reduce the rivalry between Argentina and Brazil. For Mansfield and colleagues (Reference Mansfield, Bearce, Pevehouse, Blanchard, Mansfield and Ripsman2000:95), Mercosur's main impetus was political and economic co-operation but also included reducing the possibility of armed conflicts between Argentina and Brazil. Manzetti (Reference Manzetti1993) saw integration emerging after Argentina and Brazil decided to moderate their longstanding rivalry. For Wrobel (Reference Wrobel1999) collaboration on security issues and in political, economical and cultural spheres began in 1985 after decades of suspicion and rivalry. Brigagão and Valle Fonrouge (1998) present co-operation as promoted in the midst of traditional perceptions of rivalry between former antagonists. For Dominguez and colleagues (Reference Domínguez, Mares, Orozco, Palmer, Aravena and Servín2004), Brazil's concessions eased tensions, and the establishment of Mercosur ended the disputes that nearly led them to war in the 1970s. Bernal-Meza (Reference Bernal-Meza2008) saw the possibility of armed conflict between Argentina and Brazil diminishing only after the integration of the Southern Common Market. For Wesemann (Reference Wesemann2014: 82), Mercosur “curtailed their eternal rivalry which has sometimes degenerated into a kind of nuclear arms race.”
We challenge all these claims over the role played by rivalry in their interstate relations and the broader theoretical issue resulting from security issues in the process of market integration. The absence of key indicators in the literature reveals relations between Argentina and Brazil as lacking military interstate disputes (MIDs), namely threats, display or use of military force, and war in the twentieth century (Jones et al., Reference Jones, Bremer and Singer1996). Similar conclusions can be drawn from rivalry studies, including those derived from the Correlates of War Project (COW). In addition, we found no outstanding issues compromising national security, such as concerns or expectations of attack, and no disputes over territory and natural resources. Neither did we find competition over positional hierarchy, arms races or power parity before the Southern Common Market was formed. It is possible that Brazil's escalation dominance masked the rivalry under successful immediate and general deterrence, as it had a threefold economic advantage, more than four times the Argentinean military strength, and accounted for over five times the population when Mercosur was formed in 1991.
We also found disagreements over the inflection point over when bilateral relations between Argentina and Brazil improved sufficiently to permit co-operation. A substantial part of the literature presents co-operation as predicated upon the effects of reciprocating democratic regimes. Van Klaveren (Reference Van Klaveren1990) sees the bilateral rapprochement and integration resulting from the reintroduction of democracy in both states. For Manzetti (Reference Manzetti1993), relations re-emerged with the agreements signed by the democratic governments of the 1980s after the two states decided to diminish their long-standing rivalry. Peixoto and Loza (2006) consider the rapprochement occurring thanks to the reinstitution of free elective systems. Bernal-Meza (Reference Bernal-Meza2008) sees integration resulting from Argentina and Brazil shifting their foreign policies with democracy. Neto (Reference Neto2013) also sees co-operation being reinforced by the newly elected governments of Raúl Alfonsin, President of Argentina (1983–1989) and José Sarney President of Brazil (1985–1990).
The reintroduction of democracy in Argentina and its progressive reintroduction in Brazil seem to correlate with subsequent intensification of bilateral relations. Earlier attempts at economic complementation and market integration can be traced to the democratic governments of presidents Juan Peron and Getulio Vargas in the 1940s and early 1950s, and to presidents Arturo Frondizi and Janio Quadros in the early 1960s, which seems to indicate a link between the type of regime (democracy) and the willingness to promote regional integration. However, if democracy had an effect on the process of market integration in South America, it is at best only a partial one for two reasons. First, most democratic peace theories are predicated on institutionally established regimes, which were absent in the nascent democracies of Argentina and Brazil. Second, the military regimes of the late 1970s and 1980s were prime drivers for the bilateral approach, with official documentation showing them actively promoting co-operation in areas including national and regional security, political alignment and economic complementation.
