The process of modernising, or aggiornamento of Brazil’s Defence organisation began in 1999 with the creation of a Ministry of Defence during the presidency of Mr Fernando Enrique Cardoso, the predecessor of Mr. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. It received a major new impetus beginning in 2007 when this enormous ministerial portfolio was taken in hand by Mr. Nelson Jobim.[1]

Nonetheless, among the question marks surrounding Mme Rousseff’s forthcoming assumption of responsibility for the future of Brazil there are some relating to this sphere of activity. Will Dilma Rousseff continue the momentum provided by Lula da Silva during his second term in the presidency? Or will she decide to make a pause in her predecessor’s remodeling of defence and give absolute priority to domestic economic and social issues?

Observers who are interested in the future prospects of Defence management in Brazil may be allowed to have their doubts notwithstanding the effort made by the outgoing President.

During an interview last April, Mr. Nelson Jobim was asked about possible changes of direction under one or another of the two likely winners of the presidential elections – Mme Rousseff and Mr. Serra. He replied with great care and somewhat enigmatically: ‘I don’t expect any…I maintain we are not talking about the programme of just one administration.  This is a programme of the State.’

And Mr. Jobim insists that he had taken care to meet with the main parties and especially with his former colleagues from the Cardoso presidency before ‘changing the concept to give more muscle to the Ministry of Defence.’

In fact, between the month of December 2008 and the month of August 2010, the President signed two complementary documents drafted by the Ministry of Defence.  One set down the National Defence Strategy while the second defined the legal basis for re-casting the Defence tool.

For a country which is well remembered for its many years under a military regime, which never made the effort to develop a White Book on Defence and which just a few years ago had several military ministries (Army, Air Force, Navy) which were not really under civilian control,  the political achievement made so far has been enormous.

The National Defence Strategy

Decree 6.703/08 on the National Defence Strategy (Estrategia Nacional de Defesa – END) was signed by the President on 18 December 2008.

Prior to the presidency of Mr. Lula da Silva, there was no real precedent for a document of this nature.

However, it was generated as an incomplete and late response to instructions given by the President already during his first term in office (2003 – 2006) following an initial attempt to prepare such a document by his predecessor:

• In 1996, under the Cardoso presidency, a Document on National Defence Policy (DPDN) was published; it raised the possibility of the Armed Forces’ intervening in matters of domestic security
• In 2003, during his address to Congress, Mr. Lula da Silva said that during the same year a DPDN should be completed. He launched a discussion of strategic questions in the civilian sector and prepared a White Book on Defence under the direction of the Ministry of Defence (created in 1999 by Supplementary Law Nr. 97).
• In 2005, a new version of the DPDN appeared which defined the dissuasive defence  posture and recommended the search for peaceful solution to disputes but did not eliminate explicitly the possibility of using the armed forces against a domestic threat.
• In 2007, the President publicly invited the Minister of Defence to produce in the following year either a new formulation of the Defence policy or a White Book.
• At the end of 2008, in the middle of Lula ‘s second term (2007- 2010), the END document replaced the DPDN, extending its range (and without making reference at all to the White Book envisaged since 2003).

The modalities of developing the END have been the subject of some criticisms made by representatives of ‘civil society’» (members of think-tanks, researchers and academics), who wanted a more open process of deliberation. Nevertheless, by presidential decision, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was brought into the deliberations.

One can imagine that the extension of deadlines initially set by the President has to do with difficulties encountered by a civilian minister in starting to undertake an innovative piece of work with military talking partners who had little familiarity with what could seem to them to be meddling in their backyard.

It appears very likely that it took all the political will of Mr. Lula da Silva, driven by his concern to defend the country’s interests on the international arena, for this document to come into being.

Among the benefits expected at the international level from publication of the END document, one can mention without doubt those linked to:

• the ‘classic’ display of the equivalent of a national White Book as follow-up to the decision to have just one Ministry of Defence;
• a clear statement of intentions regarding projection of force at a time when Brazil wishes to modernise its defence establishment.

