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Brazil’s military capabilities are growing more potent. So too are other states ofSouth America, including Argentina and Chile, improving their armed forces. Thisproliferation of military power throughout the region tends to offset Brazil’semergence by building a new regional balance of power around military deterrencerather than Brazilian pre-eminence. Greater autonomy of all regional actors tendsto result, which is reinforced by the decline in the traditional U.S. hegemonical (sic)role. 501More than two decades later, Brazil has continued to capitalise on its continentalscale and expansive domestic market to be not only the largest economy by somedistance in Latin America, but also one of the top ten economies worldwide. In2008, Brazil boasted a GDP of USD1.5 trillion. 502 This dwarfed that of itsneighbours (see Table 3 below). However, it is in the diplomatic arena that the mostsignificant shifts in the balance of power have occurred. The primary ‘objective’threats facing Brazil in the security sphere, during Cardoso’s presidency, as in Lula’s,were those posed by transnational movements of people, drugs and small arms andlight weapons. In the meantime, Brazil has also found itself, as a consequence of thePT presidential election victories of 2002 and 2006, at the centre of an ideologicalbattle for the left of regional and hemispheric dimensions. 503The rise of Hugo Chavez’s ambitions for a Bolívarian revolution in Latin Americahas set the Brazilian cat among the populist left pigeons of Venezuela, Bolivia andEcuador. This ‘battle’ acquired further significance with the rising tensions betweenUS-backed Colombia and Venezuela in 2009-10.Thus Cardoso’s approach to foreign policy was clearly more conservative, andrespectful of US hegemony in international affairs. Indeed, the first task ofdiplomacy was seen as being “primarily didactic in nature”, educating national actorsabout globalization and facilitating its acceptance as an international (and domestic)‘reality’. 504 Indeed, Hurrell has suggested that in terms of his view of the impact ofglobalisation, Cardoso should be classed a ‘hyperglobalist’: the pressures on states to501 Ibid., 192.502 World Bank. 2011. World Development Indicators.503 See Sean Burges, “Building a global southern coalition: the competing approaches ofBrazil’s Lula and Venezuela’s Chávez”, Third World Quarterly, 28, Issue 7 (2007).504 Lessa et al., “Politica externa planejada”, 93.206