A delayed reaction to the news posted by a href="thecable.foreignpolicy.com" Laura Rozen over at Foreign Policy/a that outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon is going to be our new ambassador to Brazil. Given that Secretary of State Clinton spoke highly of him in a press conferece prior to the OAS Ministerial meeting, it seems that he is being sent to Brasilia on a mission.br /br /And then I read a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/andres-oppenheimer/story/1087528.html"Andres Oppenheimer's column/a on "Brazil's growing emergence as Latin America's regional leader."br /br /So it got me to thinking: is Shannon tasked to pursue a strategic partnership between Brazil and the United States in the way that Robert Blackwill was for the U.S. and India when he was appointed ambassador in 2001? I realize that Shannon does not have the relationship, as a career foreign service officer, with president Obama the way that Blackwill had with president Bush, as one of his "Vulcans." But it is still intriguing whether Obama plans to reach out to Brazil. Of course, whether he and his administration can continue the momentum achieved in the U.S.-India relationship is also an open question at this point. But it would be interesting to see whether U.S. diplomacy can be flexible and creative in such a way as to cement strategic partnerships with two of the rising great powers of the 21st century (and with two of the four "BRIC" powers).div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19194934-7195575670960619507?l=washingtonrealist.blogspot.com'//div
Friday, July 3, 2009
Strategic Partnership with Brazil?
A delayed reaction to the news posted by a href="thecable.foreignpolicy.com" Laura Rozen over at Foreign Policy/a that outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon is going to be our new ambassador to Brazil. Given that Secretary of State Clinton spoke highly of him in a press conferece prior to the OAS Ministerial meeting, it seems that he is being sent to Brasilia on a mission.br /br /And then I read a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/andres-oppenheimer/story/1087528.html"Andres Oppenheimer's column/a on "Brazil's growing emergence as Latin America's regional leader."br /br /So it got me to thinking: is Shannon tasked to pursue a strategic partnership between Brazil and the United States in the way that Robert Blackwill was for the U.S. and India when he was appointed ambassador in 2001? I realize that Shannon does not have the relationship, as a career foreign service officer, with president Obama the way that Blackwill had with president Bush, as one of his "Vulcans." But it is still intriguing whether Obama plans to reach out to Brazil. Of course, whether he and his administration can continue the momentum achieved in the U.S.-India relationship is also an open question at this point. But it would be interesting to see whether U.S. diplomacy can be flexible and creative in such a way as to cement strategic partnerships with two of the rising great powers of the 21st century (and with two of the four "BRIC" powers).div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/19194934-7195575670960619507?l=washingtonrealist.blogspot.com'//div
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