This ‘discursive’ harmonisation gives credibility to Brazilian foreign policy, which displays as its main objective the country’s integration into the international community, with highest priority given to its regional environment.  In this regard, one must remember the role of leader which Mr. Lula da Silva assumed in the creation and start-up of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUL)[2] and then in the establishment of its South American Defence Council (CESAD).[3]

The decree on the National Defence Strategy (END) has one ‘other dimension’ lacking in the DPDN: it incorporates aspects which go beyond the strict sphere of responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, namely science and technology, the economy, education, mobilisation…

It is a clearly worded document consisting of two parts. The first is devoted to the ‘systematic formulation’ of the components of the Defence strategy and the second to the presentation of their ‘measures of application.’

From its very first paragraphs, it drives home the fact that ‘the national defence strategy is inseparable from the national development strategy.’

The latter drives the former and the former protects the latter.

If it is well defended, Brazil will be able to say ‘no’ when it so desires and will be able to build its own model of development.

It says it takes into account strategic initiatives to guide policy over the medium and long term and along 3 ‘fundamental vectors’:

• re-organisation of the Armed Forces;
• the restructuring of the defence industry;
• filling personnel needs.

Re-organisation of the Armed Forces in a ‘conjoint’ headquarters staff and three commands (Army, Air Force, Navy) must be based on constitutional provisions: The Minister of Defence exercises over the Armed Forces the powers which the Constitution and the law do not reserve expressly to the President. The Armed Forces report to the constitutionally designated political authorities.

As a peaceful country which wants ‘to grow without dominating others,’ Brazil must have Armed Forces capable of protecting its territory and its air and sea space. It must have a sufficient dissuasion capability to direct against any possible ‘concentration of hostile forces’ on its borders.

Achieving this posture of dissuasion comes from developing its capability of controlling its space, strategic mobility and being present in the most sensitive areas, meaning today the North and the West (prioritising the Amazon region in general) as well as the South Atlantic.

 The document, of course, mentions the capability of participating in peace-keeping and humanitarian operations under the aegis of international institutions.

Restructuring the defence industry must have as its principal aim to establish its autonomy in defence technologies by relying first on the capabilities of the private sector, while the state enterprises see to acquiring the technologies neglected by the private sector due to their being unprofitable.

Filling personnel needs continues to rely on compulsory military service, which is the guaranty of maintaining a capability for mobilisation and an affirmation of ‘the unity of the nation which overcomes the social class divisions.’ A civil service addressing those individuals who are freed from military service will be created ‘in the future’ to meet the same objectives.

It should be noted that the decree on END does not eliminate the possibility that the Armed Forces will be assigned to police missions, though the ‘country will watch to see that this type of mission does not befall it.’  Nevertheless, these missions must be arranged as provided by the Constitution and conducted to successful conclusion in accordance with legislation which will be issued.

In its 2^nd part, the decree sets for the 3 Armed Forces a very clear framework for implementing the defence strategy under the authority of the Ministry.

• Each of the service branches of the Armed Forces must present consolidated plans for raising its might, organisation and deployment for the short term (2014), the medium term (2015/2022) and the long term (2027/2030).
• These plans must incorporate the acquisition – with commercial, industrial and technological compensation – of materiel and major equipment in kind which is well defined for each of the services.[4]
• In the framework of these plans, each service branch of the Armed Forces must take into account a certain number of priorities to arrange the deployment of its resources on the territory.[5]

The document establishes a link between the first assertion on the defence/ development link and the ‘fundamental vectors’ of the END by listing among the ‘guidelines’ the strengthening of 3 sectors – space, cybernetics and nuclear energy – which, ‘by their nature, transcend the distinction between development and defence, between the civilian and the military domain.’

As regards the nuclear sector, the decree mentions Brazil’s commitments arising from its signing the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but affirms ‘the strategic need to develop and master nuclear technology’ in order to guaranty the balance and flexibility of its energy options, not to mention the possibility of completing the project to have a nuclear-powered submarine.

Finally, the promotion of international relations by prioritising cooperation and peace-keeping within the guidelines of the National Defence Strategy.