Questioning the significance of democracy in the promotion of co-operation between Argentina and Brazil, we find Alimonda (Reference Alimonda and Steiger1994), who discards the new democratic regimes as an important factor in the process of market integration because the presidential systems of the new democracies presented elements of both authoritarianism and populism. Remmer (Reference Remmer1998) in her 1947–1985 study found evidence suggesting that democracy did not increase co-operation. Gardini (Reference Gardini2005) claims that integration was promoted during a period, at best, of regime asymmetry (1983–1984) when Brazil was under military rule and Argentina democratized. The fact that President Jose Sarney was designated by the same electoral college that elected Brazil's military governments, and that President Fernando Collor de Melho took office in 1990 as the first democratically elected president of Brazil also weakens the assumption that democracy played a role in the approach between the two states. Furthermore, democracy only became a formal requirement for membership in 1998, seven years after the Common Market was officially formed (Ministerio De Relaciones Exteriores De La Republica Oriental Del Uruguay, 2006).
Among those supporting the idea that Argentina-Brazil relations improved during the military regimes is Fanelli (Reference Fanelli2008), who sees the Treatise of Corpus-Itaipu of 1979 and Brazil's political and logistical support to Argentina during the Falklands War as diminishing the security dilemma and promoting bilateral relations. Brigagao and Valle Fonrouge (Reference Brigagao and Valle Fonrouge1998) also consider the 1982 Falkland Islands War as a pivotal event leading to the warming of relations and promoting an “unwritten alliance” for regional security between Argentina and Brazil. Similarly, Botto and Tussie (Reference Botto and Tussie2007) found the two nations aligning foreign policies during their military regimes and co-operating after Brazil denied support to the UK in the Falklands War. Tussie and Deciancio (Reference Tussie and Deciancio2009) have argued that Argentina and Brazil reduced their mutual suspicions and pursued collaboration because of the ideological commonalities of their respective military regimes, and their common interest in co-ordinating the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of leftist anti-regime dissidents through the Condor Plan.
Measuring the Non-Rivalry
A dyadic interstate rivalry is a relationship characterized by security competition over specific prior or emergent grievances, often territorial or having to do with extending spheres of influence. Rivalries can either wane or be intensified depending on whether states seek to increase their own power and to weaken the adversary's through economic, diplomatic and military means. The Correlates of War Project (Ghosn et al., Reference Ghosn, Palmer and Bremer2004: 133–54) categorizes interstate rivalries according to the frequency, duration and severity of military disputes, and on whether states threaten to use force, display force, use force, or go to war. Diehl and Goertz (Reference Diehl and Goertz2000) found interstate rivalries marked, in addition to military disputes, by continuous and randomized patterns of crises and confrontational declarations. Characterized by the use of threats and force on a regular basis, as well as by increasing military expenditures, interstate rivalries are violent bilateral or multilateral relations in which the political elite from the contending states seeks to win over whatever is disputed, shows commitment for changing or reversing current state of affairs and formulates foreign policy based on military terms. According to Diehl and Goertz (Reference Diehl and Goertz2000), enduring rivalries are not only the cause and effect of wars, but a large part of wars occur between states maintaining enduring rivalries.
Bennett (Reference Bennett1997) offers an alternative perspective by adding that rivalries can remain dormant during periods of peace to emerge later from unsettled disputes and divergent positions over the distribution and administration of resources and ideological values. He considers that measuring the end of interstate rivalries by the passage of time without military disputes might involve errors, as it does not contemplate the underlying motivations for the rivalry (227–54). Conflict can emerge if states disagree over the same issues for extended periods of time and confrontational stances can contribute to drive a rivalry even in the absence of military disputes. Whether rivalries are settled (or not), does not depend on the presence and frequency of military disputes but on whether the disputed issues are settled. Bennett measures rivalry termination by accounting diplomatic documentation evidencing dispute settlements.
