Brazil and Mexico in the Nonproliferation Regime

‘A Desire so Close to the Hearts of all Latin Americans’: Utopian Ideals and Imperfections Behind Latin America's Nuclear Weapon Free Zone

“…For example, Brazil's proposal for a NWFZ during the Cuban missile crisis offered it a way to move closer to the Non‐Aligned Movement, to enhance its international prestige, and to appeal to a Brazilian public eager for Latin American Cold War neutrality (Hershberg, : 21). Meanwhile, Mexico's civilian government viewed regional denuclearisation in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis as a way to maintain the de‐politicisation of its military (Sotomayor, : 95).…”

“…Mexico was at the forefront of such thinking in part due to its geostrategic proximity to the US. Although Mexico looked to avoid a formal military alliance with the US in response to the Cuban missile crisis (Sotomayor, : 95), Mexico's northern neighbour in effect guaranteed its security. One Mexican general quipped to the West German observer that ‘Mexico had the biggest and strongest army in the whole world, but Mexico preferred to station it north of the Rio Grande’.…”

“…Argentina and Brazil did not fully adhere to Tlatelolco until 1994, and such a peaceful outcome was by no means assured. Argentine advances in nuclear technology in the early 1980s led some Brazilian officials to believe that its neighbour could soon possess a nuclear explosive device (Coutto, : 317), while Brazil developed a secret military ‘parallel’ nuclear programme between the mid‐1970s and mid‐1980s with aspirations for ‘peaceful nuclear devices’ and possibly nuclear weapons (Patti, : 203; Sotomayor, : 91–92; Kassenova, : 23–24).…”

“…This article focuses upon two aspects of that utopian impulse: the ideals projected to be ‘concretised’ by Latin America's NWFZ, and how those ideals were concretised, if at all. Previous studies of Latin America's NWFZ, both through regional (Redick, ; Serrano, ) and state‐specific approaches (Wrobel, ; Patti, ; Sotomayor, ; Hunt, ), have focused on the Cuban missile crisis and national interests to explain the region's denuclearisation. This article builds upon such accounts by utilising new multinational archival sources to better understand how national interests vied for the final form of Latin America's NWFZ.…”