Lula announces plan to turn Brazil into new military power

SyS

New Member
[September 08, 2007]
(EFE News Service Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Thursday a new security and national defense strategy aimed at making Brazil a new military power of the 21st century.

In a special ceremony at Planalto palace in Brasilia, Lula signed an executive decree ordering the creation of a group to formulate national defense strategy and gave the relevant Cabinet ministers one year to produce a detailed plan.

The group will have the goal of "resuming the technological development of the armed forces" and charting new defense strategies, Lula said.

The president proposed creating a "program for the accelerated growth" of the military, similar to other previously announced economy-spurring public investment initiatives in the areas of infrastructure, energy, education, urban renewal and social programs.

"It's necessary to restore the power of the armed forces and the technological knowledge we had," Lula said in a speech before the army, navy and air force brass.

"It's time for us to (utilize) our military and civilian intelligence, to think about what we want to be as far as our armed forces, as far as a sovereign nation over the next 10 to 15 years," the president said.

"We can't be subordinate. We have to be bold," he added.

According to Lula, one of the main challenges of this plan will be to link the development of the armed forces with the country's economic and technological development and "have a strategic defense plan, that considers the most varied future scenarios."

"It's an obligation of every country that has responsibility for its own development and its sovereign insertion in the international arena," he said.

Lula said that in the past the armed forces produced technological innovations later used by civilian industry, including aeronautical technology and uranium-enrichment, the latter being the legacy of a nuclear-weapons program begun under the 1964-1985 military regime.
 

contedicavour

New Member
Brazil's governments since the '80s haven't invested enough in defence, that's a fact. Priorities were elsewhere and potential enemies hard to spot.
Now that Brazil has a sound and growing economy and now that it can fund more in defence I'm however sceptical about the efficiency of their extra funding. I would focus on immediate capability gaps (such as the air force that can't patrol such a huge country with only 12 used Mirage 2000s and 3 dozen old F5s...) and on supporting national defence companies with solid export potential (Embraer for instance) instead of restarting complex programmes such as SSNs...
Besides, I would make sure enough reliable hardware is around to calm down the propaganda of Chavez' regime (and of its allies, from Bolivia to Ecuador to Nicaragua to Argentina).

cheers
 
Top