ABSTRACT
In terms of international politics, the region of South America beyond the Circum-Caribbean includes the actions of states located in the Southern Cone, constantly involves Brazil as a key actor, and sometimes draws in Ecuador. Subregional international politics have resulted in strategic components to several local states' foreign policies, and they have developed geopolitical and balance-of-power thinking toward their own region. Although independence came in Spanish South America between 1808-1825, and to Brazil in 1822, the South American subsystem did not emerge as a coherently formed unit in world affairs until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Many of its elements, however, were evident in earlier times. The roots of the subsystem lie in the colonial and immediate post-independence periods, and further in events during the early national experience. After mid-century, the first era of South American international relations was coming to a close and a separate South American subsystem began to take more definite shape.
