By Fabio Reis Vianna for The Saker Blog
In 1870, when it was devastated by the war against Prussia, the France of the deposed Emperor Napoleon III would fall into a fratricidal internal division that would take many years to heal.
The painful peace imposed by Bismarck would mark French society in that beginning of the Third Republic, where a country immersed in chaos sought a way out for its own survival.
One of the most shocking scenes of the fall of arm between Republic powers in Brazil was exposed in the first week of August, when Piauí magazine revealed that in a closed meeting with ministers – mostly men in uniform – President Bolsonaro had threatened to intervene militarily in the Supreme Court to, astonishingly, oust his judges.
After a deafening silence from both the Supreme Court and the presidencies of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic, Brazil seems to be getting used to the systemic chaos resulting from the accumulation of crises that have dragged the country and its institutions into the abyss since the Color Revolution of June 2013.
More recently, the apparent gentleman’s agreement staged after the threat of resignation of the minister of economy would give the illusory impression that the incendiary president had finally been domesticated.
It wasn’t long before TV Record – belonging to a billionaire pastor, owner of the evangelical Igreja Universal -, one of the main media supporters of the Bolsonaro government, published in its main TV news an accusation by the dole maker Dario Messer that he was delivering packages of money to the members of the powerful Marinho family, owner of Rede Globo.
One of the supporters of the military regime that took root in the 1964 coup, Rede Globo, the biggest beneficiary of the old regime and more recently, the media arm of the hybrid war and lawfare processes responsible for the overthrow of the Workers’ Party and the arrest of former President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, is today one of the biggest targets of the extreme-right government that has settled in the Planalto Palace.
Something apparently untouchable in recent decades – the intimidating power of Rede Globo hovering over institutions – seems to be breaking down, and with the arrival of the pandemic, internal divisions within the oligarchies are increasingly visible.
The fight within the Federal Prosecutor’s Office – an operational tentacle of the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) since 2014 – is an explicit example of the internal war that broke out during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
Within the Federal Police, this is clearly reflected in the open fight between the political police structure hitherto in the service of the Operation Car Wash, and the current political police structure now in the service of Bolsonaro’s authoritarianism in the persecution of, for example, state governors not aligned with the federal government.
In broader terms, we could interpret this internal war as a reflection of post-Pandemic systemic chaos.
Just as in the Third French Republic, which had been born from the defeat of a war, today’s Brazil, which buries the already old New Republic, has perhaps never been so divided and conflagrated. And just like that France that was entering the then new 19th century, Brazil in this early 21st century has never been in such a vulnerable position.
Following this reasoning, the recent agreement with the most traditional and corrupt oligarchic elites in the National Congress, and the consequent domestication of Bolsonaro, in the long run, would not be sustained by the fact that Brazil and South America today are one of the main battlefields for the global hegemonic dispute between the US and the Eurasian project.
In the wake of the radical changes in the world system that have accelerated with the pandemic, our internal systemic chaos – despite the apparent oligarchic appeasement – will still deepen. And a lot.
The logic of permanent competition in the interstate system was already visible, and has been endorsed by the United States, when it is abandoning its place as the holder of “western ethical values” for good.
On December 18, 2017 – and it is always necessary to remember – when announcing its new national defense strategy, the United States abdicated the benevolent leadership built alongside the institutions of the post-war Liberal Order and launched the “new normal” of the world system, that is, competition is now open and permanent, and the will of the hegemon will be imposed by force. And if necessary through war.
This kind of nationalistic prophylaxis that led Americans to a more aggressive posture in their performance in the world system is explained by the increase and audacity of the competitors who year after year began to question more and more the unipolar paradise that the Americans conquered with the end of the cold war.
And curiously, this permanent competition, which we could also call infinite war, became stronger with the arrival of the new coronavirus pandemic.
According to the analyst of the renowned Russian Think Tank Valdai Club, Dmitry Suslov, the pressure of internal problems on the governments of the United States and China will only increase in the coming years, something that will make their foreign policies even more impulsive.
In other words, the expansionist impulses that had already been afflicted before the crisis, with the pandemic, accelerated; and much because of the internal tensions caused by the social losses resulting from it.
In this sense, the specific case of Brazil is dramatic.
