Air University Review, July-August 1986
Dr. Armin K. Ludwig
The military assumed command of the Brazilian government in 1964, and, in the ensuing twenty years, it revived the nation’s faltering economy and foreign policy and expanded its military establishment. Theses developments provided alternatives never before available to Brazilian policymakers and created a whole new set of international relationships. The development of a huge economy and a sizable domestic arms industry, the creation of a large and effective military establishment, and the defeat of terrorism in the country brought Brazil a newly achieved power status that not only has had effects on Brazil’s Latin American neighbors and the rest of the Third World but also has produced reactions among the world’s major power blocs.
The term geopolitics is, in some parts of the world, synonymous with geopolitik, the German school of political geography that under General Karl Haushofer rationalized Nazi expansion. It was rooted in the writings of the German geographer, Friedrich Ratzel, who conceived a Darwinian model of an organic state that had to expand or die.1 In Brazil, the subject had no such ominous overtones, and the writings of General Golbery do Couto e Silva offered a blueprint of sorts for geopolitical action.2 His roles as professor at Brazil's National War College and as a member of the military government led to the incorporation of many of his ideas into the country's internal development schemes and foreign policy initiatives. Brazil's geopolitical imperative, he wrote, is the establishment of a strong nation that has, through internal expansion, gained complete control of its own national territory. A corollary is the development of a strong maritime arm to protect the nation's long coastline and to keep open the Atlantic Narrows that give the country access to the United States, Europe, and Africa. (See map.) Brazil must then peacefully project its power on the continent through collaboration with other Latin American nations. Finally, the country must continue to defend Western values, create strong relationships with underdeveloped nations, and develop a geostrategy relatively independent of the two great powers.
The new government’s economic development and geopolitical plans were fueled by growth rates in the gross domestic product that averaged 11.2 percent from 1968 through 1974 and made Brazil’s economy the eighth largest in the world.3 Given the nation’s reliance on foreign sources for more than two-thirds of its petroleum requirements, the price increases of 1973 brought this period of double-digit growth rates to a close. Brazil sought to reduce its vulnerability in this area by domestic changes and by foreign initiatives with geopolitical overtones. It intensified exploration for domestic supplies and substituted alcohol, produced from renewable sugar cane, for gasoline. In the foreign area, the nation sought oil from other Latin American countries, particularly from those contiguous-producing nations over whom Brazil might exercise influence.
Operating in the knowledge that many countries like Brazil have coffee and iron ore to sell but not military arms and recognizing that Third World oil producers want arms without political strings, the government, together with private capital, stimulated development of an armaments industry. This expanding sector of the economy not only supported the Brazilian military and saved billions in foreign exchange but also provided the nation with an income. In 1983, Brazil sold $2.0 billion in arms to foreign customers to become the largest arms supplier in the Third World and the fifth in the world.4
EMBRAER and its wholly owned subsidiary, Neiva, account for nearly all of Brazil's aircraft production. Established in 1969, this typical mixed corporation––51 percent federal and 49 percent private capital––had produced more than 3000 airplanes by 1984.5 More than 400 of these were Bandeirante EMB-110 twin-engine turboprop aircraft that are highly versatile in both their military and commercial configurations. Half of these planes have been sold to operators in twenty-six countries. EMBRAER also produced several hundred Tucano EMB-312 military trainers, popular with air arms in both industrialized and underdeveloped countries. EMBRAER's other models, some of which have been exported, include the Xingu EMB-121 and Brasília EMB-120 twin turboprop transports (the former with reconnaissance capabilities), the Xavante EMB-326GB jet trainer/ground attack craft produced in cooperation with Aermacchi of Italy, the Tangará trainer, and Neiva's Universal trainer.
Another mixed Brazilian corporation produces a variety of armored vehicles, including the Cascavel armored reconnaissance vehicle, the Urutu armored personnel carrier, and the Osório 40-ton main battle tank. The Sucuri tank destroyer and the Jararaca armored jeep are also domestically produced. Most of the Brazilian-made ordnance and naval vessels are destined for the nation’s military; however, as production rises, exports will follow.
