To watch over its 16,800 kilometers of borders and equip its 360,000 soldiers, the Brazilian “giant” devotes only 1.5% of its GDP to its defense – against 2.1% on average globally. And yet, the military has been setting the pace for the country for over a century. "The military has always wanted to meddle in politics and govern. After the dictatorship, his presence in public life was just more discreet ”said Joao Roberto Martins Filho, a military expert and teacher at the Federal University of Sao Carlos.
On November 15, 1889, it was she who overthrew an empire out of breath and proclaimed the republic, giving the country its first president, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca. Brazil has been ruled by ten military presidents for thirty-seven years – more than a quarter of its modern history. Captain Jair Bolsonaro is anything but an exception.
At the end of the XIXe century theExercito brasileiro is an army with a progressive tendency, influenced by France and the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte. In power, it decrees the separation between the Churches and the State, creates the first ministry of the instruction and proclaims the new national currency Ordem e progresso ("Order and progress").
"Knight of Hope"
The highly politicized barracks are the scene of feverish debates and incessant revolts, often to demand better wages. And sometimes in the name of leftist ideals, like, in the 1920s, the movement of tenentismo (of tenente, "Lieutenant") led by Captain Luis Carlos Prestes, " knight of hope "Says Brazilian writer Jorge Amado. At the head of a "red" column of hundreds of mutineer soldiers, he traveled more than 25,000 kilometers on a "long march" through Brazil, from 1925 to 1927, trying to raise the population in its path.
It will take decades to professionalize this turbulent troop. In this regard, the French military mission in Brazil, led by General Gamelin at the end of the First World War, was decisive: reinforced discipline, centralization of command, advanced training, development of essential armaments industries … " The new concept of defense encompassed all relevant aspects of national life ", underlines the historian José Murilo de Carvalho in his reference work Forças armadas e politica no Brasil (“Armed forces and politics in Brazil”, Todavia, 2019, untranslated). Consecration arrived during the Second World War. Over 25,000 pracinhas ("Small troops"), were sent to the front alongside the Allies and won several notable victories in the Italian Apennines against Nazi Germany.
