ABSTRACT
As from the 1960s, Brazil’s governments pursued a concerted strategy to establish a domestic arms industry. It had two purposes. First, an indigenous arms industry was seen as essential for national security and to secure Brazil’s ambitions for great power status. Second, the industry was to reduce dependence on United States arms. For a third-world producer and exporter, the industry achieved spectacular success in the 1980s, then experienced an equally dramatic collapse following the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, but is now showing signs of revival.
