I’m a fan of Ufrgs. It’s no use. With all Fabico’s sculpturing in the 70’s, I met great colleagues who helped broaden my horizons along with some very talented teachers. I admire teachers who were born to be masters, receive evil for what they do, endure spoiled students, but remain focused on content, studying and teaching permanently. I learned a lot in journalism, reading landmark books and revolutionaries.


At Federal, my middle daughter participated in a course in International Relations that, in addition to making me proud, brought me a lot of new information, organizing old concepts. In the chair of Contemporary International Relations, Dr. José Miguel Quedi Martins organized the book “Case Studies in Foreign Policy and Security (PES)”, from the Cadernos ISAPE series. This book is a compilation of students’ reports of this discipline on selected countries.


In the preface, Professor José Miguel writes something that many politicians should read: “A culture of political minority is discriminated against, in which citizenship seems to have lost the notion that rights correspond to responsibilities.” He talks about the importance of the exercise of duty for the common good, leading to political majority, uniting solidarity, entrepreneurship and intellectual autonomy.


Today I will comment on the report of the United States, a country that still dictates the balance of the village. The Yankee theorists think that the world balance must be obtained by: American unipolarity (Wohlforth), bipolarity (Waltz) or multipolarity (Kissinger). I always advocate multipolarity, for what balance is this with the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq? They have not deceived me since Vietnam. I know you must be crazy to destroy Iran.


As the students point out, the US promotes moral wars that stun the opponent uninterruptedly, spreading chaos, managing the situation according to their own interests. Bipolarity with China enslaving, suppressing human rights? (I hope not.) I consider the BRICS, which has a multipolarity burden, an initiative with a chance to thrive. The book quickly parades the history of the United States, putting the country’s tradition in keeping control of other countries, through buckpassing (burden of stabilization of a certain region) or burden-sharing the support of other countries in direct confrontation).


The American duality is expressed by the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and Manifest Destiny (1848). In the first, the goal is self-government, citizenship and leadership by example. In the second, much more dangerous, the important thing is the civilizing domination, leading them to guide the world by its exceptionality. These two currents mingle, interchange and mimic, amidst Democrats and Republicans.


Two other painfully crucial moments for humanity were the Neoliberal movement with Reagan in 1970 and the Neoconservative with Bush in 2000. Since the mortgage crisis in 2007, two new movements have emerged: the Tea Party (preaching the Minimum State, with very low taxes) and Occupy (direct democracy). The two seem to have influenced the recent Brazilian turmoil in 2013.


Even in crisis, the US GDP in 2011 was 14.5 trillion dollars, the largest in the world, living with the largest public debt, the largest oil consumption, the largest infrastructure and the largest transport network. In short, everything bigger. And the future of the United States reserves some surprise? Perhaps. Data: the immigrant population grows more than the native population. The country is the largest exporter of green technology, and in the Obama administration, renewable energy has gone from 7% to 10%, although he said that first comes the economy and then the ecology.


The exceptional fiber optic network in all urban centers of the country transmits data quickly, providing resistance to electromagnetic pulses, coming from even nuclear attacks. This situation allows for an immense reaction capacity after strategic attacks. In my opinion, great news: they are developing the space elevator, idea of ​​the brilliant English Arthur Clarke (1965). This elevator crosses Earth’s orbit and absorbs energy directly from the sun through carbon nanotubes with laser propulsion. Will I be alive to see all this, or will they spend the whole budget on warlike material?