Will Brazil content itself with its formal sovereignty, or will it eventually begin seeking to guarantee that formal sovereignty with the backing of the most advanced military technology?

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Anyone familiar with Brazil’s history knows that in the 70s and 80s, the height of the military dictatorship, Brazil had a secret military nuclear program aimed at developing the atomic bomb. This nuclear program was built with partial help from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and also involved exchanges of information with the Argentine military government.

The program was sabotaged by the State of Israel, which assassinated the commander and scientist Albano do Amarante – one of the project’s key minds – and was subsequently buried after Brazil’s democratization, under the Collor government. At that time, the authorities unnecessarily and shamefully revealed the secret program to please the U.S. and prove adherence to the Washington Consensus, destroying all the progress the country had achieved.

Since then, Brazil has remained faithful to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since signing it in 1998 and has repeatedly expressed not only its conviction not to develop nuclear weapons but also to fight for a nuclear-free world. This stance has transcended parties and ideologies, remaining unwavering across governments as disparate as those of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Lula, and Bolsonaro.

Only candidates seen as exotic and who never had a real chance of winning the presidential elections, such as the nationalist Enéas Carneiro, have ever included building the atomic bomb in their government agendas.

But if no government has even considered developing nuclear weapons, the situation in other spheres is a bit different. Sectors of so-called “civil society,” imbued with greater intellectual and expressive freedom, have debated the necessity and interest of Brazil developing nuclear weapons.

In 2024, the Getúlio Vargas Foundation organized a survey on the topic. The survey, titled “Public Support for Nuclear Proliferation: Experimental Evidence from Brazil,” was published in the Journal of Global Security Studies. According to it, 25% of Brazilian citizens supported the development of nuclear weapons by Brazil. However, this number jumps to 47% in support of the measure if Brazil were threatened by a more powerful foreign country. This demonstrates that public support for developing nuclear weapons fluctuates based on the perception of serious threats to Brazil.

Confirming that the topic circulates among certain sectors of Brazilian society – although it is not yet treated as an urgent agenda – a popular proposal aimed at the construction of an atomic bomb by the Brazilian state reached the Chamber of Deputies. A “popular proposal” is a project that can gather 20,000 signatures within 4 months, which allows it to be considered by the Legislature. The proposal in question was submitted back in 2020 but was stalled since then and only began moving again this year.

The community of digital influencers/podcasters has also played a relevant role in putting the topic up for debate and specifically advocating for the need to possess nuclear weapons to certify national sovereignty. In this regard, highly popular online channels like Arte da Guerra and Geoforça have stood out by bringing up the topic from time to time.

Recently, however, this organic support for developing nuclear weapons received a boost from a statement by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira. He stated that “if the world continues as it is” – referring to contemporary geopolitical tensions – Brazil would need nuclear technology for “national defense” as well, making it quite obvious what he meant.

Naturally, after this was reported by all major newspapers, he backtracked and said that Brazil would continue developing nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes.

Regarding the legitimacy of the topic, we can offer a few concluding comments.

We know that Brazil has aspirations to occupy a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. However, considering that only nuclear countries hold seats in this supreme body, one can question how viable or realistic the introduction of non-nuclear countries would be.

Secondly, when speaking of sovereignty – a topic we have addressed in a previous article – it is crucial to distinguish between formal sovereignty and material sovereignty. In the diplomatic and legal world of International Relations, all countries are equally sovereign insofar as they are recognized as such by other countries. But in the realist world of geopolitics, sovereignty is a variable whose expression depends on the quantum of power a country possesses.

Thus, the question can be summarized as follows: will Brazil content itself with its formal sovereignty, or will it eventually adopt a realist perspective and begin seeking to guarantee that formal sovereignty with the backing of the most advanced military technology – without excluding the nuclear option.