Thus, the integration of South America will contribute to the defence of Brazil, especially via military cooperation and the integration of the defence industries. The CESAD is assigned a predominant role in the development of these 2 aspects and in the prevention of regional conflicts.

As regards international relations, one can, of course, consider that winning a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is among the undeclared objectives of this effort at presenting a very well prepared defence strategy and projecting might over half a continent.  

The Supplementary Law nr 136 dated 25 August 2010

Straightaway, we see that almost two years passed between the signing of the decree concerning the National Defence Strategy and the signing of this document which converts to law certain of the main directions set down by this decree.

This Supplementary Law largely modifies the LC nr 97 of 1999 already mentioned, which set down ‘the general provisions governing the organisation, the preparation and the use of the Armed Forces,’ created the Conjoint HQ of the Armed Forces and specified the remit of the Ministry of Defence in the context of the age.

The law confirms very precisely the authority of the Minister of Defence over the top military brass and places him in the chain of command. From now on he is in an intermediary position between the very top political power (the President), who decides what action to take, and the Armed Forces, which execute them.

The top military hierarchy includes the three commands of the service branches and the Chief of the Conjoint Staff HQ of the Armed Forces (EMCFA). It constitutes the Military Council of Defence, which is charged with the task of advising the Minister.  The Minister heads up the chain of operational command and has the EMCFA to prepare the engagement of the forces and to advise him on how to conduct inter-service exercises and peace-keeping operations. He nominates to the President candidate generals for appointment to command the Armed Forces and the EMCFA.[6] Once named, these generals go into the reserves if they are active officers.  Meanwhile, the commanders of the Armed Forces submit to the Minister their proposals on promotion of general officers. He chooses his Secretaries of State, who may or may not be military officers. 

The three commanders of the Armed Forces are now in an essentially organic role and keep their responsibility for operational preparations of the formations placed under their authority.

The Minister of Defence is responsible for preparing the White Book of National

Defence, which must deal with matters stipulated in the law.[7]

The publication of the White Book will be the final stage of a process which will begin in 2012 and which will see the successive publication of three documents over a four-year period: Defence Policy, National Strategy and White Book.

The need to monitor sensitive areas of the national space set out in the END document finds expression in the law by the Armed Forces being granted police powers.

In fact, what we have here is an extension to the Navy and the Air Force of a competence already held by the Army.

This competence is exercised:

• in terrestrial border areas, at sea and in inland waters;
• in order to prevent or combat transborder crime or infractions harming the environment;

        by implementing patrols, searches of individuals and vehicles, by arrest in fraganti.

As a follow-on to this Supplementary Law and in the wake of the END document, it was decided:

• to create 2 new secretariats within the Ministry of Defence:

-         the Defence Products secretariat

-         the Personnel, Instruction, Health and Sport secretariat

• to increase by 40% the personnel of the Ministry, where civilians will now become more numerous than military officers.

In addition to these documents

Whereas through the documents and despite a certain ‘dead time’ the process of reforming National Defence is now going well, the handling of concrete questions – first of all, acquisition of  matériel – has gotten off to a late start.

Despite hopes born of promises made by candidate Lula and the political will to reform old erring ways by making an effort to plan acquisitions and steer them via a civilian ministry endowed with all necessary authority, it was necessary to wait for the last two years of the term of the President to record the first concrete expressions.

The Defence budget (1.7% of GDP, 3.2 % of the State budget in 2009) is the biggest of its kind in South America but nearly 80% of it consists of personnel expenses. The services have meanwhile recorded an appreciated improvement in this area since the soldiers’ wages have been revalued during the last term in office of Lula.

In accordance with the policy orientations of the END decree, new equipment has mostly been accompanied by transfer of technology and the most important ones are framed by new partnerships.  

By way of example:

• The strategic partnership with Italy (April 2010) identifies various programmes which are interesting to the 3 services of the Armed Forces and the space domain.
• The agreement on cooperation in defence with Great Britain (September 2010) deals particularly with projects of interest to the Navy.
• The plan for bilateral action (December 2008) which followed from the strategic partnership launched with France in 2006 includes various programmes of  cooperation in Defence (firstly in construction of submarines) and in the domain of space.

