The internationalization of parts of the Amazon is one of the biggest strategic concerns of many members of the Armed Forces. The fear is that an indigenous ethnic group, inhabiting the border region, will declare itself an independent nation and become recognized by other countries. By opposing this, Brazil could receive international sanctions and, eventually, even be the target of military action.
But an analysis aligned with the latest concepts of 21st century warfare has identified indigenous peoples not as a military problem, but as a fundamental part of the defense of the Amazon.
Since the rapprochement between Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s, the country’s strategic defense priority has turned to the Amazon. Several military units from the south and southeast were transferred to the jungle region and special platoons were created along the border.
The idea was to prevent two scenarios: the loss of territory to nations or external agents interested in natural resources and the emergence of so-called “black spots”, parts of the country where the State is unable to exercise its authority against drug traffickers, illegal miners, land grabbers, among other criminals.
Brazil has therefore been betting on military deterrence strategies. First, the country tries to equip itself with weapons that make a foreign invasion too costly. In a scenario where the adversary is a major military power, Brazil would wage a war of resistance, guerrilla warfare, as occurred in Vietnam (1955-1975). Here, the idea would be to show the enemy the political costs of entering an “infinite war”.
If the opponent were a neighboring nation, with a military power comparable to that of Brazil, a conventional war would be fought, with artillery, aviation, ships and other heavy weapons.
To prepare for these scenarios, the country maintains the Jungle Warfare Instructional Center (CIGs), a unit that carries out one of the most highly regarded jungle warfare training in the world. The column has already addressed this aspect of the defense of the Amazon.
But to defend the Amazon, it is not enough to flex your muscles. Despite being important, these resources alone would be ineffective if they were disconnected from actions of social and economic inclusion and understanding of the cultures of indigenous and riverside populations, according to more contemporary military analyses.
Especially in a context called “fourth generation warfare”, where non-state actors such as civil agencies and society organizations play an important role in military strategy.
In other words, several military analysts who research the wars of the 21st century no longer consider only the regular armies of the States. They admit in the strategic scenario the actions of guerrillas or rebels, special forces, manipulation of information in the media, support for protesters and NGOs, in addition to cyber, legal and economic actions.
Thus, the defense of the Amazon also needs to be designed in this context. And the indigenous issue, although it still divides opinions in the military, is an element that cannot be left out, according to analysts.
In different parts of the jungle, especially on the borders with Guyana and Bolivia, there are entire indigenous tribes living in Brazilian territory, but who speak their own languages, English or Castilian. There, communication in Portuguese is not possible.
This occurs for several reasons: there are pre-Columbian ethnicities spread across regions that predate the current borders of the countries. At other points, despite being in Brazilian territory, the villages are closer to foreign cities. According to Funai, there are 305 different indigenous ethnicities in the country and 17.5% of the approximately 817,000 Brazilian indigenous people do not speak Portuguese.
A common fear among a large part of the military is that a foreign nation will use NGOs and special forces operators to convince communities with these characteristics to try to separate from Brazil.
To give you an idea, there are tribes in such remote areas in the jungle where only the Armed Forces and agencies like Funasa (National Health Foundation) can reach, but with less than ideal frequency. International NGOs, on the other hand, pay for helicopter flights (which cost more than R$150,000 per trip) to take supplies and supplies to these regions.
An eventual geopolitical adversary of Brazil could also use resources to deepen fractures in society, funding leaders or entities to explore political divergences. The idea would be to intensify disputes that already exist between local actors, such as social movements that defend indigenous causes or environmental conservation, farmers, prospectors and State agents.
However, a scenario like this, of an external attempt at partial or total internationalization of the Amazon, is not an imminent possibility, according to analysts. But it is a hypothesis that cannot be ruled out in the long term if social conditions in the region deteriorate.
Relationship with indigenous peoples
The armed forces are not oblivious to all these factors, but a multidimensional strategy to defend the Amazon has not yet been fully implemented.
At least since mid-2007, Army special forces have been increasing integration with indigenous peoples at the tactical level. The idea is to incorporate “cultural intelligence” into the training of the military, that is, to know the peculiarities of each indigenous community in order to obtain support and multiply forces.
To achieve this goal, the first challenge is to rid the military “of the stereotyped view that characterizes the indigenous as an exotic being, who walks around naked, uses a bow and arrow and lives in the forest”, according to military analyst Alessandro Visacro, author of the books ” Irregular War” and “War in the Information Age” (Editora Contexto).
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“Wearing clothes, watching television, accessing the world wide web, driving a car or even doing military service, as a large number of indigenous youth do in the special border platoons and in the jungle infantry brigades, does not characterize the rupture of the indigenous citizen with their ancestral culture”, wrote Visacro in an article on the subject.
According to him, the effort of the Armed Forces has been to leave behind the idea that the Indian has to be assimilated and integrated (or even left to their own devices in an isolated region) and to develop concepts foreseen in the 1988 Constitution, such as, for example, , cooperation, interaction and respect for multiculturalism in relation to Indians who have already had contact with society.
In other words, the idea is for the State to understand and respect indigenous culture, but at the same time bring sustainable development to their communities. This involves the availability of resources such as electricity, health and education.
Last year, for example, the Army installed more than 600 kilometers of fiber optic cables to bring internet to communities that inhabit the Rio Negro channel for the first time.
In parallel, the military maps reputable NGOs to establish partnerships, increase integration with communities and reduce the ideological distance between activists and the military.
The general idea is that the more indigenous peoples feel supported and an essential part of society, the less chance they have of cooperating with external agents. Not to mention the high value that indigenous people add to the Army by serving in their ranks with knowledge of the jungle and its nuances.
But one of the problems is that at the political and strategic level, the understanding between the State and the indigenous movement still has a long way to go. Land issues and land demarcation pending since the 1988 Constitution are still the subject of debate, for example.
And in parallel, there is still the issue of combating illegal activities in the Amazon, such as prospectors, illegal loggers and land grabbers. One of the main international drug trafficking routes in the country currently passes through the Solimões river channel, already characterizing a “black spot”, a region of the country where the State is unable to exercise its authority.
international legal war
Another possible unconventional threat to the Amazon is that possible international geopolitical rivals try to use the theme of climate change in international forums to advocate for the concept of the “New Antarctica”. That is, creating global governance over the Amazon to prevent countries in the region from exploiting its resources in order to preserve the area for future generations.
At the end of last year, diplomats from Niger and Ireland organized a vote to decide whether international security issues related to climate change should be decided in the UN Security Council. Their focus was the African continent, not Brazil, but Russia vetoed the proposal.
According to Army Colonel Oscar Medeiros Filho, one of the ways that Brazil has to oppose this type of movement is to bet on a partnership with neighboring countries in regional defense and security policies through the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (Otca ). It was created in 1978 by treaty and transformed into an organization in 1995.
“Otca remains the best antidote to curb a kind of ‘internationalization maneuver’, insofar as it reserves exclusive responsibility for the region’s fate to the ‘communal’ countries,” he wrote on the Army’s e-blog.
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