- Brazil’s São Paulo, courtesy eid.pt
Since at least the time of Alfred Thayer Mahan, great powers have identified maritime trade as a vital national interest, and turned to naval expansion to protect it. Though land power remained the final arbiter of territorial control and outcomes of great power conflicts, even continental powers such as Germany or “commercial powers” such as the United States with few regional threats intensified the late 19th century naval arms race. Today, observers of international affairs have spilled lakes of ink on the new era of globalization and economic interdependence, but paid less heed to the inevitable consequence of rising powers with new wealth and far-flung interests – the expansion of naval power.
While acknowledgement of China’s great power ambitions is commonplace, we often frame countries Brazil, India and others through an economic lens, as “developing nations,” first and “rising powers” second. From the first perspective, the investment of countries rife with poverty, corruption, crime, and even guerrilla activity in naval power, a capability irrelevant to these internal problems, seems ludicrous. For ascending states, however, naval capabilities are increasingly important. Recent news of Sino-Brazilian aircraft carrier cooperation illuminates both the new distribution of power and rising states’ maritime ambitions.
Brazil has operated a carrier since the 1950s, when it purchased the Minas Geraisfrom Britain. Today it operates the French-built São Paulo, making it one of three countries to operate a CATOBAR carrier. This is important for China, which needs that technology to field its top-line aircraft at sea, but cannot cooperate with the other two CATOBAR-operating countries: the US and France (which remains, often grudgingly, under the EU-China arms embargo). China is planning to put to sea three aircraft carriers sometime within the next decade – two designed indigenously along with the refurbished ex-Russian Varyag (based on US ratios, three are necessary to ensure there will always be one at sea).
This would also entail substantial investment in new fighter aircraft and training, which China has taken a jump-start with through buying or copying Russian aircraft, pre-training pilots for naval operations, and even building a fake aircraft carrier on land. The decision a desire for a more assertive Chinese naval strategy, not simply China’s traditional goal of regional defense. While China will refine its already formidable area denial capability in the West Pacific, carriers allow power projection beyond the range of China’s shore-based aircraft and missiles. No fleet can fight another or enemy shore without air cover, so carriers are not merely figureheads, but essential to an independent global presence. Should America worry about Chinese carriers besting its navy? Not for decades. Should Japan, South Korea, India, or other neighbors? Many already do. China, as many observers note, has substantial interests outside its “home waters,” namely in the Indian Ocean.
As for Brazil, the prospects of future military-diplomatic cooperation affirm its desire to act as an independent great power. Working with a potential “peer competitor” to the US sends that signal, and using Chinese favor to gain a UNSC permanent seat further that goal. But why should Brazil have a carrier to begin with – or seek, as the article alleges, further investments in its navy and nuclear submarine force? Brazil has a large coastline, important maritime trading interests, and vitally, enormous offshore energy deposits. Protecting these areas requires a strong fleet, and Brazil has a long tradition of fielding capital ships.
America can enjoy visions of more pacific and interdependent world because, when push comes to shove, American fleets and those of our allies own the seas. Even the USSR never equaled Western fleets in any vital maritime region beyond chokepoints such as the GIUK gap. The US has not had to seriously worry about naval supremacy in its post-WWII conflicts. Other countries – even those with no history of antagonism, such as Brazil – will want to have naval capabilities grow in line with their overseas interests. American preponderance and overriding concerns with land forces have discouraged prospects for naval buildups in Asia or other “developing” regions. With the proper diplomacy and balancing, these navies might relieve the US of some of its duties as hegemon. Whether for good or ill, however, foreign naval development is an important symptom and contributor to the shifting balance of power too often overlooked.