Programmes for acquiring equipment presently underway present the following characteristics:

• for the most part they began in 2009;
• the longest ones provide for continuation up to 2021 (classic propulsion type submarines) and 2025 (nuclear powered submarines), though most (including the FX 2 programme to update the Air Force’s fleet of combat aircraft) fall within the short term (2014) as set by the END decree;
• the ‘heavy weights’ in technology (nuclear powered submarine, frigates, combat aircraft, satellites) are under study or awaiting a decision.

The silence of Dilma

Contrary to candidate Lula who, in 2002, opened a dialogue over the questions of defence, candidate Dilma did not touch on this topic during her electoral campaign.

It should be noted that even during the highly publicised debates none of main candidates touched very deeply on the topic of Brazil’s growing role on the international scene and the necessary accompaniment in terms of defence effort. Meanwhile, the media dedicated to defence matters criticised the way their requests for interviews with the candidates, both before and after the second round, remained unanswered.

In contrast with this heavy silence, we remember the energy shown by Mr. Lula da Silva during his first campaign in 2002 to open a dialogue with the Armed Forces by relying on ‘strong’ proposals in the context of the age:

• participation of Congress in the discussions on defence ;
• putting in place budgets suited to the needs (from 1 to 2% of GDP) ;
• strengthening security along the border areas;
• strengthening resources available to intelligence;
• purchase of combat aircraft;
• development of military cooperation within the region;
• increasing salaries;
• gradual elimination of obligatory military service.

It is true that the economic crisis limited the achievement of the ambitions announced and that Congress hardly shows itself to be more interested in deliberations of questions of defence than it did in the past.

Nevertheless, they reappeared during the next campaign of candidate Lula.

Candidate Dilma disappointed the military during her campaign. Thus, contrary to Mr. Serra, she did not appear to give an anticipated conference at the Military Circle. And she made no allusion to the role played by the Army in the works relating to the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC).

Several days before the 2^nd round of presidential elections, Mme Rousseff contented herself with sending a brief ‘message’ of less than one page to the ‘women and men of the Armed Forces.’ In a sort of very condensed cut and paste text drawing on the decree on the National Defence Strategy, she sent out a reminder of the benefits of the revaluation of soldiers’ pay done by the government to which she belonged. Dilma Rousseff said that she would continue along the path laid down by Mr. Lula da Silva.

This near absence of defence questions in the campaign of candidate Dilma Rousseff is also seen in the text of her programme.

Mme Rousseff spent nearly the entire period of the presidential campaign arm in arm with Mr. Lula da Silva and with the sole credo of ‘continuing like Lula’ serving as her government  programme.

Nonetheless, the beginnings of the campaign were marked by a rapprochement between Mme Rousseff and the radical trend within the Workers’ Party (PT), which led the press to run headlines on  Dilma’s programme as ‘to the Left of Lula.’

At the start of July, a government programme which had been improperly submitted by the PT (but which Mme Rousseff had initialed) was withdrawn from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.  It was only on the eve of the second round that there appeared a document entitled ‘The 13 commitments of the programme of Dilma Rousseff offered to Brazilian society.’ This document, which reminds us very much of the structure[8] of the two programmes of the campaign of Mr. Lula da Silva which gave the priority to economic and social matters, is noteworthy for the minimal part devoted to questions of defence.

The 2002 and 2006 programmes of the present President in fact took care, in the first to detail the various objectives and actions envisaged, and in the second, to state the initiatives to take in order to successfully continue the achievements of the first term in office.

By contrast, you have to wait till the very last sentence in the document from Mme Rousseff to find an echo: ‘The consolidation and introduction of the new defence policy, in the terms of the National Strategy approved in 2009 (sic), will be accompanied by the re-equipment of the Armed Forces and by the complete establishment of a Ministry of Defence as initiated by the Lula government.

