The creation of South American Defense Council and your connections with the perceptions of cooperative security in South America.

Abstract

During the Cold War the South America was covered by a climate of distrust and rivalry, mainly due to the presence of authoritarian military governments. Some years later, the end of the war and the beginning of the democratization process defined a change of scenario, promoting the integration and mutual confidence among South American countries. Moreover, is was precisely this shift that contributed to the transition from a situation of confrontation to a multipolar scenario of cooperation in which prevailed the multiplicity of actors besides the States, although the anarchy continued to exist. With the prominence of these actors, it started to emerge the so-called new threats - including narcotrafficking, organized crime, human beings trafficking, and environmental depredation -, which required the creation of a multiple agenda that met the perspectives of cooperative security. Also, with the progress of this scenario of regional integration, at the beginning of the decade of 2000, Brazil had the initiative, from the patterns of the Union of South American Nations, of creation of the South American Defense Council, that would solve exclusively the issues of South America, looking forward the materialization of this region as an area of peace and stability. Nowadays, although some challenges - such as differences of interests among members and in their military capabilities - still predominate, the States persist in the development of methods like the creation of an exchange network of defense policies that defines the Council as a complex of consultation and coordination on cooperative security and defense.