Brazilian military hardware is simple, well built, relatively inexpensive, and, having been developed for Brazil’s tough environment, well adapted to Third World conditions. It comes with a minimum of financial red tape and no end-user certificate. Only shipments to Cuba and South America are embargoed. Brazil’s Latin American neighbors, most prominently Venezuela and Paraguay, have purchased small numbers of Bandeirantes. This plane and the Brasília are now in the fleets of two commercial feeder airlines in the United States. The British Royal Air Force bought 150 Tucano trainers. The largest total sales are in North Africa and the Mideast, where, since 1973, Brazil has sold 5000 Urutus and Cascavéis as well as several hundred Bandeirantes.6 Libya is the big purchaser there, and rumors persist that most of the armored vehicles were transshipped to Iran. Meantime, Iraq has taken direct delivery of 600 Brazilian armored vehicles. Prospects for the future appear undiminished. Saudi Arabia seeks to buy 1000 Osório tanks, Turkey wants 100 Tucanos, and the People's Republic of China is negotiating for 3200 armored vehicles and 500 Tucanos.
Brazil has created the largest military force in Latin America. Maintaining it required a 1984 defense budget of $US 1.055 billion, which amounted to about six-tenths of one percent of the gross domestic product that year.7 This amount supported 276,000 military personnel and a considerable array of modern arms and equipment, many of them Brazilian in design and manufacture.
The Regular Army has two primary missions: to defend the country and to maintain internal security. In addition, it is continually involved in civic action projects. Its authorized strength is 183,000 personnel, of whom 138,000 are twelve-month draftees.8 The conscript system works well, discipline is good, and esprit high. Officers constitute 8 percent of the total personnel and are generally well educated. Improvement in leadership capabilities among noncommissioned officers, who comprise approximately 20 percent of Army personnel, is constantly being stressed.
The Army's weaponry is supplied by a large number of Western Countries, and, indeed, this variety of weapons poses some efficiency problems. The Brazilian arms industry supplies an ever-increasing proportion of the armored vehicle requirements. Most of the artillery was purchased from the United States and West Germany, but this expanding arsenal now includes the Cobra antitank missile, a 90-millimeter cannon with various projectiles, and small arms and ammunition that are produced in Brazilian plants in cooperation with European firms.9
Three-quarters of Brazil's Army is located in the central and southern parts of the country. This disposition reflects not only the concentration of Brazil's population but also proximity to Argentina. Argentina is the only Latin American country to rival Brazil. It is also the one which, in 1828 with British help, forced Brazil to give up its occupation of Uruguay so that Uruguay could become an independent buffer state. Not surprisingly, the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul contains nearly 10 percent of all Brazilian Army installations. In the north, the Amazônia Command is small but has special missions and training. It is comprised of eight jungle infantry brigades and battalions. Its frontier commands, some more heavily armed than others, are engaged in civic action programs that include settling pioneers, building roads, and delineating international frontiers. Recently, the Army has requested the establishment of an air arm to meet its operational requirements in the Amazon region. If the proposal is accepted, this air arm will probably be composed of rotary-wing aircraft.10
The second part of the Army's primary mission is to provide internal security. To this end, small units trained in urban guerrilla tactics are attached to regular Army elements. Larger independent units deal with larger-scale threats. In addition, each of the twenty-two states supports a militia that has a strong liaison with the Army. In peacetime, each militia is under control of the state governor. The Army considers these units a reserve force.
The Air Force is comprised of 45,000 personnel and 625 aircraft. Most of these craft are Brazilian-designed and -manufactured, but a sizable number were purchased from the United States. Great Britain, France, and Canada supplied the remainder. The Air Force is divided into five major commands. Thirteen mach 2.2 Mirage III French fighters make up the core of the Air Defense Command. (See Table 1.) Tactical Command's 104 combat aircraft include Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II ground-attack aircraft and Xavante AT-26 ground attack jets. The command's reconnaissance planes are the highly adaptable Bandeirante EMB-110 and the Xavante in reconnaissance configuration. Maritime Command employs the California-made S-2E/A antisubmarine reconnaissance and training aircraft. These two-seat, enclosed-cockpit biplanes are very stable in rough weather. The air search and rescue squadrons utilize the American Hercules Lockheed 130, the Bandeirante 110 and the Bandeirante 111, a bottle-nosed maritime surveillance version of the 110.11
Transport Command's aircraft include Bandeirante 110 and Canadian Buffalo twin turboprop transports, as well as Hercules and British Hawker Siddeley transports, while Training Command's aircraft are nearly all Brazilian-made and include the Xavante AT-26 and the Universal T-25 and Tucano T-27 trainers. Most of the Brazilian Air Force helicopters are U.S.-made Bell craft, but a few are French Pumas. The service has about 200 aircraft on order. Most significant is the AMX, a Mach 0.9 jet fighter/ground support airplane built in Brazil by EMBRAER in collaboration with Aermacchi of Italy.12
The Brazilian naval arm totals 48,000 personnel, of which only 2200 are draftees. The Naval Air Force numbers 600, and the Marine complement has 14,500. Responsible for a 5000-mile coastline and a 200-mile territorial limit, the service concerns itself with keeping both the Atlantic Narrows and the Amazon waterway system open.
