Since in Auchmuty-Whitelocke World (AWW), Argentina and Uruguay went through different experiences than here in our world, the geopolitical order of the world, and especially Latin America, is necessarily different. First of all, in AWW, Argentina and Uruguay have always been very prosperous compared to most other countries around the world since the late 19th century, when wheat and beef started to be exported in large quantities.
As a result, they are both ranked very high among the more-developed countries; they belong to First World organizations like the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Argentina joined the OECD in 1965; Uruguay, in 1967. Brazil and Chile, though not fully First World countries, are also members of the OECD by virtue of opening up trade with Argentina and Uruguay, in much the same way that Mexico and Turkey are OECD members by virtue of being near North America and Europe respectively and being economically linked to them. Chile is now on its way to being a First World country; some international agencies already classify Chile as such.
Since Argentina is among the top ten developed countries in terms of total GDP, it is also a member of the G-8 (or G-9 if Russia is included), and of the G-11 (a supplementary borrowing arrangement among some rich countries). Also, Chile - as well as Argentina, Brazil, and the world's other most powerful economies - is a member of the G-21, which was preceded by the G-23 and the G-33. The Paris Club, a group of creditor countries providing debt services for developing countries, includes Argentina and Uruguay as members. It first met in 1961 to address debt owed by Brazil.
At the same time, the broad coalition of less-developed countries for the UN is called the G-75 (unlike our world’s G-77, which does include Argentina and Uruguay). Brazil and Chile used to be G-75 members, but they dropped out after they joined the OECD in 1995. Chapters of the G-75 are the G-14 and the G-23, which do not include Argentina (unlike in our world, where the G-15 and the G-24 do include Argentina). Another developing-country group, the G-20, does not include Argentina and Uruguay in AWW either (Colombia and Peru are members in AWW but not in our world).
Furthermore, in AWW, the two countries are donors, not recipients, of foreign aid and IMF loans. Argentina and Uruguay both have trade agreements with many countries around the world, and the Southern Common Market free trade agreement (including also Brazil and Paraguay, with Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela being associate members) is more active than in our world.
Both Argentina and Uruguay are members of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OIAS), which is a scientific, educational, and cultural organization serving Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and Equatorial Guinea. (It is an equivalent of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Francophonie, and similar organizations.) At first, after the OIAS was founded in 1949, Argentina and Uruguay were only associate members, but they have been full members since 1979. As for the Latin Union, Argentina and Uruguay have only been observers from the beginning.
Because Argentina and Uruguay are former British colonies, they belong to the Commonwealth of Nations; they can be considered in the “White Commonwealth”, along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Argentina and Uruguay are also members of the Technical Cooperation Programme, which pools together the defence resources of those countries along with those of the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Argentina joined the Technical Cooperation Programme in 1960, and Uruguay in 1965.
Both Argentina and Uruguay belong to the UK-USA Security Agreement, in which those countries along with the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand share intelligence; it came about in the late 1940s. Argentina is responsible for watching over most of South America, the eastern Pacific, and Antarctica, while Uruguay monitors southern and eastern Brazil and most of the South Atlantic. These same seven countries also operate ECHELON, to coordinate signals intelligence gathering.
Moreover, Argentina has been a full member of the ABACA Program, in which the armies of the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia have banded together to standardize military operations, since its beginning in 1947 as the ABAC Armies (Australia joined in 1964). Uruguay was an observer member of ABACA (under Argentina's sponsorship) until it got full membership in 1989. (New Zealand joined in a full way in 2006 after having been an observer since 1965 under Australia's sponsorship.) There are similar programs for these seven countries' navies and air forces.
During the Cold War, in 1949, the Rio Treaty (or Rio Pact) was signed among Latin American nations to prevent the Communists from gaining a stronghold throughout the region. The Rio Treaty led to the formation of the Organization of American States (OAS). Neither country was a member of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, and is still not. Argentina became a major non-NATO ally of the United States in 1989, at the same time as other original members like Australia, Japan, and Israel; Uruguay became a major non-NATO ally in 1998, one year after New Zealand.
Within the system of UN regional blocs, Argentina and Uruguay are full members of the Latin American and Caribbean States Group, though they are observers and electoral members of the Western European and Others Group (WEOG). They are also founding members of JUSCAUANZ (a subset of the WEOG to counter the influence of the European Union), which includes Japan, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other non-EU developed countries, along with Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile.
