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FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
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INFO RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO 2118
RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 7628
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 5716
RUEHSO/AMCONSUL SAO PAULO 1503
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 000124 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA, PM, EEB, AND OES 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2018 
TAGS: PREL MARR PARM SOCI SENV ECON BR
SUBJECT: BRAZIL'S LONG-TERM PLANNING MINISTER OUTLINES 
POSSIBLE COLLABORATION WITH U.S. 
 
REF: BRASILIA 99 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR CLIFFORD SOBEL, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  Over the course of two meetings with the 
Ambassador (accompanied by PolCouns, DAO, and MLO 
representatives) and a briefing with Department of Defense 
officials in Cambridge, Long-Term Planning Minister Roberto 
Mangabeira Unger has laid out his vision for a U.S.-Brazil 
partnership focused on cooperation in defense, education, 
small business, and environmental management.  At its most 
ambitious, Unger's vision includes a proposal for a broad 
strategic partnership, involving a select number of other 
countries in the hemisphere, aimed at expanding economic and 
education opportunity.  Although Unger's weight in the Lula 
administration remains unclear and his actions have been 
criticized in the media, he is a well-informed and 
sympathetic voice on the topic of U.S.-Brazil relations at 
the senior levels of the GOB.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (C) Unger, who took leave from his long-time teaching 
position at Harvard in July 2007 to head the newly created 
Secretariat for Long-Term Planning, first called on the 
 
SIPDIS 
Ambassador in late October.  The meeting came just after the 
Senate, as part of an unrelated spat, rejected the 
Administration's proposal to officially create a Ministry of 
Long-Term Planning.  (As a result, Unger remains head of a 
secretariat within the presidency.)  Unger told the 
 
SIPDIS 
Ambassador that he agreed to take on the job only after 
President Lula committed that he could look beyond the end of 
the current government in developing a new model for socially 
inclusive development.  In doing so, Unger is partnering with 
ministries to define practical initiatives toward key 
elements of this long-term goal.  Despite the high-profile 
and contentious start to his duties, Unger said he is trying 
to keep a low-profile and allow the responsible ministries to 
take the public lead on the initiatives. 
 
¶3. (SBU) As a result of the October meeting, post arranged a 
briefing on defense issues for Unger during a visit to 
Cambridge.  (Note: Unger told the Ambassador that he returns 
to Cambridge, where has lived since 1970, about once a month 
to visit his family.  End note.)  On January 14, the 
Ambassador met with Minister Unger to follow up his Cambridge 
briefing and explore next steps.  Over the course of the 
three meetings, Unger has consistently raised four issues he 
believes would make a good focus for U.S.-Brazil 
"bi-national" projects: defense, education, small business, 
and environment, which are also foci of his broader effort to 
craft a new socially inclusive development strategy. 
 
Defense 
------- 
 
¶4. (C) Unger is working closely with Defense Minister Nelson 
Jobim and an inter-ministerial committee created in September 
2007 that is charged with crafting a new national defense 
strategy by September 2008.  Unger told the Ambassador that 
Brazil has never had a national civilian discussion of 
defense strategy, but with a military that is "no good for 
war, and no good for peace," it is time for such a discussion 
to take place.  (In Cambridge, Unger lamented the lack of 
civilian defense expertise in the MOD, which was noted as a 
possible area of collaboration.)  The basic element of the 
new strategy is to reorganize the military around a 
technological and operational vanguard, based on national 
capabilities. 
 
-- For the navy, this means placing a priority on a 
nuclear-propelled submarine (see septel).  On this project, 
he believes the United States could be helpful with 
developing the hull, software, and tactical armaments.  He 
said that the Brazilians have the expertise and technology to 
develop the fuel cycle, and do not need to collaborate with 
the U.S. on this. 
 
-- For the air force, this means either purchasing advanced 
aircraft, if such a purchase can be made with provisions for 
technology transfer and some component of joint development, 
or instead focusing on a combination of modernization to the 
extent possible of current planes, development of new 
projects already under way (e.g., on UAVs), and development 
with a third country of prototypes that will help upgrade 
Brazil's technology and weapons. 
 