Among other descriptions of rivalries, we find Thompson (Reference Thompson1995: 195–223) qualifying a difference between spatial rivalries (over territory) and positional (within a regional hierarchy) and whether the rivalry is dyadic, regional or global. Hensel (Reference Hensel1996) following Wayman, Jones et al and, Goertz and Diehl, considers that lesser forms of rivalries, as over trade and economic competition, could be expressed by non-militarized patterns of conflict. Sowers and Hensel (Reference Sowers and Hensel1997) found that power parity, together with an increase in the importance of the issues at stake, tends to enhance the duration and severity of rivalries. According to Wayman (Reference Wayman, Kugler and Lemke1996), enduring rivalries are commonly characterized by disputes over common interests, power parity, non-militarized competition and continuous military conflict between contending states.
We find all these conceptions of rivalry absent from Argentina-Brazil relations before they formed the Southern Common Market. There is no evidence of armed disputes between Argentina and Brazil in the COW after the War of La Plata (1851–1852). We found three disputes between 1872 and 1875 in which both sides displayed force but had no casualties because there was no military confrontation. This implies that there was no rivalry (far less an enduring rivalry) according to operational definitions using interstate military disputes.Footnote 1 Similarly, we found no evidence of policies exerting economic strangleholds, or unsettled issues that could motivate aggressive competition between Argentina and Brazil before the Common Market. The only evidence matching any of the previous definitions was a disagreement over the distribution of shared waters from the Parana River, which was settled by an accord in 1979 that led Argentina and Brazil to build their largest infrastructure projects.
Brazil's geopolitical dominance also militates against the condition of parity which Sowers and Hensel found to characterize the prolongation and severity of disputes within rivalries. Almost counterintuitively, after being the leading regional economy during the first half of the twentieth century, Argentina's economic decline led its GDP to be nearly a third that of Brazil by the time Mercosur was formed. Likewise, Argentina halved its armed forces after the Falklands War, resulting in 4.5:1 ratio of military superiority favouring Brazil, which, in addition to its threefold-greater economic productivity and territorial extension, also accounted for over five times the population. The supplanting of Argentina's economic and military status by Brazil's increasing geopolitical dominance underlines the departure from power parity, excludes an arms race and weakens the explanation of the Common Market as a means to palliate a rivalry between the two states.
The Antecedents of Argentinian and Brazilian Co-operation
Despite similarities between the European “Franco-German” dyad and the South American one (both formed by the most powerful states in their respective continents and promoting regional integration), their bilateral experiences differed markedly and so did the outcomes of their relations. Whereas German-French relations were marked by hostility before the European Economic Community (EEC), the opposite occurred in South America. Despite antecedent Spanish-Portuguese security competition, and the inheritance of an unstable regional distribution of power, early belligerence between Argentina and Brazil was limited to fighting over the eastern shore of La Plata basin, an argument quickly settled by the mutual acknowledgement of the independence of Uruguay in 1828. This ended the Cisplatine War and could be counted as the first agreement of geo-strategic significance between Argentina and Brazil as independent states. Except for an instance of Brazilian involvement in a provincial and multi-state coalition promoted by the Argentinean Unitarian party in 1852, further bilateral relations were characterized by alliances and the settlement of disputes through diplomatic means.
Discouraging independence and federalism from spreading in the River Plate basin became the main incentive for Argentina and Brazil to co-operate in the nineteenth century. Other states' independence and the promotion of regional federalism were menacing because they stimulated republicanism throughout the Brazilian Empire and called for the fragmentation of the previous Spanish Viceroyalty over which Buenos Aires bid for sovereignty. Interstate co-operation recurred when in 1863 the Province of Buenos Aires and the Empire of Brazil balanced against Uruguay, which served as a port to the Atlantic Sea for non-aligned Argentinean provinces littoral to La Plata basin—Santa Fe, Corrientes and Entre Rios—and the Republic of Paraguay. With the Uruguayan invasion, the port metropolises of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro secured dominion over the entrance to the maritime routes connecting the Atlantic Sea to the inner continent. The invasion of Uruguay in turn led Paraguay to declare war on Brazil and Argentina because it blockaded its port access to the Atlantic. While Uruguay secured the entrance to La Plata, Paraguay controlled its inner waters and had acquired self-sufficiency as well as economic, industrial and military strength sufficient to challenge the interests of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. The Uruguayan invasion and the subsequent War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay defined the long-term power scope in the Southern Cone and, as Oribe Stemmer asserts, facilitated the further reduction of tensions dating back to the times of independence (Reference Oribe Stemmer2008: 9). In March 1870, just three months before the Prussian invasion of France triggered the unification of Germany and the subsequent long-standing Franco-German rivalry, Argentina and Brazil defeated Paraguay, settled the South American balance of power and established an enduring peace that continues to last.