According to economic journalist José Paulo Kpufer , the new Treasury Secretary of the Bolsonario government is already signaling a post-crisis deepening of fiscal austerity, and consequently “unacceptable social losses.
Even so, and strangely, despite all the fiscal tightening proposed for the post-pandemic, the Ministry of Defense announced the expansion of the budget for 2021 from R$6.7 billion to R$9.2 billion, an increase of 37%.
Considering that military escalation accelerated sharply around the world during the pandemic, and not just among the major powers, let us not delude ourselves: the eagerness of our armed forces to turbocharger the defense budget is not far off the curve in this trend.
What makes it all the more worrying in this regard is the disclosure of the new National Defense Plan presented by the Brazilian government.
One passage of the plan suggests that “possible repercussions” of crises in neighboring countries would justify a more robust budget for “projects considered a priority for the military, such as the acquisition of fighter planes, rocket launchers and nuclear-powered submarines.
Reverberating this, according to Agência Estado, “the plan highlights the possibility of tensions and crises on the continent, which may lead Brazil to mobilize efforts to guarantee national interests in the Amazon or even help solve regional problems. South America is no longer considered a conflict-free area”.
Even considering that the South American Amazon is a new hub of the dispute among the great powers for natural resources, it is worrying that our military generates unnecessary distrust and compromises Brazil’s long diplomatic tradition of good relations with its border neighbors.
Not only in Venezuela, but even in Argentina, the alarm has already sounded.
In an interview with an Argentine radio station on August 20, influential Peronist politician Guillermo Moreno pointed to the great disparity between Brazil’s and Argentina’s defense budgets.
Moreno emphasizes with great concern Brazil’s submission to the defense strategy of the United States and the unbelievable historical moment in which Brazil and Argentina, the two natural allies in the region, find themselves diplomatically separated.
However, what causes more astonishment to the Peronist – and certainly to all of us – is the possible loan of 90 billion dollars by the U.S. government so that the Brazilian “industrial-military complex” can modernize.
If we take into account that the U.S. war machine has long since been without a new war to call its own (paradoxically, despite warmongering rhetoric, no new conflict has been initiated in the Trump administration), it is not at all unlikely that in 2021 Venezuela will be the target.
The sudden concern of the Brazilian military to anabolize the war budget leads us to sense the worst-case scenario.
There are countless hotbeds of tension around the globe, starting with the biggest of all: the dispute between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific region, which, like a hurricane eye, ended up widening and reverberating to other regions like the Eastern Mediterranean, the border between Poland and Belarus and, unfortunately, South America.
As the experienced and wise professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, José Luis Fiori, recently recalled: a former U.S. ally named Saddam Hussein, a day celebrated as a great democrat, was conveniently used by Americans in the war against Iran in 1980. It didn’t take many years for the same old democrat to become a dictator, and thus discarded, and his country destroyed.
Let the alert remain for the Brazilian military.
Fabio Reis Vianna, lives in Rio de Janeiro, is a bachelor of laws (LL.B), MA student in International Relations at the University of Évora (Portugal), writer and geopolitical analyst. He currently maintains a column on international politics at the centennial Brazilian newspaper Monitor Mercantil.
I would say that some military adventure is more likely in Latin America than elsewhere, just as the intervention in Panama to oust Noreiga preceded the first Gulf War to intervene against Saddam Hussein and his occupation of Kuwait.
And I agree with the writer of the article, it’s probable that the object of intervention would be Venezuela.
As a brazilian, considering the overall military technology available for our army, it’s almost certain we would suffer a humiliating defeat against Venezuela, who may have the best military in South America
The United States would no doubt try to have some kind of small coalition of Latin American troops but mainly do most of the invading of Venezuela themselves, but logistical basing in Columbia and Brazil, other places. I’m sure they’ve been working out the plans for a while.