-- For the army, the GOB is looking at reorganizing around 
 
BRASILIA 00000124  002 OF 004 
 
 
the ten percent of the force that already operates as a rapid 
reaction strike force.  This would imply investment in night 
vision equipment, communications equipment, and space 
monitoring capability.  Unger added that one possibility for 
development of the needed equipment and weapons is to give a 
greater emphasis to project that the army's reseach and 
development center, CTEX, is attempting to develop. 
 
-- Finally, noting their recently agreed joint venture with 
China, Unger mentioned Brazil's interest in developing its 
ability to launch and maintain satellites as part of their 
effort to monitor their national territory and waters. 
 
Unger says that there is a great deal of skepticism that the 
United States and other countries will be willing to share 
the technology necessary for Brazil to make this strategy 
work.  However, he said that his "theme" is to test the 
limits of what is possible. 
 
¶5. (C) A second element of the strategy is to create a link 
between defense and the national development strategy--that 
is, to see the defense sector as an engine for growth.  In 
other words, Unger said, he wants to put military reform into 
the broader context of his effort toward "institutional 
renovation" in reconstructing Brazil's development model. 
 
Education 
--------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Unger sees education as a pivotal element to 
Brazil's development strategy.  Brazil is focusing on 
developing quality public education at the middle- and 
high-school levels, with an emphasis on teaching methods and 
increasing science and technology offerings.  More broadly, 
he is looking at the federal-local dynamic, one in which he 
believes the U.S. and Brazil have similar interests.  He said 
that Brazil has mastered issues of national monitoring and 
redistribution of resources, but believes that both the 
United States and Brazil still need to solve the problem of 
how the federal level can engage local governments in a 
collaborative, non-judicial, flexible way when a school is 
consistently below standards. 
 
Small Business 
-------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Noting that small business drives both the U.S. and 
Brazilian economies and forms the basis for socially 
inclusive economic growth, Unger would like to work together 
with the United States on ways to transfer advanced practices 
and technologies to small business.  Unger said that Brazil's 
small business agency, SEBRAE, is trying to move away from a 
"neo-Korean" model of picking winners, and has already 
created some excellent technology and finance support 
programs, but he believes that there is scope to do more. 
(Note: SEBRAE and the U.S. Small Business Administration 
already have cooperative programs in place, and an SBA 
consultant worked with SEBRAE for a six week period in 2007 
to exchange ideas and experiences.  End note.) 
 
Environmental Management 
------------------------ 
 
¶8. (SBU) Unger sees environmental management, in particular 
of Brazil's Amazon, as an area where the United States could 
work with Brazil.  Noting its connection to the broader 
climate change debate, he told the Ambassador that neither of 
the two images in people's minds--of a nature park or of a 
"new Mato Grosso" (i.e., a region deforested for intensive 
agriculture or cattle grazing)--is acceptable.  He would like 
to look at possibilities for "zoning" in the Amazon that 
would allow for both preservation and a variety of economic 
activities.  The Ambassador cautioned that U.S. involvement 
in the Amazon remains a sensitive issue in Brazil, which 
Unger said he understood. 
 
The Big Picture 
--------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) In the January 14 meeting, Unger told the Ambassador 
that he is most interested in achieving a "methodological" 
advance with regard to U.S.-Brazil cooperation.  He refers to 
these initiatives as "bi-national" because he wants to move 
away from the traditional idea of assistance, which he sees 
as unacceptable, toward a more collaborative effort between 
the United States and Brazil as equal partners.  Ideally, he 
 
BRASILIA 00000124  003 OF 004 
 
 
would like to see collaboration on three levels.  As a first 
tier of collaboration, he would like to see a political 
initiative among willing countries in the hemisphere, formed 
on the basis of a bilateral partnership between the United 
States and Brazil, aimed at expanding educational and 
economic opportunities in the region.  He said that he has 
personally discussed such an idea with Mexican President 
Calderon, and he believes that both Mexico and Brazil would 
be willing to join in such an initiative.  Although he 
recognizes it is unconventional coming at the end of an 
American administration, he believes the United States should 
propose such an initiative as a long-term, "national" program 
for the hemisphere. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Under this broad framework, he sees the education, 
small business, and environmental collaboration as a 
second-tier, operational set of collaborative efforts aimed 
at developing new solutions to common problems, while the 
defense collaboration (which he sees as having substantial 
political limitations) represents third-tier issues, in which 
our joint efforts will be determined by the existence of 
practical opportunities.  Unger promised to flesh out his 
idea for a broader initiative in a letter to President Bush. 
 
