Abstract
This article addresses Baron of Rio Branco's grand strategy and the role played by the naval reorganization program (1904-1910) in this context. The ensuing case study determined the domestic and international constraints that affected the program, as well as the worldview of the patron of Brazilian diplomacy regarding military power's instrumentality to foreign policy.
Highlights
José Maria da Silva Paranhos Jr., Baron of Rio Branco, epitomizes Brazilian nationalism.1 Despite the impenetrable personality that motivated Nabuco to call him a “Sphinx,” his political and diplomatic legacy, especially with regard to the demarcation of national borders, is revered as of great importance for the construction of the international identity of Brazil
Given the author’s dissatisfaction with this state of affairs and out of respect for the memory of Itamaraty’s patron, I intend to address an issue that lies at the heart of a series of distortions about the meaning of Paranhos Jr.’s diplomacy: the role of naval power in the broader context of the grand strategy implemented during Rio Branco’s administration as chancellor
This section intends to trace the inescapable contours of grand strategy and clarify the theoretical and conceptual framework adopted in the article
Summary
José Maria da Silva Paranhos Jr., Baron of Rio Branco, epitomizes Brazilian nationalism. Despite the impenetrable personality that motivated Nabuco to call him a “Sphinx,” his political and diplomatic legacy, especially with regard to the demarcation of national borders, is revered as of great importance for the construction of the international identity of Brazil. Given the author’s dissatisfaction with this state of affairs and out of respect for the memory of Itamaraty’s patron, I intend to address an issue that lies at the heart of a series of distortions about the meaning of Paranhos Jr.’s diplomacy: the role of naval power in the broader context of the grand strategy implemented during Rio Branco’s administration as chancellor. Constituting the paradigmatic moment in which Brazilian Republican foreign policy was consolidated, Rio Branco’s administration was able to wield the power available to the country to set, on favorable terms, the boundaries of the nation.
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