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University of California Berkeley

Publication Date

Fall 2010

Program Name

Argentina: Regional Integration, Development, and Social Change

Abstract

The South American Defense Council (SDC) represents the most recent step taken along a long road of multilateral and bilateral defense agreements echoing Bolivar’s dream of continental defense integration. Before the Second World War, the continent developed a deep base of collective security agreements that eventually formed the OAS. However, during the Cold War, the U.S. replaced collective security with the doctrine of national security. U.S. unilateral policies prevented the possibility of continental cooperation on defense. In the vacuum, new alliances and agreements were made at sub-regional and bilateral levels. With the end of the Cold War, a new hope for hemispheric cooperation and the OAS introduced a new perspective for dealing with more systemic threats to peace, multidimensional security. However, after 9/11, the U.S. returned to support the doctrine of national security. At the same time, Brazil began to assume its leadership role in the region, and proposed the creation of UNASUR and the SDC. This paper studies the factors that created the environment in which the SDC developed, along with its challenges and potentialities within the current security context.

Disciplines

International and Intercultural Communication | International Relations | Latin American Studies | Social Influence and Political Communication

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