¶11. (C) The Ambassador welcomed Unger's desire to cooperate 
with the United States more closely, noting that the rapport 
between our two presidents has been the key to recent 
advances in our bilateral relationship, such as the CEO forum 
and biofuels cooperation, and will be central to making 
additional advances of the type that Unger was describing. 
The Ambassador said he would like to ensure that Unger's 
upcoming visit to the United States with Defense Minister 
Jobim (currently scheduled for mid-March) is as successful as 
possible.  He proposed working to arrange a visit by a senior 
DOD official to discuss the defense issues prior to the 
Washington trip, looking into more focused meetings for Unger 
prior to the joint meetings he and Jobim would attend in 
Washington, and arranging a visit to Washington by one of 
Unger's senior staffers to set up meetings on the education, 
small business, and environment fronts.  Unger agreed that 
these would be useful. 
 
¶12. (C) Comment:  With most of his adult life spent in the 
United States, Unger is a sympathetic presence at the senior 
levels of the GOB, one who understands the United States 
well, even if he will not always see eye to eye with U.S. 
policy--he has expressed concern about one of our key 
initiatives, the Defense Cooperation Agreement, for example 
(reftel).  Moreover, it remains unclear how much weight 
Unger's views carry in the GOB. but he appears to have the 
support of President Lula, works closely with Defense 
Minister Jobim, and seems to have established good working 
relationships with other key ministries.  But his position 
and actions continue to create controversy.  Although the 
environment minister told the press she had no problem 
working with Unger, she did not accompany him on a recent 
trip to the Amazon to talk about how best to manage its 
resources.  Both his 35-member delegation and his proposal 
for an aqueduct to take water to other areas of Brazil were 
severely criticized in the press (along with his Boston 
accent when speaking Portuguese and his attentiveness to the 
trappings of ministerial rank).  Unger seems unphased by the 
criticism, insisting that his job is to stir debate by 
searching for and putting out for discussion different 
solutions to Brazil's problems.  End comment. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Biographical Note: Roberto Mangabeira Unger was 
born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, the son of an American father 
and a Brazilian mother.  As a child, he moved to the United 
States with his family, where he lived until age 11.  (Unger 
told the Ambassador that, at the age of ten, while living in 
New York, he wrote a letter to President Eisenhower 
critiquing his now famous "military/industrial complex" 
speech.  Unger received a personal return letter from 
Eisenhower responding in detail to his critique.)  Unger 
attended university in Brazil and returned to the United 
States to attend Harvard Law School during the dark days of 
the military dictatorship in Brazil.  He joined the faculty 
in 1970, becoming one of the youngest faculty members ever to 
receive tenure at Harvard in 1976.  In the same year, Unger 
won a Guggenheim Fellowship.  He was appointed the Roscoe 
Pound Professor of Law in 2000, and elected to the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.  Unger became part of 
the movement known as Critical Studies in Law.  His research 
interests are legal, political, and social theory.  He is the 
author of 17 books.  In 2007, Unger published two books in 
 
BRASILIA 00000124  004 OF 004 
 
 
the United States: "The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound," 
and "Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and 
the Method of Economics."  Unger has remained connected to 
Brazil, where he was a founder of the Brazilian Republican 
Party (PRB) and put himself up as a possible presidential 
candidate in 2005 for two small parties, first the Democratic 
Labor Party (PDT) and then the Humanist Solidarity Party 
(PHS).  Unger's appointment to a ministerial post in the Lula 
administration in July 2007 came as something of a surprise 
given that, in a 2005 newspaper article, he was quoted 
describing Lula's government as "the most corrupt in Brazil's 
history"--a statement that continues to be cited in every 
press article written about him--and calling for Lula's 
impeachment.  He returns to Cambridge once a month to visit 
wife and four children.  Unger speaks fluent, unaccented 
English. 
 
SOBEL