balancing process. This realist understanding of international politics sees little or no
role for state leaders and diplomats to change this singular logic of anarchy, and it
gives rise to a very different explanation of the nuclear rapprochement between
Brazil and Argentina.
Analysts who favour this realist view argue that the nuclear cooperation that
developed between Argentina and Brazil was driven by the need to forge a common
front against the nuclear non-proliferation policy of the United States. On this
interpretation, Argentina’s public expressions of confidence in Brazil’s peaceful
nuclear intentions in the late 1970s countered Washington’s claims to the contrary,
and in being welcomed by Brasilia an alliance was created between the two South
American nuclear powers against what was perceived as the hegemonial nuclear
policies of the United States and the NPT regime it supported. This view is
advanced by Jacques Hymans who maintained that US pressure ‘angered the
Argentines and Brazilians so much that they patched up their differences with each
other in order to form a common diplomatic front against the US.’^64 This realist
argument views US pressure as the prime explanation for the nuclear cooperation
that developed between Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s. In the absence of this
factor, offensive realism would argue that Buenos Aires and Brasilia would have been
compelled by the logic of anarchy to engage in a regional struggle for power and
security, leading to a nuclear arms race.
Even if it is accepted that opposing US pressure on the nuclear issue encouraged
Argentine–Brazilian cooperation in the late 1970s, the realist explanation fails to
recognise how far the nuclear trust-building moves taken by the governments of
Alfonsín and Sarney contributed to a change in the identities of Brazil and Argentina
from mistrustful rivals to trusting partners. The process of democratisation in both
countries was essential to this transformation, but it is neglected in realist accounts
like Hymans. Such explanations of the social world marginalise the importance of
agency; there is a tendency to assume that any set of decision-makers would have
been compelled by these structural pressures to act in this way. But as Carasales
emphasised, the personal commitment of both Alfonsín and Sarney to the nuclear
rapprochement was critical in this case; such a level of cooperation and trust might
not have been achieved under different leaders. Consequently, there are good
reasons for identifying the Argentine–Brazilian case as an important challenge to the
offensive realist claim that anarchy is incompatible with trust between states. What
the case shows is that regional rivals, on the point of turning their relationship into
being nuclear adversaries, can develop sufficient confidence about the motives and
intentions of each other such that the threat or use of force ceases to be a factor in
their relations.
The Argentine–Brazilian case as a model of denuclearisation
through trust-building
Can the Argentine–Brazilian case of nuclear trust-building be generalised as a
model for reversing nuclear rivalries and conflicts in other cases? It is the conten-
260 Beyond Waltz’s nuclear world