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Brazil & Nukes: Lula Wants His Yellow Submarine

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Council on Hemispheric Affairs - Oct 26, 2007
http://www.coha.org/2007/10/26/lula-wants-his-yellow-submarine/

Lula Wants His Yellow Submarine

Nuclear-R-Us: Is Brazil's proposed Construction of a Nuclear Submarine
the result of Imperial Ambitions or a matter of diving to the depths of
pandering politics on Lula's part?

by Alex S!nchez, COHA Research Fellow

    * Lula reignites the dream of the military junta: a nuclear
submarine of its own.

    * Washington derides Iran's and North Korea's nuclear plans but
mums the word when it comes to Brazil

    * Is the Brazilian navy expecting to be attacked on the high seas
by some far off land, or, is a new militarized geopolitical strategy
being evolved by Brasilia, or, is Lula merely being pressured by his
military to acquire this trophy weapons system which could cost the
nation upwards of a billion dollars, yet do little to augment Brazilian
security?

    * If Brazil goes ahead with its nuclear project, it may violate the
spirit of the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty.

    * Who is going to provide Brazil with the necessary technology and
advice it needs in order to successfully develop a nuclear submarine?
Russia or China? Or will it be Brasilia's new sister pact members India
and South Africa, or perhaps Iran with whom it has had a decade-long
nuclear relationship. What will be the roles of the UN, IAEA and OPANAL?

On July 10, Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva announced his intention to fulfill one of the Brazilian Navy's ultimate dreams: to launch a nuclear-powered submarine. This idea was originally hatched during the era of military rule from the 1960s to

As the international community tries to blunt North Korea's and Iran's nuclear ambitions, Brazil (long rumored to be ready in its campaign to fight an all-embracing effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council), has put forth 

Brazil's Nuclear History

The genesis of Brazil's nuclear ambitions can be traced back to the
1960s, a time when military governments were a hemispheric plague, with
the South American giant being, if anything, a pathfinder for this
process. Nevertheless, the Brazilian military junta that ruled from
1964-1985 never managed to nurture concrete plans to construct this
super category of sophisticated weapons. According to one AP story, the
navy's nuclear program, which actually had begun in 1979, already had
mastered part of the uranium enrichment process, but it had lagged in
developing and constructing a reactor entirely from Brazilian
technology, said Navy Admiral Julio Soares de Moura Neto. According to
a July filing by Deutsch Presse-Agenteur, the nuclear submarine project
was part of a 1975 agreement between Brasilia and the then Western
German government in Bonn.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that, in a recent article, the Latin American Weekly Report acknowledged that Brazil has been found to be far behind other regional countries in terms of economic support for its armed forces: "Brazil's armed forces are now f

During the period of military rule, Brazil's neighbor Argentina (if anything, under an even more draconic military regime), was also heatedly developing a nuclear program at its remote facility near Bariloche, Argentina. A Spring 1981 Foreign Affairs arti

Ironically, Lula protested the construction of the nuclear submarine during the military regime, at a time when he was a fiery union leader with solid leftist credentials, protesting that the country had more important needs for its citizens than somethin

Lula Revives Nuclear Plans

To the surprise of only a few, whose knowledge of Lula's value system
was formed in the past and who now see him as a parody of the system to
which he once so passionately subscribed, the Brazilian leader is a
pro-nuke submarine enthusiast, who now emphasizes his intention to
pursue his military predecessors' nuclear ambitions. He plans to have
the submarine operating by 2015. A July 11 wire story by Agence France
Presse quotes the Brazilian president as saying during a visit to the
Brazilian navy's Technological Center in Sao Paulo, "Brazil could rank
among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium
enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a
nation -- as the power we wish to be." In essence, the new Brazil that
Lula ululates over has a different kind of author with a vastly
different script than the one he once daily authored as the leader of
the metallurgical union in the Sao Paulo industrial belt.

