One thing I am intrigued by is not why China or India or Germany didn't rival the US, those reasons are well known. But Brazil really could have come up as a co

One thing I am intrigued by is not why China or India or Germany didn't rival the US, those reasons are well known. But Brazil really could have come up as a competing power. It achieved independence early, had huge natural resources, roughly the same land area as the US, and generally adopted western culture.