THE POSITION OF AN EMERGING GLOBAL POWER

Abstract

After Barack Obama's April 2009 Prague speech raised expectations, Brazilian experts and government officials received the release of the 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) with positive but rather skeptical feelings. The differences between the 2010 and 2001 NPRs were assessed in Brazil as constructive, and the new negative security assurances were lauded as being less threatening to non-nuclear weapon states, as was the US commitment to seek ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Although the Brazilian government insists that it will not sign the Additional Protocol (AP) until the nuclear weapon states take much deeper, though unspecified, steps toward complete nuclear disarmament, it did not block the final statement at the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons “encouraging” all states to conclude and bring into force APs and to support multinational management of the fuel cycle. Brazilian officials, however, remain doubtful about the long-term US commitment to nuclear disarmament and notice that the lack of significant progress from nuclear weapon states toward eliminating their arsenals makes it onerous for other states to enact measures to stabilize the nonproliferation regime.