Lula's references raise several very tantalizing questions about the nuclear submarine project. Among them are: will it be constructed solely by Brazilian scientists and technicians? Or will scientists by recruited from abroad as consultants? Does the Bra

While Lula is jaunty, other Brazilians are desperate, according to O Estada, as cited by the Latin American Weekly Report: "'For a long time the government has abandoned the armed forces to its own luck, in a display of disinterest in national defence and
O Estado zeroes in on musings now taking place in the Brazilian armed forces: "Two-thirds of the air force's planes are grounded due to lack of replacement parts. The air force does not have any medium-range-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, attack helic

Nuclear Power for Several Applications

The Brazilian president also is saying that his government will
complete the long-suspended Angra III nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro
state. "We will complete Angra III, and if necessary, we'll go on to
build more (nuclear plants) because it is clean energy and now proven
to be safe," Lula ebulliently noted. The plant will cost 3.5 billion
dollars over five and a half years, he said. But he did not mention the
nuclear waste disposal issue which has been devilled Washington in
recent years and still defies easy solution, as seen in the Feral Yucca
Mountain debate.

Going Nuclear All the Way

A June article by Nuclear Engineering International explains that
Brazil has always strived for self-sufficiency in nuclear power, but
the ambitious plans of the 1970s were never fully realized, leaving
Brazil with just Angra I & II and the equipment and technical skills
required for a third, all sited at Angra Dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro
state. The construction of Angra III was originally contracted out to
the German firm KraftwerkUnion (KWU), now part of Siemens, which was
taken over by Framatome ANP (now Areva). At the end of 2001, Brazil's
National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) was asked to make recommendations
on Angra III and authorized preliminary steps to restart the project,
with Lula ultimately deciding to go ahead with it. Brazil's two
operating nuclear plants, Angra I and Angra II, have an installed
capacity of about 2,000 megawatts. Angra III would raise its capacity
to 3,300 megawatts, at an estimated cost of about US$3.6 billion
(euro2.6 billion). According to several costing engineers, they would
be surprised if the plant construction didn't come in at least 50
percent higher than the current estimated figure, with the same being
true of the projected costs for the submarine.

An October 2004 article in Science by Liz Palmer, entitled "Brazil's Nuclear Puzzle" reported that in 2004 Brazil had plans for a uranium enrichment plant, which, it if configured to do so, could fuel several nuclear weapons annually. It went on to explai

While it is true that Brazil wants to build a nuclear submarine, not a nuclear weapon, the feeling remains about Brazil's potential to become a global nuclear power incrementally, if it chose to do so at all. It certainly has the resources and the personn

And who is the amiable Jingoist stoking the line of "uber alles""well, no other than Lula. Yet there is still another chapter to the Brazilian story, and that consists of the corruption that infusesthe nation's public life, the inefficiency, the hypocrisy

Interestingly, on June 8 there was an article in the International Herald Tribune about the Russian nuclear power company, Atomstroyexport (a former branch of the Soviet atomic energy ministry) and how Russia is becoming an important exporter of nuclear e

A Nuclear Brazil: Is this Wise?

Lula appears to be resorting to the traditional waving the "bloody flag
of nationalism" in order to increase his personal popularity and
confirm the support of the nation's powerful military establishment,
although all is not sound here, and his placating is probably doomed to
not be enough. This call to arms comes at a time when his
administration was sent reeling by almost daily corruption scandals in
his political party and his administration. In the latest round of
nationwide discontent, landless workers blocked an iron ore railway
(with ore being a key ingredient for the production of steel) owned by
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA. The company claims only 300 individuals
protested, while the Landless Workers Movement insists they were as
many as 2,600, according to the Associated Press.

