Here in Brazil lots of our presidents have some sort of fixation with the ideia of joining the "great countries" in the UNSC. Whilst talking to a teacher about that, he told me that this whole affair started in the 1940s, specifically when FDR visited Brazil - at the time ruled by populist dictator Getulio Vargas - and promised to Vargas that we would join the UNSC once it was created. Did it really happen? And why would he promise such a thing? Wasnt Brazil a very backwards and poor nation with not even a very big population? And if he did promise, why didnt Brazil join? Looking forward to answers that can explain the geopolitics involved in such agreement.
If you can still talk to that teacher, maybe you could clarify if FDR meant the Permanent Members or the rotating body. Nearly everybody gets a turn on the rotating body of the UNSC.
Hey everyone, I have searched a lot and found, among old articles of a not really big International Relations magazine in Brazil, an article that explains it all. It is really well sourced and written by a brazilian diplomat. Unfortunately it is in portuguese, but i will try to resume it so that others interested in this question can also know. FDR wanted to have another two members on the UNSC, one for the middle east and another on latin america, so as to ease the burden of policing these regions. However, the middle east seldom had any suitable nations to perform such task and was not even mentioned on any official papers, whilst the latin american member would obviously be Brazil. Brazil was a loyal ally to the USA at the time (FDR called it "an example of good neighbor"), and it was industrializing fast, which made it seem like it would soon join the ranks of the great powers (its population was also growing incredibly fast). In the other hand, the second most powerful country in LA - Argentina - was dangerously friendly towards the axis and opposed to american interests. So putting brazil on the UNSC would: (1) Cement the American-Brazilian alliance (2) Have it act as a counterweight to dangerous latin american countries, such as Argentina. (3) Grant representation to a country that would, in all expectations, already become a great power in the future. The reasons why it wasnt accepted are both internal and external. externally, the only nation to truly support its entry was the USA, and not even the entire american delegation, only a few high-ranking members of the FDR government, such as the president and the secretary of state ( Hull ). As FDR passed away and Hull was substituted by Stettinius (who was a lot less enthusiastic about the entrance of Brazil), american support waned. The USSR was opposed from the start, claiming that Brazil did not have the military might for the situation and that it was not a global player (Something that can probably be atributed to the fact that Brazil did not have any sort of diplomatic ties to the USSR and in fact had not recognized the bolshevik government) and the british claimed that having a council with six nations would be a "mess", though they were generally neutral on the affair. Internally, the Brazilian government created a comittee to discuss the possible entrance, and the conclusions were mostly negative: it was argued that the military costs to maintain the great power status would be very big and that it would create animosity between them and the rest of south america, though it was also argued that such status would be good for elevating the morale of the Brazilian population (the "Vira-Lata complex") and for obtaining more international investments. SOURCES: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0034-73292011000100010&script=sci_arttext