The Navy's modern combat fleet is either Brazilian-built or constructed in foreign shipyards to Brazilian specifications. The latter include three British-built Oberon-class submarines, nine corvettes constructed in the Netherlands, and six German-made minesweepers.13 Brazilian shipyards have delivered six frigates and twelve river and light patrol craft. The remaining ships, some of them in reserve, were all built in the 1940s and purchased from foreign navies. Brazil bought the 17,000-ton Colossus-class aircraft carrier, now the Minas Gerais, from Great Britain in 1956. All ten Gearing-Fletcher- and Sumner-class destroyers were purchased from the United States Navy, as were the four Guppy-class submarines. The Navy has on order three submarines. The first is being built in Kiel, West Germany, and the next two will be constructed in Brazil under German supervision.
Government forces during the period of the Economic Miracle were challenged by severe internal disturbances conducted by a small group of terrorists whose aim was not only the overthrow of the military-controlled government but also the destruction of Brazil's Western institutions. Terrorist activities––murder, kidnapping, and bank robbing––focused principally in large urban centers. However, the terrorists did attempt to establish rural bases in Paraná state, at Marabá in the state of Pará, and at Xambioá in the state of Goiás, on the eastern fringe of the Amazon Basin. (The last two bases were located to take advantage of the new highway system in the area and growing tensions over newly opened lands.) All of these rural bases were quickly destroyed by government forces, who handled themselves well. Nevertheless, the specter of guerrillas in the vastness of the Amazon stimulated implementation of General Golbery's principle of national territorial control through internal expansion.
In 1966, President Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco pushed Operation Amazónia through Brazil's Congress. Project planners saw the Amazon's development as a grand patriotic endeavor that would address what Mahar calls the geopolitical imperative of human occupation.14 The frontier cities of Porto Velho and Boa Vista (in the state of Rondônia and the territory of Roraima, respectively) and the metropolis of Manaus became "growth poles" where immigrants, enticed by planned developments and financial incentives, were to create stable and self-sustaining settlements. President Medici's National Integration Plan implemented the Amazon highway system and facilitated land acquisition in the region.
By 1980, these programs had begun to bear fruit. Amazônia had registered a 76 percent increase in population during the decade since 1970. The new state of Rondônia and the territory of Roraima increased 103 and 749 percent, respectively. Manaus more than doubled in size to 635,000 inhabitants.15 Nevertheless, this huge area, two-thirds the size of the contiguous United States, was still home to fewer than six and one-half million people. Brazil, however, had made clear its intentions regarding the region, and its neighbors began responding to Brazilian initiatives.
In 1978, the Brazilian-proposed Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Tratado de Cooperacão Amazônica) was signed by Brazil and seven of its neighbor states.16 It guaranteed freedom of navigation on the Amazon River system and committed the eight countries to cooperate in building roads to link the Amazon River mouth in Brazil with points in their territories. Within these signatory nations, the Amazon is a frontier area undergoing incipient exploitation and occupancy. Much of the oil in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia is located on the Amazon-facing flanks of the Andes Mountains; the new Brazilian highway network will offer access to Brazilian markets and transshipment ports for oil and other commodities when the highway links are completed. Bolivia's oil-producing province of Santa Cruz, where Ernesto "Ché" Guevara's group was destroyed in 1967, is a particular target for Brazil. Golbery views this area as the "heartland" of Latin America, the "continental weld," as he calls it, over which Brazil must exercise as much control as possible.17 All seven nations that agreed with Brazil about developing transportation links in the Amazon region have been concerned about Brazil's physical, cultural, and economic encroachment of their frontiers.
Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina share common borders with Brazil and the waters of the long-disputed Paraná-Rio de la Plata river systems, as well. The development of these waters under Brazilian initiative has been the capstone of a rapprochement among them. Uruguay and Paraguay are virtual client states of Brazil.18 The latter joined in the development of Itaipu, the largest hydroelectric complex in the world when it was completed in 1982. Paraguay's institutions, however, were simply unable to sustain any long-term growth based on the Itaipu stimulus. Its economy is in shambles and political instability threatens–– scarcely the conditions Brazil hoped to create on its borders when it proposed the massive project.19
Brazil and Argentina have been at odds for centuries. Argentina expected to lead in Latin America, resisted U.S. interests at home, and resented them in Brazil. In World War II, Brazil not only declared war on the Axis powers but also sent the First Brazilian Squadron with its P-47s and the Brazilian Expeditionary Forces (FEB) to fight alongside American units in northern Italy. Argentina openly sympathized with the Axis but did declare war in 1945. It was threatened by the strong U.S. arms commitment to Brazil that was intended to supply the FEB and to protect the northeast hump from which American bombers were ferried across the Atlantic Narrows to Africa.
Recently, the two nations' differences have been drawing Brazil and Argentina together. Brazil's tropical crops and iron ore complement Argentina's wheat, creating trade. Cultural differences and sharp currency fluctuations create tourism. Brazil's new less-U.S.-oriented foreign policy has allowed relations to warm. In 1980, the two nations agreed to develop hydropower on the upper Uruguay River, to share peaceful development of nuclear energy, and to prepare to integrate their economies.
Brazil's most exposed frontier is its 5000-mile Atlantic coastline, which, after 1970, has included an additional 200-mile-wide strip of "oceanic territory." The South Atlantic Ocean has not always served Brazil well. It was a route for French and Dutch invasion fleets and, during World War II, was a fruitful hunting ground for German submarines trying to cut Brazil's supply lines to its northern allies. In fact, Brazil perceived the 1500-mile Atlantic Narrows as a possible invasion route if the Nazis gained control of France's fleet and West African colonies. Instead, Brazil turned the Atlantic Narrows to its advantage as the ferrying route. Today, Brazil's modern navy is coastal and antisubmarine in orientation.
As an extension of its eastern flank, Brazil reestablished some of its oldest ties, those to black Africa. By 1985, Brazil was Nigeria's second-largest trading partner, exchanging Brazilian-made Volkswagens and military hardware for oil, and it had also become a major trading partner of Angola.20 Brazil now seeks a special political relationship with Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique. In addition, it has proposed cooperative economic and technical ventures with seven other Central and West African nations. In Islamic Africa and the Mideast, Brazil's primary interests have been in trading arms for oil.
The United States remained Brazil's largest trading partner over the past twenty years, and the two nations continued to sustain a great deal of good will toward one another. The period was marked diplomatically by U.S. benign neglect, coolness, and then warmth again. Brazil's desire to steer a course in world political and economic spheres less attuned to U.S. requirements was abetted by the superpower's attention to Vietnam and the Mideast, as well as the geopolitics of Brazil's distance and isolation. The Nixon administration did not want to rock the Brazilian boat. With the bilateral accords signed during Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's visit to Brasília in 1973, the United States virtually conferred the mantle of Latin American leadership on Brazil as a reflection of realpolitik, or the acceptance of a reality.21 Coolness pervaded Brazil's relations with the Carter administration, which focused on Brazil's human rights record. At this time, Brazil was emerging from a period of terrorist chaos, its basic Western institutions intact and ready for an eventual (1984) return to electoral democracy. The Reagan administration's attempt to help Brazil meet its foreign debts has warmed relations between the two governments.
Brazil's ties to Western Europe continue to be strong and multifaceted. Its economic and cultural links to France and Great Britain in recent history have been as strong as those to Iberia. A steady exchange of commodities, technology, credits, and people takes place with all the other Common Market countries, particularly with West Germany and the Netherlands. The same holds true for Japan, whose emotional ties to Brazil match trade and financial ties. One of Brazil's largest minorities has its roots among the nearly 200,000 Japanese who emigrated to Brazil in the 1920s and 1930s under government-to-government agreements. Brazil is still the Japanese public's first choice as a place to live outside Japan.
Brazil's geopolitical view of the world also includes the Eastern bloc. In 1973, the government established formal diplomatic ties to East Germany. Brazil carries on a small but steady trade with the Soviet Union. Because Brazil is a major world soybean producer, this trade pattern is often punctuated by larger deals of this agricultural commodity for Soviet oil. The People's Republic of China has bought steel and oil exploration skills and technology from Brazil and seeks to sell more goods in Brazil to redress the heavy trade imbalance.