Lula's critics insist that, instead of allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to a nuclear submarine program, why not address the multiple social problems pressing Brazil. These include environmental and anti-poverty initiatives to constructively impa

Finally, it is still illogical that Brazil even thinks for a moment that it must have its submarine. The sub-continent, in spite of the arms race it has experience in recent years, has not had an inter-state war since the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border confli

Military Politics

By deciding to build a nuclear submarine, Lula is reviving the old
dreams of the Brazilian military. At the same time, he has certainly
given reason to the Argentine navy to push for even a bigger defense
budget at a time when the country is still recuperating from the 2001
economic meltdown. Both the Brazilian and Argentine security forces
have dark pasts that have sullied their countries' good names. The
possession of a nuclear submarine would provide both militaries with an
increased status that would be prejudicial to their still not
completely stabilized democracies and would allow them to question
their subordination to the civilian government.

It is ironic that Lula has declared his intention to build a nuclear submarine. While he was a union leader before becoming president, Lula had protested against such nuclear aspirations, but it seems he has now had a change of heart. Why has this occurre

Curiously, the aspiration to acquire a nuclear submarine comes at a time when the Brazilian military is going through a process of upgrading. During a September trip to Spain, in spite of the obvious disenchantment with many of his senior military colleag

Logically, Lula has the enthusiastic backing of the Brazilian military establishment for his drive to upgrade the military. But this is not necessarily the case.On October 13, there was an article in the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense, regarding Braz
Opponents of the nuclear submarine and the nuclear plant programs include Lula's Environment Minister Marina Silva. The minister declared that "in the last 15 years, no country has built nuclear power plants because of the problems with the waste []] We h

Taking the Arms Race to the Next Level

Brazil's renewed coveting of a nuclear submarine comes at a time when
the sub-region is already moving towards an arms race. Among other
regional countries, Venezuela and Chile are engaged in major military
purchases. Most recently, Venezuela has ordered the purchase of five
Kilo-636 submarines from Russia. Peru has contracted a number of naval
purchases a couple of years ago during the Alejandro Toledo
administration, including the purchase of four Lupo-class frigates from
Italy. Last year, Bolivian president Evo Morales declared his plans to
build a number of military outposts, with Venezuela's help to parallel
Bolivia's borders, including one facing its border with Brazil. It is
unlikely that other countries, including Argentina, will not feel
compelled to follow suit at some point in the near future as a result
of pressure coming from its own armed forces

With Brazil's neighbors now interested on increasing their military capability, Brasilia arms specialists claim that the country has adopted a posture on its prospective acquisition of a nuclear submarine that, from a strategic point of view, would give i

An additional issue regarding Brazil's nuclear submarine has to do with the de facto violation of the spirit, or even the letter of the Treaty of Tlateololco. Signed in 1967 and entered into force in 1969, the Treaty was drafted in Mexico City to make Lat

And Washington's Reaction is...

At a time when the drums of war are beating regarding Washington's
tough stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions, and while negotiations
continue with North Korea, how will Washington policy makers react to
Brazil possessing a nuclear-powered submarine?

In 1991, Presidents Fernando Collor of Brazil and Carlos Menem of Argentina signed an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that provided for IAEA inspection of their respective nuclear programs. At the time, the U.S. State D

Other institutions that have yet to declare themselves about Brazil's plans include the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), based in M

The Nuclear Nightmare

It could be persuasively argued that Brazil's proposed nuclear
submarine is an imprudent foreign policy move for Brazil to take.
Conventional weaponry, in addition to the country's geography, which
features broad land buffers, should serve, as they have in the past, as
a sufficient deterrent to dissuade other countries from attacking
Brazil under any conceivable scenario. Some unkind soul might even
accuse Lula of engaging in a good deal of hypocrisy for considering to
carry out the plans that basically echo the aspirations of the military
junta which was responsible for numerous human rights abuses when it
held power and which Lula himself once fiercely opposed. Brazil is
regionally and globally respected and would be the natural Latin
America representative in the UN Security Council should it ever be
reformed and expanded. In addition it is presently besieged by a host
of domestic problems, including widespread criminal violence and drug
trafficking, aside from increasing gang warfare. 

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