So, if you are an American with some knowledge on Brazil you surely know the stereotype of Brazil being "Americas little cousin" or stuff like that. Still, Brazil has been critically away from the USA since the cold war and the last war we fought together is WWII.
Basically this isn't due a lack of effort, the Brazilian right wing raison d'etre has been since the 19th century to approach Brazil to the USA. Those efforts have been barred by the populists, the left and also the civil population, with the first example being in 1950 when Brazil was about to join the Korean war under the first democratically elected president Eurico Dutra, but there was a massive wave of protests and he gave up.
I was wondering what could we do to have Brazil to go overboard joining every single US war, from Korea to Vietnam to Long Jump, Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. and also what would be the effects of this.
Something I think it might help is if we strengthen the right and make it more authoritarian after WWII. OTL the last Brazilian intervention happened during the rule of Brazil most iron fisted dictator, Costa e Silva, who authorized Brazilian troops to be deployed in the Dominican Republic in 1968. For that we might need to stamp out the 1945 democratic wave that toppled the new state somehow, and have Dutra as a dictator.
What do you think?
There were sectors of the military against joining the Korean War as well(also, it wasn't unanimity in the 'right wing'; it was something pushed by the sectors of it that felt closer to the USA). And regarding Costa e Silva, he wasn't the one who pushed for joining the Dominican Republic OAS intervention, that was a Castello Branco - the only military regime president to be pro-USA - thing.
(Also, that Juracy Magalhães thing
may have been a 'sauce for the gander is good for the goose' thing with regards to the NPT being pushed by the USA and Brazilian efforts to get a nuclear bomb - if nuclear weapons are good for the USA, they are good for Brazil)
Biggest obstacle is, the Brazilian participation on WWII was what soured people on joining the USA. Brazil felt that it had been poorly rewarded for joining the Allied Powers, especially given what happened in the Dutra Administration, when every effort to secure financial aid was thwarted* - in fact, the Dutra Administration desire for joining in the Korean War(and later, Vargas' tentative proposal for joining in) shouldn't be entirely seen as something done out of ideological affinity with the USA, but as a gambit to get some money which the Brazilian economy was in desperate need of. Joining the US wars became stigmatized as a sucker's game, and it certainly helped in making the Brazilian intelligentsia and political classes mildly anti-US(as said above, even the military regime wasn't too keen on the USA).
So, what can be done to reverse this? Having US aid to Brazil during WWII be greater would help, but not be enough, IMO(as I note in the end of this post). The crucial point should be the post-War Dutra Administration. Do what the US government didn't want to do in @ and spend some money in Brazil. Instead of simply sending a high-level mission(the Abbink Mission) to 'identify bottlenecks and investment possibilities in the Brazilian economy',
act on those and invest in the Brazilian economy(it wouldn't be nearly as much of an effort as Marshall Plan aid, of course). Send more surplus military equipment to get the Brazilian military on your side instead of trying to balance Brazilian and Argentinian military power(something they were doing from late 1943 on). There is also some issue about money owed in regards to what was supplied to the Allies that also had an unfavorable outcome to Brazil, but I don't remember the details well enough to post it here. If the Brazilian government can make a case for participation in the Korean War as
quid pro quo deal that is good for Brazil and a lot of people(this last part is very important), the chances of it passing are much higher.
However, to do this you would probably need to change the minds of a lot of people in the Truman Administration, and the State and Defense Departments in particular. The Truman Administration was indifferent to Brazilian complaints and requests at best, as was the succeeding Eisenhower Administration. The US Government would only be sympathetic to assistance to Brazil(and Latin America) after the Cuban Revolution, when the Kennedy Administration rolled out the Alliance for Progress(IMO, too little and especially too late).
Even if things go entirely right, I do think that Vietnam would be too much for the scenario above. That would take a deal that made Brazil the proxy for the USA in South America it was frequently accused of being, as well as more, much more than what I posited above. US policy didn't go for a single proxy in South America, though, preferring to balance Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
*The US point of view was that Brazil had been adequately rewarded for its participation in WWII and the money was better spent in the frontlines of the USSR containing effort; my view is Brazil earned less than it should have earned, but even what would have been adequate compensation would have been seen by Brazil as too little.
