ANOTHER BLESSING THAT WOULD HAVE COME TO PASS 50 YEARS AGO IF ONLY WE'D WON WWII:

Something Real, For A Change (Walter Russell Mead, 4/15/11, American Interest)

The change in the US-Brazil relationship is not as dramatic or consequential as the change in US-Indian relations since the Cold War. The US and India share two paramount strategic concerns — the possibility that China might seek hegemony in Asia and the possibility that Islamic extremism will destabilize the Middle East and beyond — that make that bilateral relationship one of the keys to the global situation. US and Indian relations may never produce a formal alliance, but the community of interest is so deep and has such obvious military and geopolitical implications that even casual newspaper readers will be increasingly aware of its importance.

The new US-Brazilian relationship does not quite live up to that, but the ramifications of the changing relations between the two dominant powers in the western hemisphere will nevertheless make waves. It is likely in the 21st century that Brazil will join the group of countries Americans listen to and rely on the most, and the countries whose interests Americans take the greatest care to address.

Changes in both US and Brazilian perceptions about the world have combined to create the basis for a new kind of relationship. On the US side, the end of the Cold War changed the nature of our interests in South America. [...]

[T]he fall of the Soviet Union took the global struggle against communism off the table and removed any serious reasons for heavy-handed US interference in South America. Today no global American security interests are challenged by the power of any South American state; the United States and its government wish the peoples of South America well, but we no longer have a compelling security reason to meddle in their domestic affairs.

A fifty-year period of North American interference in South American affairs came to an end in 1990; unless Hugo Chavez finds a way to turn taunts and insults into a consequential security threats, the US has no need to treat him as anything worse than a nuisance. Ditto for the rest of the continent; while US security and political interests are likely to keep us engaged in the traditional sphere of American interest in the Caribbean and Central America (extending at most to the northern fringe of South America), the US no longer has any desire to interfere with the domestic politics of countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile and their neighbors.

On the Brazilian side, something even more important has happened: Brazil has begun to believe that the world economic system might just work to Brazil’s advantage.

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