The plans have probably been around for a few years, at least since 2017:
“The proximity especially angered the reserve officials. To the small mouth, via email, they made clear the degree of dissatisfaction:” Inviting the US armed forces to do joint exercises with our Armed Forces in the Amazon is like a crime against them. “To teach the enemy how to fight us in the Amazon jungle is high treason.”
https://projetocolabora.com.br/florestas/gringos-de-farda-na-amazonia-amazonlog/
I do not believe in American troops invading southern Venezuela, that is Amazonia, an endless jungle sea. Therefore, the need for Brazilian and Colombian troops. But an amphibious invasion, despite the fact that the Brazilian Marines are very well trained, has only 15,000 men and is subordinate to the Brazilian navy, which suffers severe gaps in its armada. And it is on the Venezuelan coast that there are large cities and political centers, that would be left to the North American.
Good comments, sir. I do not think an invasion by the United States will be easy, nor do I think that the American military thinks it will be easy either. But, it would be easier than starting another war anywhere else, with Iran or somewhere in Eurasia just yet. Venezuela is perceived I think as the weakest link in the chain of resistance, and correctly so. But, it may lead to some bitter surprises for all involved if war is started.
A military invasion of the jungle of “Venezuela” from the south of the colony makes no sense, unless there is the usual & simple plan: to steal as much land as possible. Brazil recently stole a big region, before the AZE (Anglo-Zionist Empire) killed Chávez.
Unfortunately, Brazil has consistently and unashamedly used the military coercion to steal portions of land of weakened hispanic “republics”. Even from the conception of the Portuguese colony, they have been hellbent on eating up as much territory as possible. After the Spanish Empire was ziocouped, the territorial losses have been as big as Europe !!! And the biggest offenders have been the AZE from the north and Brazil from the south.
For us, that is painful and even ridiculous, because we consider Brazil an integral part of our LatinoAmerican culture, so we want complete and fluid integration, not land grabs and evictions.
Another iron in the fire w/o a citizen stimulus check would set off more than a few crazy critters, mostly at night.
I am a little surprised and disappointed, that someone clearly with close ties to the Andean Continent, should refer to it by the title imposed by a conqueror – which named it after themselves.
Why “America”?, when that is, supposedly, the land discovered by Amerigo Vespucci – who did nothing of the kind incidentally.
When I was doing some volunteer Teaching in a school here in Ecuador, i found the students geography sadly lacking. They wanted to know where I came from, naturally. So I started to do a very bad sketch of the worlds continents and nations. America, yes? Solemn, grave faces nodded. Europe, yes? A bit vague here. Panama, yes? More grave nods. Then a sketch and “Andean Continent, yes? ” And 8 faces broke into huge smiles, they clapped and nodded, and laughed.
I was left stunned. I had no idea my attempt to acknowledge their sovereignty and culture would matter so much. Musing on this, walking home, I swore then, I would never refer to this land as anything other than the Andean Continent / Land / nations, ever again.
If you look online at the passport cover of Ecuador, it says ” I says “Comunidad Andina; Ecuador; Passport”
IN other, the Community of Andes.
Columbia just says “Republic Colombia”
Peru says “Comunidad Andina, Republic Peru
Brasil, Republic Brasil, Republic Chili, Republic Argentina.
Not one say “South America” nor “Latin America”
I feel maybe it would be courteous and also a strike for sovereignty away from the Colonialist Empire to the North, if we could all address these people as they clearly would prefer.
Is this supposed to harken back to the Inca empire?
And Uruguay says “Republica Oriental Del Uruguay”. There will never be a mention of the Charruas, regardless whether the majority of Uruguayan’s DNA carries large proportion of indigenous heritage. Thanks to DNA sequencing, we’re finally able to throw the little lie out the window.
oh no, the Brazilian army will be used as back up in case the pay off price to the Colombians is too high or if they decide to pay a double game with the Venezuelans against the Yanquis. Yes, ” help solve regional problems” indeed.
As for Permanent revolution being replaced or upgraded, as some would say, into “Infinite war” , it has always been about who controls the resources of the planet and for what purpose.
Whereas Lenin may be moldering ( albeit slowly) in his above ground grave, Trotsky is rolling mightily is his.
thanks for your article….More, More encore!
Pamela, what would you call the whole long continent which stretches from the Land of Fire near the South Pole right up to the Land of Ice near the North Pole? I call it America North and South. Does Andea refer only to what I call South America or does the Andean mountain ridge extend all the way up the West Coast of the entire continent to include the Rockies? Genuine pedantic interest, no political or cultural bias intended.