Motivations for Stability
We find the myth of rivalry deriving, at least partly, from the tendency to associate Brazil and Argentina as “leading powers” as Germany and France were before the European Union. Notwithstanding constraints like economic output, distance, population, territorial extension and the perceived need for regional stability made the bilateral approach in South America differ from Europe. Argentina and Brazil simply did not have the means to compete for economic and military supremacy as the European powers did in the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. The leading South American powers possessed relatively weak power projection capabilities. The literature presents them as “rivals” competing for regional hegemony, but Brazil and Argentina had the economic muscle equivalent to Poland and Netherlands in the 1970s and were leading powers in a sub-continent twice the size of Europe and half as populated, in which the type of terrain, together with scarcer resources, made it impossible for a state to invade the other and maintain the costs of occupation.
As with the civil war in the United States, the 1864–1870 War of the Triple Alliance transformed and modernized the nations of the River Plate basin (Whigham, Reference Whigham2010: 459–60). Argentina had two million inhabitants at the end of the war (Oteiza, Reference Oteiza1998), a twentieth of that of France in a territorial extension that became four times larger. The Argentinean civil wars between Unitarians and Federalists lasted until 1880, when Buenos Aires was federalized and declared the state's capital. Argentina continued its national consolidation process by waging wars against aboriginal groups, securing dominion over its territory and through the promotion of European immigration. Rich in resources and highly attractive to foreign capital and labour, Argentina experienced a sustained growth that placed it among the wealthiest nations by the First World War.
Brazil managed to secure a territory twenty-five times the size of Germany with a population equal to only one-quarter (ten million) at the end of the War of the Triple Alliance. The Brazilian colonizing policy, rather than exterminating native populations (a common policy in Argentina and North America), was characterized by their enslavement as needed for hard labour. Concomitantly, the Brazilian Empire made use of slavery from Africa until it became illegal in 1888 (Bethell, Reference Bethell2009: 395). As in Argentina, state reorganization followed after Brazil converted to federal republic in 1889. In addition to territorial domination, the Brazilian policy-making elite began focusing on secularization and the absorption of different ethnicities as part of their national identity (Skidmore, Reference Skidmore1969). Brazil's policies and geopolitical attributes, together with its alignment with the US in the lead-up and after the Second World War, made it the great southern power.
Preserving the regional status quo motivated the maintenance of stable relations between Argentina and Brazil despite diverging positions on regional and global issues during the first half of the twentieth century, particularly as interests diverged during both world wars and the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia. Maintaining stable power relations, especially with buffer states—Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia—was perceived by both states as necessary for national consolidation. In fact, for Do Couto E Silva (Reference Do Couto E Silva1981), Brazil's leading security theorist, preserving stability in South America was Brazil's most important geopolitical aim. Despite its overarching geopolitical superiority, stable relations with neighbour states were perceived necessary for Brazil to achieve territorial integration, consolidate as a nation and develop economically. Similarly, even though Argentina had always been less satisfied with its territorial acquisitions (as disputes with the UK and Chile reveal), its aspirations to reunite the Spanish Viceroyalty and create “big Argentina” declined as borders were settled. Due to their territorial extent, the state consolidation process continues today in the Brazilian north, west and northwest as well as in the Argentinean Andean, South Atlantic and Antarctic regions.
