Brazil in the Quad Plus: Incongruous or extended drawbridge of the Indo-Pacific?

Abstract

The Indo-Pacific framework has been characterized as "inclusive and across oceans," suggestive of the expansively envisioned traverse and trajectory of the strategic construct. Hence, it is no surprise, but plausibly curious, that the emergentphraseological rollout of the Quad Plus, an informal collective-in-the-making of very recent vintage, transcends the immediate two-oceans confluence of the Quad grouping of the quartet of vibrant democracies, to extend to the third ocean of human habitation, in incorporating the Atlantic seaboard transcontinental powerhouse of Brazil into its mix. This article endeavors to intimately examine the intriguing case of Brazil's involvement in the Washington-spurred maiden conference call for coordination, which, given Brasilia's abject lack of appreciation of the Indo-Pacific framework in its foreign policy calculus and little if any enthusiasm exuded in orienting Brazil to it in any purported grand strategy, makes it an apparently incongruous participant in the exercise. The article illuminates the sashaying trajectory of contemporaneous twenty-first-century Brazilian foreign policy, contextualized to interchange with sovereigns within the once proverbial Asia-Pacific but now the putatively realigned Indo-Pacific, through the epoch of constructive and responsible internationalism under Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's administration (2003-2010); the subsequent phase of recanting isolationism of Pres. Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016); through to the erratic and sometimes reckless fluidity of incumbent Pres. Jair Bolsonaro, in pursuance of ascertaining the scoped prospects, or otherwise, of Latin America's largest country and its economic involvement with and within the Indo-Pacific going forward. The article further assesses the accosting systemic and sovereign actor pressures that come to bear in chaperoning the dilemmas of Brazil in its logical and legitimate desires for strategic autonomy in foreign policy regarding diversification and pluralization of strategic engagements, which, in the Indo-Pacific context, would entail a curated approach on the part of Itamaraty-one that tactically balances among Brazil's deep-seated commercialist dependence on Beijing, its progressively bonhomous engagement with Washington, and its role and contribution within the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) construct, where the other four sovereign constituents are geographical and geopolitical Indo-Pacific stakeholders.