Observing Brazil's Submarine Construction Issues

This is an interesting side effect of the global economic crisis.

Brazil’s plan to build five submarines in cooperation with France may be jeopardized as the global financial crisis undercuts access to credit, Folha de Sao Paulo said, citing unidentified navy officials.

Brazil is seeking 8.5 billion reais ($3.6 billion) for the project announced last year to build one nuclear-powered and four diesel-powered submarines, the newspaper reported.

It is interesting that Brazil is starting their naval modernization underwater, but not surprising. Brazil is a rising economy, and a potential great power later in this century (so some say). Most people don't know that Brazil in 2008 actually had a larger economy by GDP than Canada, India, Australia, and South Korea... ranking #10 in total GDP globally.

The model of building the submarine forces up first is essentially right out of the playbook of other rising economic powers as they began building naval forces. China and India are both good examples, but even with all of the economic trouble Russia has had since the cold war, Russia never gave up their submarine industry.

The nuclear submarine is being developed primarily for national prestige purposes, although the most cited reason by political officials is to protect offshore oil discoveries. Regardless, Brazil is the only country in the southern hemisphere to be developing a nuclear submarine, and there is a lot of water in the southern hemisphere...

and in the opinion of some, a lot of untapped energy.