The Prelude to the Common Market
The Southern Common Market is the result of a long process in which the earlier benefits of amicable relations were repeatedly reinforced despite occasional sentiments of national animosity deriving from contending national interests, feelings of cultural and regional superiority and soft competition over things like soccer. Although tangible manifestations of Argentinean-Brazilian co-operation were infrequent during the first half of the twentieth century, mostly because the Parana River separated and isolated the two states longitudinally, their interactions intensified after the first bridge uniting the two states was built in 1947. The increased interactivity soon fostered the promotion of common policies and bilateral institutions regardless of the type of regime or party in office. Notwithstanding the diverging nature of the programmes promoted by democratic and military regimes, key state policies and institutional practices linked to national security and foreign affairs remained co-ordinated. For example, when both were democratic, the Brazilian and Argentinian regimes of the 1960s and 1980s promoted non-alignment with respect to the United States and pursued an independent Argentina-Brazil stance in foreign affairs, and when both were dominated by the military, the states co-operated in fighting dissidents (the “Communist threat”) and promoted affiliation with the United States.
Also, in spite of these diverging political trends between democratic and military regimes, both states continued promoting economic complementation, preferential trade agreements and regional integration. For instance, the 1991 Treaty of Asuncion establishing the Common Market among Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay was signed by democratic regimes but was established on the basis of the provisions of the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo (TM80), which founded the Latin American Integration Association (Aladi), itself promoted by military regimes. In turn again, the founding of Aladi with TM80, which aimed to form a Latin American Common Market, complemented and supplemented the resolutions adopted by the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) founded by the democratic regimes in 1960. In terms of an issue that was most subject to potential aggressive competition, the tensions over the distribution of common water resources from the Parana River diminished after the military regimes promoted the 1979 Itaipu-Corpus Multilateral Treaty on Technical Co-operation. This treaty included Paraguay and resulted in the construction of the hydroelectric dams of Itaipu and Yacyreta that became Brazil and Argentina's largest infrastructure projects to date.
In addition to regime similarity, an element Kacowicz (Reference Kacowicz1994) uses to explain peaceful territorial settlements, stable bilateral relations between the military regimes in Argentina and Brazil can be explained by the change of geopolitical paradigms occurring during the second half of the twentieth century. As Fernandes (Reference Fernandes2009) elucidates, the analysis changed from being based on a multi-polar balance of power to a bipolar one. Aiming to contain the Soviet Union, Argentina and Brazil's foreign policy shifted from a common—non-aligned—and independent political stance in global affairs, which characterized the democratic governments of the 1960s, to alignment with the United States during the military ones. Rather than rivals, military rulers in Argentina and Brazil became allies under the Condor Plan, which mandated intervention in case of a Soviet invasion and was designed to counter the spread of the Cuban revolutionary model through the co-operation in the suppression of dissidents and subversive groups with the provision of weaponry, advice and military training from the United States.
Argentinean Demilitarization and Common Peaceful Nuclear Proliferation
A possible counterargument to our proposition that Mercosur was the result of a steady bilateral approach could be that it was established to contain either a conventional or a nuclear arms race deriving from advancing military capabilities. In either case, market integration would have served to counter, not an existing rivalry, but the development of a future one. However plausible this explanation might appear, evidence seems against it. Data published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) (1980: 78; 1983: 104; 1989: 181; 1990: 184) show Argentina halving its armed forces from 1983 through 1984 until the Southern Common Market was formed in 1991. The Argentinean demilitarization occurred while Brazil progressively increased its military might by approximately 16 per cent and correlates with Argentina's Falklands War defeat, the fall of the military regime and the reintroduction of democracy. The Argentinean demilitarization leads us to conclude that if there was any form of rivalry deriving from conventional military parity, it was mitigated by early to mid-1980s.
