Argentina and Brazil: Insights and current postures against the nuclear nonproliferation regime

The following paper examines the current challenges and threats of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime in general and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in particular, and how this affects the perceptions and attitudes that Argentina and Brazil have on the Regime and the Treaty.

From the positions analysis of these two countries before the challenges of the Regime, it is visible the geopolitical vision that both countries have and seek to reach in the international context, as well as its actual nuclear policy guidelines. Thus, this study tries to understand whether the motives of both countries at the time of accession to the NPT in the nineties, are still valid in this new international context.

In summary, this study leads to the following conclusions: first, that the different geopolitical visions of Argentina and Brazil have influenced the different positions that both countries have maintained to certain recent events, produced in the international context in relation to the Regime, as for example, the Additional Protocol or the Nuclear Agreement between India and the U.S.; which shows that the support of both countries to the strengthening of the Non-Proliferation Regime was not equivalent. Second, the reasons and criticism that the two countries had at the time of accession to the NPT in the early nineties, remain valid in the present. Finally, the two countries seek greater autonomy, before the new restrictions in the nuclear field, and they are using as a strategy, the bilateral nuclear cooperation with each other, under the control of all regulations concerning non-proliferation. Thus, both Argentina and Brazil, even with some differences, agree on the importance of belonging to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime and consider that a partnership within the framework of these arrangements will be much more fruitful.