Brazil is not an imperialistic state. Its attempt to occupy the Amazon region is an internal rather than an external geopolitical thrust, the prerequisite for which is a well-developed national core. The policy's most significant result, however, is not likely to be a populated Amazônia but rather a tighter integration of the nation's political and economic core with this weakly developed periphery. The population of the Amazon states today accounts for just 5.3 percent of the national total, a figure only slightly higher than the region's 4.0 percent share in 1808. The early Amazon initiatives, such as the creation of a highway network and growth poles, channel the energy emanating from the core as it grows and articulates. The core's population, industrial and military capacity, sophisticated technology, and decision-making systems overcome the distance to Brazil's borders and the underoccupancy of the land between, This extension of power will deter any large-scale hostile actions by contiguous states or by terrorists in Amazônia. Brazil's internal geopolitical structure today does not resemble that of an expansive United States trying to populate a continent in the nineteenth century. Instead, Brazil resembles Australia, China, Canada, and the Soviet Union (the former two, developing links between their strong cores and dry interiors; the latter two, between their well-established cores and arctic regions).
Brazil is a regional power not only because of its dealings with contiguous states and its development of the huge Amazon region but because its powerful economy allows it to project well beyond its immediate frontiers. Utilizing a vast array of available resources ranging from iron ore to both military and nonmilitary technology and hardware, Brazil is making itself a hemispheric power. Brazil has achieved a considerable degree of independence in its political liaisons. It still cleaves to the West emotionally and in trade matters, but it is relatively free of major U.S. and European constraints. The nation maintains diplomatic or trade relations with nearly every Country in the world that desires them, except Cuba. (Signs point to the possibility that Brazil's relations with Cuba may be restored in the near future.)
There is more than a little irony in the fact that Brazil––whose borders have not been in continual turmoil, whose internal upheavals have usually been bloodless, and whose people do not take easily to organized violence––should find itself one of the largest arms dealers in the world. This circumstance, however, is simply another kind of complementarity, in which resource differences generate trade. Brazil now has for sale commodities generally not available elsewhere without tight ideological or diplomatic strings. One might even make the case that Brazil's traditional role as a "good citizen"of the world is made even easier as the nation's power grows.
Air Force Historical Research Center
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Notes
1. Harm de Blij, Geography: Regions and Concepts, third edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1981), pp. 71-72. Ratzel’s "Laws of Spatial Growth of States" was published in 1896.
2. Golbery do Couto e Silva, Geopolitica do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1967).
3. Werner Baer, The Brazilian Economy, Growth and Development, second edition (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1983), p. 99.
4. New York Times, 9 August 1981, Section IV, p. 3.
5. Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1984-85 (London: Jane’s), p. 10.
6. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 7 December 1985, p. 1218.
7. Air Force, February 1986, p. 96.
8. Ibid.
9. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 16 November 1985, p. 1107.
10. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 9 November 1985, p. 1012.
11. Air Force, February 1986, p. 96.
12. Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1984-1985, p. 10.
13. Jane’s Fighting Ships 1984-1985 (London: Jane’s), pp. 48-59.
14. Dennis J. Mahar, Frontier Development Policy in Brazil: A Study of Amazônia (New York: Praeger, 1979), p. 12.
15. Armin K. Ludwig, Brazil: A Handbook of Historical Statistics (Boston: G.K. Hall and Company, 1985), p. 47.
16. Times (London), 2 July 1978, p. 3.
17. Golbery do Couto e Silva, pp. 88-89.
18. Norman A. Bailey and Ronald M. Schneider, "Brazil’s Foreign Policy: A Case Study in Upward Mobility," Contemporary Politics, Spring 1983, p. 8.
19. New York Times, 14 January 1986, p. 1.
20. Colin Legum’s Third World Reports, CSI Syndication Service, Richmond, Surrey, England, 17 December 1985.
21. Thomas E. Skidmore, "Brazil’s Changing Role in the International System: Implications for U.S. Policy," Brazil in the Seventies, edited by Riordan Roett (Washington: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1976), p. 36.
Contributor
Armin K. Ludwig (Ph.D., University of Illinois, Champaign) is Historian, U.S. Air Force Historical Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Previously he has been a department chairman, senior research associate, consultant, or faculty member at Colgate University, University of Nebraska at Omaha; University of Texas, the Agency for International Development, Ball State University, and City University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as in both the United States and Germany for the Air Force. Dr. Ludwig’s field research in Brazil led to his writing Brazil’s New Agrarian Reform: An Evaluation of Its Property Classification and Tax System (1969) with Harry Taylor; Brazil: A Handbook of Historical Statistics (1985); and other publications.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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