The relationship between defence policy, the defence budget, and force structure in contemporary Brazil

The roles and objectives of the Brazilian Armed Forces are strongly related to missions other than external security, despite having abundant natural resources to secure and regional interests that may be affected by great power competition in South America. Given this background, what are Brazil's main challengesregarding the relationship between defence policy, defence budget and force structure? To address this research problem, we explore an analytical approach that connects defence policy to budget execution in the context of civil-military relations in Brazil. The methodological framework of the paper is a qualitative approach, choosing a single case study as its research design. We adopted a broader historical perspective to raise observations to cope with the single-country study's classical limitations. Thus, the paper deals with two levels of analysis: domestic (Ministry of Defence) and international (geopolitical landscape). Based on official documents and budgetary data between 1999 and 2021, we trace the significant consequences of the Brazilian Armed Forces' continuous involvement in internal security issues, such as public security, border security, environmental crimes and migration crises. The paper reveals that Brazil's military spending, characterised by relatively high costs on personnel and low investments, has detrimental effects on defence acquisitions, training, readiness andoperations. Our main argument is that a more active civilian direction and assertive defence policy are fundamental factors to balance the Brazilian Armed Forces personneland investments expenditures

Argument (complex analysis · Competition (biology · Computer security · Context (archaeology · Economics · Geography · Geopolitics · Internal security · Political science · Politics · Rivalry · Security policy · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Law