kleph
16-03-2006, 10:14 AM
I was looking forward to reading this latest entry of the Contemporary Inter-American Relations series after being highly impressed with its previous entries. While it is a wealth of specific data and touches on the primary issues that have shaped the Brazilian-U.S. relationship, the book seems to fall short of its predecessors.
Brazil is the 800-pound gorilla of South America. In just about every category - geographical size, political weight, economic pull, you name it - it simply dwarfs its Latin America neighbors. To completely understand what is going on in any given country here, you gotta understand what is going on in Brazil.
Similarly, the United States is the single biggest element that shapes its actions in the world. So a book dedicated to this subject comes with a lot of expectations for those of use looking for sharp analysis of the issue. What you get, instead, is an almost superficial brief on the subject. It touches all the requisite bases but never seems to dig beneath to understand the motivations and possible subtleties involved the way the other books in the series did.
Perhaps one reason is because this book has one author while the others have featured a pair of authors - one from the U.S. and one from the country being examined. Brazilian Monica Hirst clearly has an expert grasp on the subject but the book lacks the interplay of ideas it could have had with a north-of-the-border co-author.
To compensate, the book features a final essay by British scholar Andrew Hurrell to provide the exterior analysis. It falls short of rounding out the book but, in what is probably the books greatest achievement, he gives a keen analysis of the strains that affect the U.S./Brazil relationship as well as other Latin American countries. He laments a serious deficiency in U.S. foreign policy that is known to even the most minor governmental functionary south of the Rio Grande River but completely overlooked northwards of it. To state it bluntly, the U.S. simply does not have a consistent policy toward Latin America and, in fact, it has resisted any substantial engagement there.
"Indeed, U.S. power, influence, and autonomy are arguably maximized by refusing to become unconditionally committed to any particular region. Being partially in and partially out, making rhetorical gestures of commitment that are often at odds with actual policy, and sending mixed messages may all work to U.S. advantage. They may well help, for example, to prevent regional states from organizing themselves in effective subregional arrangements."
That problem is acerbated by the current trend of U.S. foreign policy that holds the sheer overriding dominance of the United States allows a unipolar approach to work. One that holds, "that the best strategy is to maximize U.S. military and coercive power and its freedom from maneuvering by avoiding binding treaties and messy involvement in institutions and periphery issues."
This, Hurrell writes, is allied with a belief that the U.S. "should not be afraid to use its power actively to organize the world in a way that forestalls and preempts threats." While I am unclear if this is a completely fair assessment of the U.S. view, it is clear there is a grain of truth to it and, even more clear, that much of the world outside of our borders believes it to be our position exactly. Thus, the responsibility to changing the situation, most likely, lies with us.
"Brazil (and countries like it) will become more important only when and if opinion and influence shifts toward those who hold a different view of U.S. foreign policy – those who stress the complexity of both U.S. power and interests; who argue that the United States need both allies and institutions if the problems of a globalized world are to be managed effectively; and who doubt that a sustainable and legitimate order can be based solely, or even primarily, on hierarchy, coercion and imposition."
This essay previously appeared on my website kleph.com (http://www.kleph.com/).
©2005 C.J. Schexnayder
Brazil is the 800-pound gorilla of South America. In just about every category - geographical size, political weight, economic pull, you name it - it simply dwarfs its Latin America neighbors. To completely understand what is going on in any given country here, you gotta understand what is going on in Brazil.
Similarly, the United States is the single biggest element that shapes its actions in the world. So a book dedicated to this subject comes with a lot of expectations for those of use looking for sharp analysis of the issue. What you get, instead, is an almost superficial brief on the subject. It touches all the requisite bases but never seems to dig beneath to understand the motivations and possible subtleties involved the way the other books in the series did.
Perhaps one reason is because this book has one author while the others have featured a pair of authors - one from the U.S. and one from the country being examined. Brazilian Monica Hirst clearly has an expert grasp on the subject but the book lacks the interplay of ideas it could have had with a north-of-the-border co-author.
To compensate, the book features a final essay by British scholar Andrew Hurrell to provide the exterior analysis. It falls short of rounding out the book but, in what is probably the books greatest achievement, he gives a keen analysis of the strains that affect the U.S./Brazil relationship as well as other Latin American countries. He laments a serious deficiency in U.S. foreign policy that is known to even the most minor governmental functionary south of the Rio Grande River but completely overlooked northwards of it. To state it bluntly, the U.S. simply does not have a consistent policy toward Latin America and, in fact, it has resisted any substantial engagement there.
"Indeed, U.S. power, influence, and autonomy are arguably maximized by refusing to become unconditionally committed to any particular region. Being partially in and partially out, making rhetorical gestures of commitment that are often at odds with actual policy, and sending mixed messages may all work to U.S. advantage. They may well help, for example, to prevent regional states from organizing themselves in effective subregional arrangements."
That problem is acerbated by the current trend of U.S. foreign policy that holds the sheer overriding dominance of the United States allows a unipolar approach to work. One that holds, "that the best strategy is to maximize U.S. military and coercive power and its freedom from maneuvering by avoiding binding treaties and messy involvement in institutions and periphery issues."
This, Hurrell writes, is allied with a belief that the U.S. "should not be afraid to use its power actively to organize the world in a way that forestalls and preempts threats." While I am unclear if this is a completely fair assessment of the U.S. view, it is clear there is a grain of truth to it and, even more clear, that much of the world outside of our borders believes it to be our position exactly. Thus, the responsibility to changing the situation, most likely, lies with us.
"Brazil (and countries like it) will become more important only when and if opinion and influence shifts toward those who hold a different view of U.S. foreign policy – those who stress the complexity of both U.S. power and interests; who argue that the United States need both allies and institutions if the problems of a globalized world are to be managed effectively; and who doubt that a sustainable and legitimate order can be based solely, or even primarily, on hierarchy, coercion and imposition."
This essay previously appeared on my website kleph.com (http://www.kleph.com/).
©2005 C.J. Schexnayder