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Brazil has promised a nuclear-powered submarine since the 1980s and, more than four decades later, has yet to deliver, while South Korea, which didn’t even have such a program, has just announced plans to build its own, highlighting how high-tech projects stall here.
There are comparisons that hurt because they reveal a delay that’s hard to explain. Brazil has dreamed of a nuclear submarine since the 1980s, when the program was born with the ambition of placing the country in the select group of nations capable of operating these machines. Four decades later, the submarine still doesn’t sail, and delivery continues to be pushed to the end of the decade or beyond.
On the other side of the world, South Korea, which didn’t even have such a program, has just revealed plans to develop and build its first nuclear-powered submarine. Of course, announcing a plan is not the same as delivering a ready submarine, but the contrast in pace is striking, a country that has dreamed for more than forty years and another that, starting from scratch, already charts a concrete path.
What is Prosub and why it matters
The Brazilian program has a name, Prosub, and was carried out in partnership with France. It has already delivered conventional submarines, powered by diesel and electricity, like the Riachuelo, which represent a real advancement for the Navy. But the heart of the ambition has always been the nuclear-powered submarine, the so-called Álvaro Alberto, precisely the most difficult and the one most delayed. It is this submarine that would give the country the ability to patrol the vast Brazilian coastline for months without surfacing.
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To take down swarms of drones and cheap missiles without spending a fortune on ammunition, Japan tested a 100-kilowatt laser cannon at sea, mounted on a warship.
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After decades of relying on diesel submarines, South Korea unveiled a plan to domestically build its first nuclear-powered submarine, using low-enriched uranium.
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Turkey hit a target using a real warhead and confirmed that its SOM-J cruise missile is ready, another step for the country to become a power that manufactures and exports its own military technology.
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India tested the Agni-5 capable of carrying multiple independent warheads and, in the same round, conducted the first firing of a scramjet engine, joining a group that only the United States, Russia, and China were part of.
I confess it gives a certain pride mixed with frustration to look at Prosub. Pride because Brazil now masters sophisticated technologies in shipbuilding and uranium enrichment, something very few countries have. Frustration because, even with this knowledge, the nuclear submarine remains a postponed promise, hostage to tight budgets, changing priorities, and the brutal complexity of such a project.
It’s worth understanding why Brazil wants this submarine so much. The country has a coastline of over eight thousand kilometers and, spread along it, the so-called Blue Amazon, the vast maritime area that holds the pre-salt oil and much of the national economic wealth. Patrolling all this with conventional submarines, which need to surface from time to time, is almost impossible. Only a nuclear-powered submarine, capable of patrolling for months without surfacing, would give the Navy the silent presence needed to protect this treasure. That’s why the project survives so many delays, because it touches on a strategic interest that the country considers too vital to simply abandon.
Why the nuclear submarine is so difficult
We can’t pretend it’s easy, and it would be unfair to those working on the project. Building a nuclear-powered submarine is one of the most complex engineering feats there is, because it requires miniaturizing a nuclear reactor to fit inside a hull, shielding it, making it operate in absolute silence, and ensuring total safety hundreds of meters deep. It’s like assembling a nuclear power plant inside a tube that needs to hide at the bottom of the sea.
That’s why very few nations in the world master this combination of naval, nuclear, and materials technology. Brazil chose a more autonomous path, developing much of the technology in-house, which is admirable but also slower and prone to setbacks. Each funding delay pushes the schedule years ahead, and the project ends up dragging on for a time that tests anyone’s patience.
The lesson from abroad
The Korean case is not meant to humiliate Brazil but to show what is possible when there is continuity and focus. South Korea has built one of the largest shipbuilding industries on the planet in recent decades and has treated its military priorities with consistency, allowing it to now tackle an ambitious goal with confidence. It’s the kind of trajectory that shows how decisions maintained over time generate real capability.
The contrast suggests that Brazil’s problem may not be talent or knowledge, but continuity. Long-term projects in Brazil suffer from a lack of consistency, changing pace with each change of government and each budget squeeze. Treating the nuclear submarine as a state policy, above mandates, is precisely what’s missing for it to finally move from paper to water.
A four-decade dream still waiting
I imagine how many generations of Brazilian engineers and officers started their careers dreaming of this nuclear submarine and retired without seeing it sail. It’s a project that spans decades, governments, and crises, always promised and never completed, becoming almost a symbol of the country’s difficulty in carrying out large technological projects to the end.
Seeing South Korea announce its plan with such clarity is an uncomfortable but useful reminder that it is possible to get there when there is method and persistence. May the example from abroad serve as encouragement, not lament, for Brazil to finally deliver a dream that has been waiting too long beneath the surface of its own vast seas.
Why is it that Brazil, with so much of its own technology, has still not delivered the nuclear submarine it has promised for forty years?
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