Brazil in the World: The International Relations of a South American Giant by Sean W. Burges

Author:Sean W. Burges [Burges, Sean W.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-12-07T05:00:00+00:00

Table 7.1 Military expenditure by country as % of GDP, 2000–2014

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 2015, http://milexdata.sipri.org

Table 7.2 Military expenditure by country as % of government spending, 2000–2014

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 2015, http://milexdata.sipri.org

Table 7.3 Percentage of South American military expenditure, 2000–2014

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 2015, http://milexdata.sipri.org

A more interesting story about Brazil’s latent military capacity is the extent to which extensive re-equipping plans for the military have been used to bolster existing national firms and drive technology transfer from more technically advanced nations. Revitalization of the military’s AS365 Panther K2 helicopters resulted in a deal which saw Airbus Helicopter set up a Brazilian subsidiary Helibras in order to not only complete the mechanical work of the upgrade in-country, but also to undertake the various design stages within Brazil. Similar logic underpinned the decision to award Saab a USD 4.5 billion contact to supply a new generation of fighter jets. While Saab likely secured its defeat of Boeing in the decade-long contest for the contract after the US was caught spying on Brazilian government officials (Soto and Winter, 2013), the common element to both bids was the requirement for a high degree of technology transfer and the importance this held for national development plans. Under the terms of the contract Saab will work with Brazilian firm Embraer, the world’s third largest passenger aircraft manufacturer, to develop the first supersonic jet built in Brazil. The resultant technology transfer will add capacity to a company that launched the KC-390 medium-sized twin-engine transport aircraft in 2015 and was already producing and exporting the Super Tucano light fighter plane in addition to a successful range of short- and medium-range passenger jets; by June 2015 Embraer had accumulated a USD 23 billion order backlog in its civil aviation unit alone (Jelmayer, 2015). Similar activities were also taking place on the naval front, most notably the agreement to work with France to develop a fleet of up to 21 submarines by 2047, including six possible nuclear-powered boats (Coelho, 2014), which Naval officers highlighted as one of the most technically advanced industrial undertakings that the military could pursue.

The developmental implications of this approach to kitting out the armed forces are obvious, and parallel the approach to national industrial modernization that partly underpinned the privatization of state firms in the 1990s. Lest there be any doubt, successive national defence strategy documents make the connection between security and development crystal clear. The 2005 National Defense Policy begins by quoting a 1990 United Nations meeting in Tashkent where specialists defined security as meaning that a state is free from the danger of military aggression, political pressure or economic coercion such that it can pursue its own development and progress (Ministério da Defesa, 2005). The 2005 document goes on to note in paragraph 6.9 that ‘development in defense industries, including mastery of dual use technology, is fundamental for having a secure and predictable supply of defense materials and services’. This linkage is bluntly reinforced in the 2008 National Defense Strategy: ‘National defense strategy is inseparable from national development strategy.

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