What I call that continent I have already said Dr. Maroudas. I call it the Andean Continent, named after the mountain range which runs it’s length, named “Antis” by the original inhabitants from the the same word which was their name for the mineral, Copper, which they mined extensively in these mountains. The range runs from the southern tip to the northern Coast, but not across the Caribbean, which is flat and in places pretty much swamp land.
The Rockies of the North Western Continent, called America by it’s European invaders, starts again as a separate and different mountain range.
It’s been a typical Colonialist arrogance to say to a people, “we conquered you, we own you, and we will name you”. America did this.
They are like Roosevelt, who used the Ecuadorian hat called a toquille, made only here in Ecuador, and a great source of pride and cultural significance , for the workers on the Panama Canal, and then said “this is going to be called a Panama Hat”. Many use that term, insulting the people of Ecuador, because a colonialist told them to.
I dont’. I think it’s being highly contemptuous and disrespectful of a people to use terminology like that. Just as I never, ever refer to the Northern Land Mass by George Orwells racist term, either.
I’d pay 100 to 1 that the increase in the Brazilian military budget will act as the “last military free-buffet opportunity”. I mean, the defence budget will be looted by well-positioned generals and contractors before such a party is over, very likely forever. I doubt that any of those monies will be used to launch actual military operations.
The Brazilian military used to be perceived as elitist albeit holding a nationalist and pro-development mindset, due to the economic outcome of the dictatorship from 1964 to 1985: A country with severe social problems (inequality among them) but also expanding the huge industrial base.
They are rapidly squandering that image of “efficient officials” due to their commitment to the Bolsonaro regime: Their unacceptable management of the health ministry during the pandemics will make them lose social support, and under a post-Bolsoonaro Brazil chances are that their budget will be severely limited, given the economic crises that the next government will face as well as the suspicions that the military is mostly useless to tackle the remain challenges that Brazil faces (unemployment, sanitary conditions, social marginality, narco-violence).
If during the 1950s/1960s the name of the game was “Brasilia” and the growing industrial pole of Sao Paulo, today it’s “Odebrecht”: A large corruption scheme that reflects the abandon of the industrialist spirit of the nation to embrace financial speculation. As in Argentina and other neighbouring countries, local industrial tycoons sell their companies to global groups, investing their money in financial speculation or large rural properties, and sending proceeds to fiscal havens. The military, who played a role in supporting the virtuous industrial regime, today doesn’t play any rule other than to block the return of the PT to power.
As an Argentinian allow me to comment on your article: It is an error to assume that the post-pandemic world will have any continuity to the world we know. We have not seen yet the consequences which will be systemic. The political elites in the US are delusional if they believe they can bully countries like Russia and China which have superior military technology. The US did not win a single war in my life and are still fighting Talibans for over 18 years. Neither Trump nor Biden will save the ’empire’ from falling apart economically and politically. As somebody else said, Russia’s main concern today is possibly the fact that US does not do something which may cause their own suicide and inflict tragedy to the rest of the world.
Enter Brazil: Historically fascists do not know how to govern and will ensure their own defeat. The majority in Brasil is the victim of a small white (alleged christian) elite which is fundamentally racist and amazingly ignorant.
Bolsonaro’s policy on covid 19 is genocidal to the poor and black sectors of the population. The lies created by the US inspired lawfare (no only in Brazil) will not disable a sane opposition for ever. The crisis will eventually generate leaders which will defeat fascism and the US proxies.
Brazil can talk about Venezuela ( so can the puppets of the Lima Group) but nobody will dare acting, since Venezuela is able to defend itself, more so when military giants are quietly supporting her.
The US managed to get Bolivia, but here again, how long will a little fascist clique stay in power, while real people are dying in masse because of genocidal policies.
We can continue this discussion, if you wish, privately.
Un abrazo
Mario Jose Medjeral
You might like to ponder on whether the Military Industrial Complex in the USA actually WANTS to win any wars. If they won them, the troops could go home and less weapons would be used, fewer billions would be spent servicing an overseas military force. It is entirely NOT in the interests of the teat suckers to ever win wars. Merely start them, continue them and never quite win them.
Whilst that is terrible for the US taxpayer, it is absolute heaven for all the Executives, shareholders and other hangers-on to the firms that grow rich in the business of killing people.