The threat of a nuclear weapons race does not seem to have provoked insecurity or undermined mutual co-operation between Argentina and Brazil either. Records from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) show that Brazil did not see Argentina as a potential nuclear threat, even when the latter's programme was more advanced and made public the ability to enrich uranium in 1983 (CIA, 1983). Despite the full awareness of the more advanced state of Argentina's weapons-related nuclear technology programme, Brazil reduced its investment in nuclear research for domestic reasons. Furthermore, similar CIA files reveal that the Argentinean leadership sensed danger in the possibility of a nuclear arms race because it could exacerbate other rivalries (with Chile and the UK) and undermine current beneficial relations with Brazil (CIA, 1982). Rather, both states advanced co-operation on nuclear policies and maintained a common stance supporting the promotion of nuclear proliferation for peaceful ends, a stance that served both states to counter potential sanctions from the international community after they rejected signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement they were required to sign by the US (CIA, 1983: 12).
While other states typically subscribed to the NPT, Argentina and Brazil made from the promotion of peaceful nuclear policies “a pillar of confidence and co-operation” (Timerman and Patriota, Reference Timerman and Patriota2011). In 1980 the military regimes signed the Co-operation Agreement between Brazil and Argentina for the Development and Application of the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Nuclear collaboration furthered by the democratic governments in 1985 resulted in the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC). Formed in 1991, ABACC was presented during its twentieth anniversary as a legal structure with a negotiation process unprecedented in any other region of the world. Timerman and Patriota, foreign ministers of Argentina and Brazil declared, “In legal terms, ABACC's establishment was the culmination of an approximation process… the consolidation of our strategic bilateral relationship in a pivotal area of international security” (2011). ABACC eventually became an observer for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EUROATOM) until the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) recognized ABACC as having the right to hold a valid security protocol for the IAEA.
The invitation by President Raúl Alfonsín to his Brazilian counterpart, Jose Sarney, to visit Argentina's nuclear plants, including the secret uranium enrichment plants at Pilcaniyeu in 1987, exemplified their mutual confidence concerning nuclear issues before the establishment of the Common Market (Wrobel, Reference Wrobel1999). It is unlikely that Argentina would allow inspection of these plants if there were doubts about Brazil's stance as an ally. Exposing these could result in international sanctions, a potential Brazilian counterbalance and, worse yet, in a preventive attack as occurred to Iraq in 1981 (Cooperative Enterprise, 2013). Argentina probably considered these risks since it agreed to assist in the development of Iran's nuclear programme in 1987 and 1988 against the interests of the United States and Israel (Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, 2011).Footnote 2 The fact that the Pilcaniyeu uranium enrichment plant was located at some 100 km from Chile's border (Argentina's arch rival, allied to the UK during the Falkland's War and in alignment with the US) makes it highly unlikely that these would have been open for inspection if there were doubts or suspicions of Brazil's stance as an ally.
Secret efforts, like the Brazilian parallel nuclear programme Aramar, could explain the need to contain a security dilemma if such programmes were not joint ventures (Albright, Reference Albright1989). In this case again, the motivation to integrate would not result from conflict but from the need to avoid future security concerns. In terms of ballistic missile programmes, the 100 km range of the Argentinean Condor I missile programme did not seem to be a threat to any medium-sized city in Brazil. Whether Condor II reached operational capability before these units were shipped to the United States to be destroyed in 1993 is disputed, but its attributed range below 500 km was well below what was needed to reach any major Brazilian city (Descalzo, Reference Descalzo2012). In any case, if subsequent evidence reveals any contemporarily secret programmes, it would contrast with the prevailing evidence suggesting mutual programme transparency and avoidance of the provocation of mutual insecurity. As presented by Castro Madero, head of Argentina's National Commission on Atomic Energy, both states had the potential to develop nuclear arms but this capability did not evolve further for lack of a political purpose (Albright, Reference Albright1989). In 1989, it was seen to be far more crucial for Argentina and Brazil to integrate economically.
Motivations for the Southern Common Market
Argentina and Brazil had other priorities to take care of before engaging in bilateral competition. According to Oppenheimer (Reference Oppenheimer2005), US and EU official reports estimated that the two South American states, along with the rest of Latin America, would not begin to develop further economically until 2020. Exogenous events like rising oil prices in the 1970s, monetary fluctuations in the 1980s, together with negative GDP growth and record levels of hyperinflation—Argentina's hyperinflation was 3080 per cent in 1989 and 2314 per cent in 1990, Brazil's was 1287 per cent in 1989 and 2937 per cent in 1990—combined to create low expectations for development (Kiguel and Liviatan, Reference Kiguel and Liviatan1995). As Van Klaveren (Reference Van Klaveren1990) affirms, complementation was a way to rethink their inclusion in an international environment perceived as increasingly restrictive and negative for the region.
