Brazil and it’s Armed Forces: Thinking the Unthinkable
Timidly, a debate about the usefulness of the Armed Forces begins to emerge on Brazilian social networks. The subject is almost a taboo in local politics and something that generates fear and insecurity in the majority of the population because it ends up being associated with a feeling of lack of protection. But the contemporary world situation shows that the function of the military needs to be rethought, at least for an update.
First, the end of the Cold War and the spectre of a new global conflagration, this time atomic, voided most of the justifications for the existence of the arms race and the permanent swelling of military personnel around the globe. The war in Ukraine is, in this context, a commercial venture by the Western military-industrial complex and, at the same time, an attempt by Vladimir Putin to revive Russian nationalism in order to stay in power.
Meanwhile, the world is witnessing the continued growth of organized crime and extreme right-wing militias, using methods and tactics against which the conventional Armed Forces are not prepared to face. And more than that, they end up becoming a hefty financial burden to be subsidized by those who pay taxes, thinking they are paying for their safety. Here in Brazil, taxpayers support 380,000 active military personnel and 460,000 inactive and pensioners, at an annual cost of 86 billion reais ( US$ 16 billion), the highest payroll of the entire federal government and which corresponds to almost 33% of everything the Treasury Nacional pays its employees (1). This is more than spending on personnel in Education (R$64 billion/ US$ 11.8 billion) ) and Health (R$17 billion/ US$ 3.1 billion) together, according to an article published by Edson Rossi, editor of Isto É magazine.
Here, in South America, the certainty has also grown that wars between neighbours are becoming increasingly unlikely and inefficient and usually nourished by old differences inherited from the colonial period, or else, megalomanias of dictators, almost always military, to create international conflicts aiming to solve domestic political dilemmas.
The case of Costa Rica
There is a lot of talk about Costa Rica, the only Latin American country that abolished it’s Army, Navy and Air Force in 1948, as part of an agreement between political factions exhausted from fighting each other, using their own armies. Seventy-five years later, Costa Rica can be proud of having gotten rid of the military dependency syndrome even though it is in a region that in the 1970s was plunged into violent armed conflicts.
But, contrary to what many think, Costa Rica is not an unprotected country. The Armed Forces were replaced by a Fuerza Pública (equivalent to the police force) whose current staff revolves around 15,000 men and women, who make up 0.4% of the total workforce in the country and consume about 0.3% of the Costa Rican GNP (2). In addition to the Fuerza Pública, there are other police units such as traffic agents, municipal police, penitentiary police and an investigation unit (GAO), subordinated to the Judiciary.
Comparing Costa Rica with Brazil in objective terms is nonsense. Brazilian territory is 167 times larger than theirs. Our population is 41 times larger than that of this small Central American country. Our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is 31.1 times higher. But from a population point of view, Costa Ricans feel much safer from external aggressions than we do, and it’s not for lack of rowdy neighbours like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama. Despite these huge disparities, there is something we can learn from the ticos (Costa Ricans’ national nickname)
National security and military corporatism
During the five years, I lived in Costa Rica, I realized that the lack of a regular army needs to be seen from two separate angles: national security and the absence of military corporatism. From the point of view of national security, the country hasn’t become more vulnerable to attacks from neighbours nor has it lost its autonomy. For the population, the presence of the police conveys the same sense of protection that we, for example, have historically nurtured in relation to the Brazilian Armed Forces.
The great and perceptible change that occurred in Costa Rica in relation to the inexistence of an Army, Navy and Air Force, is in the absence of the existing military corporatism in Brazil. There are no generals, admirals and brigadiers who form a uniformed caste that defends its interests with an iron hand, always threatening with the spectre of external aggression and generalized insecurity. Maritime surveillance in Costa Rica, both on the Pacific side and on the Caribbean side, is carried out by naval personnel from the Public Force and there is no Air Force, only government helicopters. The police have not even a shadow of the political muscle enjoyed by the Armed Forces in the rest of Latin America.
In a way, Costa Rica anticipated a solution that is now beginning to get supporters on the continent, given the growing self-centred corporatism of the military in Brazil and much of Latin America. The supposed external threats became simply unthinkable in our case. Only someone out of his, or her, mind could imagine countries like Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and the Guianas invading Brazilian territory with troops, planes and warships. The only country in the region that could be a threat to Brazil is Argentina, but the hypothesis that its army will manage to reach São Paulo is simply unrealistic.
The real war
Delusions aside, on the other hand, we have a real and complex problem along all Brazilian borders, due to the growing presence of organized crime, militias, drug traffickers, miners, deforesters and various sects. As the military is prepared for conventional wars, the fight against mafias ends up not happening due to a lack of adequate training and equipment. The military intervention in Rio de Janeiro to combat militias and drug trafficking, five years ago, was a fiasco in terms of concrete results.
Why do we need supersonic planes when in reality we need helicopters, transport planes and aerial surveillance to fight drug traffickers? What’s the use of a nuclear submarine if what we need are fast boats on the Amazonian rivers and boats specialized in combating predatory fishing and smuggling on our coastline? What is the use of armoured vehicles in large slums that today are falling under the control of militias and criminal mafias? And, above all, it is senseless to own large military barracks that occupy highly valued urban land when what we need are intelligence services to monitor drug traffickers, prospectors and invaders of public and indigenous lands, as well as specialized intelligence installations to fight organized crime.
Reflecting and discussing a reform of our security model is a complex and urgent process because our Armed Forces are increasingly becoming cysts or fiefdoms within our political system. On the other hand, we see a growing politicization in our police forces. If both processes continue at the current pace, we will move towards a model of generalized insecurity both in terms of individual survival and that of the democratic process.
The transformation of military fiefdoms into public security forces could be the starting point for a debate where the press and journalism play an essential role in avoiding ideological polarization.
(1) Details on the Brazilian Transparency Portal
(2) Data from the World Bank and journalist Alessandro Solis. For comparison, the Brazilian military makes up 0.7% of our workforce and Uruguay, 1.3% of total active workers. Uruguay spends 6.6% of its budget on the Armed Forces.
