Armed Forces, technology and politcs: the technological evolution of Brazil and Argentina Navies on 20th century

• Grant number: 13/22061-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: May 01, 2014
• End date: July 17, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science
• Principal Investigator: João Roberto Martins Filho
• Grantee: Ludolf Waldmann Júnior
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/23690-8 - Anglo-Brazilian naval relations, 1922-1977, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The navies of Brazil and Argentina, like their political history, share great similarities. During the 20th century, prompted by their rivalries, they built similar fleets: they purchase, on the beginning of the century, fleets based on battleships, which stayed actives until the beginning of the Second World War; afterwards, they became antisubmarine fleets under wide U.S. influence until the 1970s, when they bought warships on Europe on their search for modern naval technology and nacionalization of their naval production. The present project pursuit understand, under prospects of elucidating the continuities and ruptures, which were the paths of naval modernization of these countries, having as objectives: 1) analyze the naval decision-making, pursuing understand the internal divergences about the technological options; 2) understand the purchase policy of the Brazilian and Argentine navies under the perspectives of military and national policies of the countries; 3) evaluate the purchase of naval equipment under the otics of their foreign policy, both under the perspective of their rivalry as their relation with the U.S. To this end, we depart from the analysis of the military dependancy and from "military parties", using the methodological assumptions of the historical neoinstutucionalism and of the neoclassical realism on International Relations.