Mercosur tries to form consensus among its members to carry negotiations and build partnerships with states and blocs sharing similar attributes, resources, aspirations and views on co-operation and integration. The following analysis by the European Commission in its Mercosur Regional Strategy Paper 2007–2013 reflects the aim: “The objective is to make MERCOSUR and its members a first-level world actor together with China, India and Russia. The construction of a South American bloc united on the international scene was confirmed by the creation of the South American Community of Nations—UNASUR—on 8 December 2004” (2007). UNASUR seeks to further the bloc's integration in order to co-operate with other blocs that share discomfort with the established mechanism of global governance.
Brazil's strategy towards the bloc is linked to the expansion of its markets and the pursuit of power (Bernal-Meza, Reference Bernal-Meza2008). Because the Common Market furthers interstate asymmetric economic development among its members, as studies carried out by Mercosur's Secretariat show (Secretaria del Mercosur, 2005), it enhances Brazil's power vis-à-vis other states and blocs. The conformation of a geo-economic area in the Southern Cone is part of a hemispheric strategy that seeks to increase Brazil's global economic power through a policy halfway between economic nationalism and opening to world markets. Brazil's challenge lies in switching from protectionism to a liberal and competitive economic model while increasing its bargaining power through the promotion of economic interdependence, alliances and policy co-operation with regional and extra-regional strategic actors. The promotion of sectorial economic development among its members and the establishment of common import tariffs towards nonmember states are policies that would have been impossible to advance under the US-promoted hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). These policies seek to protect Argentinean and Brazilian industries as well as South American markets from foreign competition by limiting the capability of the US and other states and blocs from openly trading with each member of the Southern bloc.
As Do Couto E Silva (Reference Do Couto E Silva1981) foresaw, the Common Market aims at making Brazil a leading global player. Besides protecting its industries and regional markets, Mercosur increases Brazil's leverage in foreign affairs by making it the undisputed regional leader and an increasingly relevant actor in global politics. In addition to the promotion of UNASUR as a larger integrationist scheme including all South American states, Brazilian diplomacy, particularly after President Lula da Silva took office in 2003, promoted agreements with BRICS states (China, India, Russia and South Africa), all of which were fostered and signed by Brazil on behalf of Mercosur (Bernal-Meza). The Free Trade Treaty with Israel, in force since 2011, is more recent evidence of Brazil's aim to secure strategic partnerships (Organization of American States, 2013).
In addition to the promotion of strategic partnerships, the Brazilian and Argentinean leadership seek to counter the political impasse resulting from Mercosur's interstate asymmetrical economic development by supporting other member states of the bloc to condemn global policies promoted by the G7 member states and by fostering commands to offset their influence. Examples of such policies are the bloc's support of Russia in the process of annexation of the Crimean peninsula as a response to what they claim was a NATO provocation and the promotion of UNASUR-BRICS cooperation programme to form a New World Order (Foro De São Paulo, 2014).
The formation of UNASUR's Joint Defense Commission is evidence of aims beyond economic co-operation. Promoted by Brazil and formed in 2008, the South American Defense Council was created as an agency to consult, co-operate and co-ordinate matters of defence and regional security through joint policy agreements among the member states of UNASUR (Center for Strategic Defense Studies, 2013). According to Spain's National Defence Higher Studies Centre, while not a defence alliance yet, UNASUR's Common Defense Council aims at maintaining regional stability and peaceful relations among its members by sponsoring a forum for dialogue between the defence ministers of the different nations (Centro Superior de Estudios de la Defensa Nacional de España, 2010). The formation of UNASUR's Defense Council confirms what Jaguaribe (Reference Jaguaribe1987) saw as aspirations to integrate Argentina and Brazil's regional defence systems to secure South America from foreign military presence, including NATO or any other power.
