Mr Duhalde, the incumbent president, had been turned down by three other potential nominees from the ranks of Peronism, Argentina's hegemonic political movement.
Whether regional currency unions are co-operative (as in Europe) or hegemonic (as they would most likely be in the Americas), they raise tough questions of sovereignty and regulation.
But he never answers, or even attempts to answer, the question that most obviously arises from his analysis: how would the United States make peace with with a deliberately hegemonic Russian foreign policy?