Abstract While the South American Defense Council has been analyzed as a security community, we argue that it is best described as an early stage community of practice, since it has successfully set in motion a regular interaction dynamic between numerous defense actors, as we demonstrate with concrete examples. We further discuss political support as a prerequisite for regional defense identity.Keywords: Security communities, community of practice, seminar diplomacy, South America, Defense. Received: September 5, 2016 Accepted: April 12, 2017 Introduction I n December 2008, member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) created the South American Defense Council (SADC), a specific forum for dealing with defense cooperation. Even though Argentina had been an active proponent of a Southern Cone defense cooperation dialogue mechanism during the 1990s and early 2000s, it only became a reality when Brazil supported the initiative and devised an active diplomatic strategy that could convince all South American neighbors of the initiative’s relevance. During these early months of political and diplomatic negotiations to create the organization, in the heat of the dispute over the bombing of a FARC camping in Ecuador by Colombian troops, the proposal remained ambiguous on what kind of defense organism should be created, allowing each country to entertain a number expectations. Among the various topics of the SADC being discussed were dialogue, cooperation, disputes prevention, confidence building, the establishment of a regional defense industry, and, most controversially, the construction of a regional defense identity. The only point on which most of the