Conclusion
In contrast to the pessimistic estimates for developmental potential, the Southern Common Market has evolved from an organization between the member states of the River Plate basin to a Southern Atlantic integrationist scheme. This is evidenced by the inclusion of Venezuela as a part member, and by special agreements signed with several other blocs and states like CAN, SACU, Israel, India, Russia and China. The creation of UNASUR as a larger South American integrationist scheme between Mercosur, CAN, Chile, Suriname and Guyana is further evidence of the pattern of institutional growth, and reveals motivations for Argentina and Brazil that go beyond diminishing aggressive competition and domestic issues. The absence of militarized interstate disputes and the settlement of issues by peaceful means also questions the explanatory power of the Southern Common Market as a device to relieve an interstate rivalry. Because of Brazil's geopolitical superiority, we found no economic or military power parity between Argentina and Brazil or any records (at least, no public records) signaling that new elements, like nuclear proliferation, promoted a common security issue between the two states before forming Mercosur.
While competition and distrust might have been present to varying degrees depending on the regime type and government in office, it is important to emphasize that the iteration of common accords characterized Argentina-Brazil relations during most of the second half of the twentieth century. Rather than arising from a sudden inflection of rivalry, the Common Market resulted from constant and increasing co-operation in several areas, including national security and economic complementation. While common political stances and the promotion of integration were made public more often by democratic regimes, discreet collaboration on the combat against dissidents and joint key economic ventures were promoted by the military. Instead of preceding and aiming to foster co-operation on security issues, which is expected if integration aims to diminish security concerns, we find co-operation on national and regional security being fostered by the military regimes and preceding the economic complementation promoted by the democratic ones. Similarly, the market integration was fostered side by side with the process of nuclear integration. When the treaty of Asuncion was signed in 1991, Brazil and Argentina had already integrated in several areas and did so with Uruguay in a process characterized by gradual sectorial complementation. The treaty of Asuncion only extended the scope of the agreements and included Paraguay as a fourth member.
As Botte and Tussie (2007) assert, the River Plate basin played a dual role in defining their relations. While it instigated competition for its control during colonial times, it motivated later co-operation when Argentina and Brazil became independent. Alliances during the nineteenth century were instrumental in securing the Argentinean and Brazilian long-term regional dominance and in reducing Uruguay and Paraguay as buffer states. Future territorial and diplomatic disputes were settled either by common accords or through third-party arbitration. Peaceful relations resulted simply from an absence of issues that would lead to the use of force to advance foreign policy. Aggressive competition was perceived as potentially destabilizing the shared status as regional powers and disturbing the process of national integration. In addition to maintaining the regional balance of power, especially with Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, Argentina uses the Common Market to gather international support to stabilize its conflicting relations with US, the UK and Chile (among others) whereas Brazil uses the integration scheme to increase its economic power and to obtain reputation as a regional and global leader.
The explanatory power of these propositions would be open to question, at least partly, if there were evidence of a pattern of conflicting policies representing a security dilemma for Argentina and Brazil. Competing secret nuclear programmes or arms races would increase the explanatory power of security issues if these programmes were not shared. However, there is no evidence yet available to suggest this was the case, and such a nuclear security threat seems to have diminished through the permanent joint commission for nuclear activities that resulted in the formation of ABACC. Similarly, the argument that integration aimed to solve a rivalry or security concerns between Argentina and Brazil has much less explanatory power in the case of Mercosur than in the case of the European Union for the simple reason that there was no pattern of aggression between the founders of Mercosur before it was formed. A valid counterargument would be that Mercosur was formed to prevent the development of a future rivalry or security concerns. While this could be asserted, it could be seen as a valid argument for any alliance between nations. A more precise and empirically based assessment is that the Southern Common Market was the result of an interstate relationship characterized by recurrent agreements on co-operation, integration and the promotion of common institutions at the dyadic, regional and international levels.