Buenos Aires has the headquarters of one UN specialized agency – the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It also houses the International Organization for Migration and the South Centre, both intergovernmental organizations. Montevideo has the headquarters of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.
The Canning-Monroe Doctrine has included Britain as well as the United States since 1823 to protect the Americas from continental European interference. This has led to a long-standing alliance between Britain and the US in being Latin America’s guarantors. As a result, the OAS has included, from the start, Britain as an associate member, and some of its former Western Hemisphere colonies, including Canada, Belize, and Guyana, as full members – Canada since 1990 (before that, an associate member), and Belize and Guyana since their independence dates. (The latter three, in our world, joined only circa 1990.) Britain’s heavy involvement in Latin America, particularly South America, has also led to lots of political, military, and economic control; among other things, it has curtailed or shortened wars such as the War of the Pacific.
The international distribution of power for South America even more closely resembles that of East Asia than it does in our world. In other words, just as Japan has fewer people and less land than China but is much more developed and had a head start in modern development, so too Argentina, even in our world, has been more prosperous per capita than Brazil (and the differences are starker in AWW).
In much the same way that Japan has traditionally been the modern-day economic power of East Asia, China the military and population power, and both being political powers, Argentina has traditionally been the economic power of South America, Brazil the population power, and both have been political and military powers. Just like China is overtaking Japan in the balance of power (economic and otherwise) in East Asia, Brazil is likewise outstripping Argentina - in both cases due to rapid economic growth (in China and Brazil). Of course, elsewhere in Asia, India takes some weight off Japan and China; so too, elsewhere in Latin America, Mexico plays a prominent role too, not to slight Argentina and Brazil.
Antarctica is a unique continent in that there are no permanent populations and hence no sovereignty, although there are territorial claims by outside countries. Among the claims is an Argentine claim, some of which overlaps with part of the Chilean one. That claim is administratively part of the Fireland Territory. Unlike in our world, there is no British territorial claim, because the nearby Falkland, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands belong without dispute to Argentina. Furthermore, in AWW, Uruguay as well as Argentina, Chile, and ten other countries was an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, albeit without a claim. The United Kingdom as well as the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have reserved the right to claim territory under the Antarctic Treaty.
When the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) was formed in 1960, Argentina and Uruguay were only associate members. LAFTA initially focused on import-substitution industrialization as a way for Latin America outside those two countries to develop their economies. When LAFTA gave way to the Latin American Integration Association in 1980, Argentina and Uruguay became full members.
In the 1980s, there were bilateral trade agreements between Argentina and Uruguay, Brazil and Uruguay, and Argentina and Brazil. The last one was especially important in that this was aimed at ending rivalries between Argentina and Brazil. These bilateral accords evolved into the Southern Common Market in the early 1990s. In turn, the Southern Common Market and the Andean Community signed a cooperation agreement in 2004 to form the South American Community of Nations, which changed its name in 2007 to the Union of South American Nations. This organization would model itself partly on the European Union.
From the early 2000s, Hugo Chavez (the left-leaning Venezuelan president) did not buy influence in Argentina the way he did in this world, because in AWW, Argentina (along with Uruguay) has been a staunch US ally in the mould of Canada or Australia. This is partially because there was no severe 2001-02 economic crisis in Argentina for the US to alienate the local poor people and to lose their trust. Unlike in our world, Argentina and Uruguay are not members of the regional TV channel, Telesur; these countries have been reluctant at best to join the Bank of the South. (Both of these latter two initiatives were launched by Chavez of Venezuela.) Also, in March 2007, Chavez did not hold a rally in Buenos Aires (instead being in Lima, Peru), and US President Bush visited Argentina as well as Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico.
In 2009, Argentina and Uruguay boycotted the Durban II conference, sponsored by the UN, that was supposed to be about racism but that featured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the anti-Israel dictator of Iran, instead. They withdrew along with the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel - unlike in our world, where Argentina even prepared for the conference along with countries such as Iran, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, and Cuba. A year later, Argentina imposed sanctions on Iran on account of the latter's nuclear program - in the same way that the UN, the US, the European Union, Canada, and Australia did.
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