Posted on 04/27/2012 6:51:57 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Brazil will boost its military presence in the Amazon region to protect its huge natural resources from any external threat, Defense Minister Celso Amorim told the Senate.
"The commitment to the defense of the Amazon is fundamental. Navy, Air Force, all services will boost their presence in the Amazon in the next few years," he said without giving further details.
Amorim said Brazil did not feel threatened by any neighboring country but added: "We cannot rule out that some power from outside the region" may covet the natural resources of the Amazon, the planet's largest rainforest and its main source of fresh water.
"We are working on a plan to deploy (security) forces and the Amazon plays a very important role. It's the most vulnerable part of our country," Amorim said.
"We have a wealth of resources which can make us the target of adventures," he added.
Amorim said the country's strategic planners were planning to boost "transparent cooperation" with other Amazon countries, referring to plans to set up a security commission with Peru and Colombia.
"We do not feel threatened by any South American countries and we do not want anyone to feel threatened by us. We always want full transparency to avoid suspicions," the minister said.
Brazil, Latin America's largest country and the world's sixth largest economy, shares the sprawling Amazon with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
Brasilia is also boosting its naval power in the South Atlantic with a ambitious submarine program to protect its huge deep-water oil reserves and project its growing influence.
Under the National Defense Strategy unveiled in 2008, the navy was tasked with developing a blue-water force to protect Brazil's huge sub-salt oil reserves, the Amazon river basin and its 7,491 km (4,655 miles) coastline.
The sub-salt oil fields, located off the country's southeast Atlantic coast beneath kilometers of ocean, bedrock and hot sat-beds, could contain more than 100 billion barrels of high-quality recoverable oil, according to official estimates.
The centerpiece of the naval buildup is the ProSub program under which France is to supply four Scorpene-class diesel-electric submarines and help develop the non-nuclear components of Brazil's first nuclear-powered fast attack submarine.
Brazil is moving up in the world very fast. Double digit economic growth. I believe that is faster than China now since I think china has slipped to single digit growth. Seems like someone posted on FR not too long ago that Brasil recently passed up France and Germany and is now number 4 largest economy in the world behind USA, China, and Japan. If so, and they keep on their current trajectory, they will pass up japan in about 5 years, I think.
Uh, when did Brazil last fight a war? Yeah, I know they build turboprop attack aircraft, but I mean seriously, when was the last time they went to war?
Sounds to me that the Secret Service has established a permanent base in Brazil and the government there is out to protect its people.
They were involved in the ‘65 occupation of the Dominican Republic. Aside from that, the last large war they fought in was WW2.
I knew a guy a few years back who was a Portuguese scholar. He was drafted during WW II and his job was liaison with the Brazilian forces fighting with us in Italy.
What the hell is your point? That you are a fool? Economy is more important than military. You can’t have a military without an economy. You can bet your ass in a decade Brazil will have mucho military if their economy keeps on this trajectory.
As the US abandons it’s military might in order to pursue a social welfare fantasy that’ll have us as broke and as impotent as the lotus-eaters of Western Europe, it’s only natural that other nations in this hemisphere start arming themselves to fill the coming vacuum.
I think that for a country to have a viable and effective military is a more subtle matter than simply having an economy. Let’s look at this in reverse (if I might be foolish enough). In 1950, China had no economy to speak of and yet managed to humble the US militarily in Korea. At he same time, France had one of the top five or so economies and yet couldn’t defeat a rag-tag of an army called the Viet Minh.
We do a fair amount of business in Brazil. Our experience has taught us that, while they have a burgeoning economy, they are still very much a third- orld sh!t hole of a country and society.
Yeah, I saw that last night. They haven’t done anything like that in four generations.
A country just doesn’t create a viable military overnight.
There’s a lot more to soldiering than just hardware.
Nothing conventional to my knowledge. However as rapidly as South America is developing in some areas and deteriorating into socialist/communist stagnation in others, they may see one before the end of the century.
There's a lot of undeveloped/underdeveloped land in Brasil in the Amazon basin. The wealth contained in this area, although there is hope to preserve it's natural state, will be a site of tremendous contention between multiple nations over the next century.
Border incursions via proxy groups resulting in conflict happen all of the time. We just don't hear it reported up North. I'm not as familiar with what's happening involving Brasil, but I could see them beginning to be concerned with some of the loose canons down there and taking the proper precautions to slap them back down into the holes they crawled out of.
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