Date of Graduation

Spring 2022

Degree

Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies

Department

Defense and Strategic Studies

Committee Chair

Richard Downie

Abstract

The São Paulo Forum (SPF) is a resilient ideological alliance that provides extremist public policy recommendations to formal political parties, social movements, and insurgent groups throughout the Western Hemisphere. Based on substantial evidence, this research project asserts that the SPF has successfully influenced the national security and defense policies of states in the Latin America & Caribbean (LAC) region. Analysis of two significant cases in South America shows that, after being elected to high office, SPF affiliates and their political parties/platforms sought transformation of their countries’ national security and defense sectors to conform to SPF positions. Given its extensive influence and stated goal, the Forum’s support for malign, extra- hemispheric actors, rogue states within the LAC region, and “endogenous” violent non-state actors portends serious obstacles for the United States’ political, strategic, and operational objectives regarding hemispheric security and stability in the Americas. Critical examination of official SPF declarations, public statements, and resolutions; subject-matter-expert commentary; and available literature on the organization’s guidelines, are combined with case-study reviews of defense-policy modifications under Chávez’s MVR/PSUV (Movimiento V República / Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) and under Lula’s PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Brazil) administrations, respectively.

Keywords

USSOUTHCOM, Foro de São Paulo, defense policy, grand strategy, Brazil, Venezuela, world revolution, asymmetric warfare

Subject Categories

Defense and Security Studies | Latin American Studies

Copyright

© David J. Guenni Bravo

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