Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 12 - Año: 2018 - Págs.: 299 a 323 305 Luis Manuel Brás Bernardino & Álvaro António Moreira dos Santos The portuguese... supported the construction of the State, essentially in the field of defence, to which we dedicate this academic paper based on the authors’ personal experience at different times in the process. The article focuses on two aspects in relation to Portugal’s participation and that of its Armed Forces in the process of the creation, construction and consolidation of the F-FDTL. Following an initial analysis of Portugal’s support for the construction of the State of East Timor, we will then study its contribution to the construction of the F-FDTL via military cooperation, offering a critical analysis of the process, which represented an innovative challenge for Portugal, one of whose consequences was the rapprochement between Portugal and East Timor and the projection of Portugal glo-bally as a producer of international security. BUILDING THE STATE OF TIMOR: PORTUGUESE SUPPORT International Relations are essentially focused on the study of relations of coopera-tion and conflict between states or other agents of the international system. This chap-ter will attempt to address relations of cooperation between Portugal and East Timor and the intervention of the UN as the organisation responsible for the administration of the Timorese territory between 2000 and 2002, and furthermore to analyse the re-levance of the different social agents in liberal peacebuilding between 2000 and 2014. From Moravcsik’s perspective,18 national and international societies become inter-ested in and can shape state behaviour, tailoring its interests and reflecting it in their foreign policies. States exist in a global anarchic system, acting rationally. First, they opt for different alternatives according to their own identity and motivations, and only later do they interact in the pursuit of common and shared interests. The identity and motivations of individuals determine state preferences. For the former Portuguese Foreign Minister, João de Deus Pinheiro19, foreign policy should always be based upon and mirror domestic politics, in this way generating consensus and being global. This premise constitutes a permanent challenge for states and for political leadership. As we have seen, Portugal and East Timor were linked historically, from the mid- sixteenth century until 197520. In that same year, directly after its declaration of inde-pendence, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia, which annexed its territory, turning it into a province of Jakarta. The FALINTIL, the armed wing of the independence 18 MORAVCSIK, Andrew. «Taking preferences seriously: a Liberal theory of International Politics. International Organization». International Organization, n.º 51, vol. 4 1997, pp. 513–553. Available at <https://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/preferences.pdf> 3 November 2016. 19 PINHEIRO, João Deus. «Grandes eixos da Política Externa no Portugal de Hoje». Comunicação - CDN/88. Oporto 18 February 1988. 20 TIMOR-LESTE. «História». Available at <http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=29&lang=pt> 5 December 2016.
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