Just before Mme Rousseff takes power, observers thus have several grounds for questioning the relative importance which the presidency will give to the issues of defence during the four years to come.

It is true that the new President can find several reasons for not getting overly involved in this sphere of activity:

• First of all, the impetus was given by Mr. Lula da Silva and it is now up to the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence to maintain the momentum in keeping with the political choices.
• Moreover, the expectations of the military personnel as regards their remuneration and social protection have been satisfied.
• Finally, as was revealed above, a large number of the programmes and particularly those well under way belong to the short term, i.e., their deadlines come at the end of the term in office of Mme Rousseff (2014).

Considering Mme Rousseff’s commitments from the past and her more radical political sensibilities than those of Mr. Lula da Silva, the influence of the PT in setting priorities will make itself felt more than during the eight years just gone by.

Economic growth will be prioritised in order to make possible an improvement of living standards of the Brazilians, especially those who are the most disadvantaged. The speech Mme Rousseff delivered the day after the announcement of the results of the 2^nd round of elections was very clear: ’the eradication of extreme poverty’ (an expression which was repeated three times) is ‘her fundamental commitment.’ As a counterpoint, she mentioned in just two short phrases ‘the improvement of public safety’ and ‘the struggle against drugs which afflict families.’  There was not a word about defence.

It is true that despite the considerable progress achieved thanks to the initiatives of Mr. Lula da Silva (programme of accelerating growth, the bolsa familia, bolsa escola), the task remains immense if one is to succeed in ‘eradicating’ extreme poverty (some 23% of the population lives under the threshold of poverty), reducing the inequalities of income (1:27), leveling out the regional disparities in terms of social equipment and improving the country’s ranking in human development (70^th)….

Furthermore, unemployment and work in the grey market continue to grow, while narcotics trafficking, already widespread, feeds the growth of crime and violence which defies the ability of the forces of law and order to take the upper hand.

It is thus possible that we will see a slowdown in the pace of equipping the Armed Forces pushed by Mr. Lula da Silva these past few years – at least in the first part of her term in office.

Some delays could in particular concern programmes now being studied or where the foreign partner needed for their realisation has still not been chosen, all the ‘heavy-weight’ programmes whose implementation is today anticipated in the medium term as set down by the decree of the National Defence Strategy.

The first argument – which necessarily will not be explicitly developed by the new government – is that in the regional environment Brazil does not see any immediate threats and its present military strength is unequaled, even if part of its major equipment is technically outdated or non-operational or replaced by assorted used items.

Meanwhile, the justification for prioritising social affairs will not cause a stir a priori in Congress if we look at certain cases over recent decades or rumours which circulated during the campaign which held that if elected Mr. Serra planned to revise certain agreements…and even to freeze the FX 2 programme for purchasing new combat aircraft.

One should recall that even this lead programme was suspended by President da Silva in 2003 for political and cost reasons, then was cancelled in 2004 before being resuscitated in 2008, i.e., in keeping with the development of the National Defence Strategy.

One other major programme – the Barroso corvette for the Navy– experienced similar reverses well before Mr. Da Silva became President. The construction of this boat began in 1994 when Itamar Franco was President, and was completed in 2008 after being re-launched in 2005.

Finally, in a Brazil where democracy is today solidly anchored, the government hardly has reason to fear the Armed Forces. Mme Rousseff herself hailed them in her message to the Forces, speaking of how they had ‘taken root in our consolidated democratic regime.’

On the other hand, it does not appear reasonable to expect that the passing of power from Lula to Dilma will result in these plans for equipment to be abandoned purely and simply. This is so not only because they are part of the labouriously built heritage  passing from master to disciple but also because they contribute to the consolidation of the ambitions of Brazil’s foreign policy. And one must not lose sight of the fact that Mr. da Silva may be tempted to declare his candidacy for the 2014 presidential elections.

The widely awaited decision on implementing the FX 2 programme which was recently promised for this end year period will certainly constitute a good indicator of the importance which the next government attaches to maintaining the process of modernising the staff and resources of Brazil’s Defence establishment.

© ESISC 2010