Foreword

Foreword

Priscila Brandão

Organizer. Departamento de História, UFMG. Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, CEP 31270-901 – Belo Horizonte – MG – Brasil; [e-mail]

Once more visiting cross-disciplinarity, the current Dossier "Civil and Military Relationships and National Security", like the previous Dossier, "History and Intelligence", features themes that have been steadily more and more studied in the country and in Latin America. The importance of research into themes associated with defense, strategic studies and security have been recognized nationally, by means of the Ministry of the Defense, for example, who has been encouraging the debate in the civil society, fostering research by means of announcements and awards and promoting the dialogue with CAPES and CNPq, and internationally with the creation of research institutions such as Red de Seguridad y Defensa de America Latina (RESDAL).

From an analysis of the behavior of military people and the use of violence that goes back to the 1970s, conducted by a small number of researchers, following the example of the pioneer work by Eliézzer Rizzo de Oliveira, these analyses, in 1980 and 1990, took a different approach to civil-military relationships, lending special relevance to works such as those by João Roberto Martins Filho, Jorge Zaverucha, and the trilogy produced by the Centre of Research and Documentation of Fundação Getúlio Vargas – CPDOC/FGV –, under the responsibility of Maria Celina D´Araújo, Celso Castro and Gláucio Ary Dilon Soares. Today, such analyses also discuss the likely use of force and the political use of the armed forces, following the examples of the articles below.

As a whole, work on the concept of national security opens the door to a whole range of possibilities, so, after all, what do we understand for safety? Safety implies a threat or conflict-free situation. In the presence of identifiable threats or conflicts, security, from an institutional point of view of the democracies, is seen as an opportunity for the articulation of institutional mechanisms capable of neutralizing such threats or conflicts, as a means to attain some sort of ordination and ensure the set of guarantees and constitutional rights, as well as ensuring the complete operation of the political institutions.

However, security is interpreted and defended in the democracies as dictatorial regime, as it is associated with internal and external threats and patterns of relationships between the institutions linked to the coercive power and to society.

Security can be associated both with external threats, concerning the very existence of the State, preservation of the territory, survival of the population, etc., and the internal aspects of the society. The more closed-in the regime, the more the government will tend to emphasize internal security and resort to the use of repression policy within its very territory.

During the Latin American dictatorships, the establishment of "national security" set the basis for the unleashing of a series of actions of disrespect to human and individual rights, and this "dammed inheritance" may well disqualify the use of the concept of national security in the solution of conflict in democratic societies. However, Marco Cepik highlights an important issue: although the concept of "national security" lacks legitimacy in a democratic context, it is not feasible to reduce collective security to individual security, which will prevent the concept of national security from being merely discarded. In this sense, National Security entails a relative degree of collective and individual protection. Being safe means living in a State that is at least capable of neutralizing threats by means of negotiation, of obtaining information about capacities and intentions of the interest of adversaries, making use of the resources that are available to it and legitimated by the sovereign and exclusive use of the monopoly of physical force.

Therefore, considering the elasticity and ambiguity of the concept, we have opted for dividing the Dossier in three parts. The three initial chapters (Enrique Padrós, João Roberto Martins Filho, and Suzeley Mathias and Fabiana Andrade) deal with national security by departing from the perspective of violence and the institutional repressive system. The following two chapters, written by Alessandra Carvalho and Maria Celina de Araújo, deal with the theme of national security, whether it is in the times of dictatorship or in the present. The two final chapters emphasize both the civil-military relationships and national security (now departing from a new interpretative logic, no longer associated with DSN) present in every passage, in terms of the opportunities for emloyment and political use of the military people. In this case, the two authors besides taking into account the historical context, make suggestions for the improved use of the armed forces in Latin America.

With more details and opening the proceedings, Enrique Padrós in the text A ditadura civil-militar uruguaia: doutrina e segurança nacional (The civil-military Uruguayan dictatorship: Doctrine and National Security.) For the author, doctrine set the basis for the state’s repressive policy that placed protection of National Security as top priority, the premise which justified and legitimized the dissemination of the so-called State terrorism (TDE - Terrorismo de Estado). The interpretations of the fundamental concepts of the doctrine made it possible for the Uruguayan military people to organize the repressive operation along with the civil society.

João Roberto Martins Filho also develops a discussion on the National Security Doctrine and sets out to identify what different theoretical hues would have oriented the Brazilian repressive policy during the dictatorship. For the author, unlike the premises established by several Brazilian authors and by important Latin-Americanists, that the US supporters would have offered most of the doctrinal orientations of our repressive policy, the French revolutionary war doctrine would have been more important than that of the US, in countries like Brazil, Chile and Argentina. The paper sets out to follow with detail the evolution and installation of this ideal in the core of the Brazilian Armed Forces between 1959 and 1975.

Still studying the repressive policy in the recent Brazilian dictatorship, Suzeley Kallil Mathias and Fabiana de Oliveira Andrade in their text O Serviço de Informações e a cultura do segredo (The Information Services and the culture of secret) revisit the literature related to the creation and development of the Brazilian information services up to the peak of repression, understood here as the first half of the 1970s, the time when the Araguaia Guerilla was dismantled. The authors analyzed the historical context in which the guerrilla was dissolved, departing from the third campaign known as Campanha Marajoara, and analyzed how the Castro’s change of strategy in the inner scope allowed the information community to move in tandem with the hierarchical command, but in this case, in particular, without the knowledge or consent of the regional commanders. They argue that the change in the modus operandi, favored by the easiness to cope with the culture of secret, would have been decisive in allowing the military people to achieve, definitely, their interests.

Approaching the sphere of the relationship between political behavior and national security, Alessandra Carvalho in "Democracia e desenvolvimento" versus "Segurança e desenvolvimento": as eleições de 1974 e a construção de uma ação oposicionista pelo MDB na década de 1970 ("Democracy and development" versus "Security and development": 1974 elections and the MDB construction of an oppositional action in the 1970s) analyses the elaboration of an oppositionist action plan by the party Movimento Democrático Brasileiro(MDB) in the 1970s, having as its inflection point the elections of 1974 for president. The author evaluates how, in order to achieve growth and the projection desired and attain their aims, it was necessary to develop a discourse capable of promoting detachment from the emphasis on the security-development binomial defended by the economic elite and by the military people, orientating the discourse towards aspects related to the strengthening of democratic institutions.

Maria Celina D´Araújo, in turn, in O estável poder de veto Forças Armadas sobre o tema da anistia política no Brasil (The stable military power as veto players in issues related to the political amnesty in Brazil), shows how there is a certain level of continuum in relation to the political power of the Brazilian military people since the dictatorship. In this sense, the author states that the Brazilian military people posses a stable veto player power, which has been incisively applied in relation to the theme Amnesty. This capacity could be the result of the military autonomy before, during and after dictatorship, the permanence of the low levels of respect for the human rights in the Brazilian society, and the lack of interest of the government in general and the Congress in subjects related to the Armed Forces.

Going from politics and national security to themes related to civil-military relationships and national security, David Mares, in his article Por que os latino-americanos continuam a se ameaçar: o uso da força militar nas relações intra latino-americanas (Why Latin Americans continue to threaten each other: the use of military force in Intra-Latin American relations), analyses the recurring presence of the low-level use of military force in tackling the tensions, within the context of Latin American History in the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. Going against the maxim, taken in a simplistic way, that Latin America is a peaceful continent, the author points to the militarization of the Latin American countries and the use of the armed forces not only when tackling inter-regional disputes, but also at an internal level, in the sphere of domestic security. A very important treatment is given to the capacity of and interest of the international organizations responsible for mediating such conflicts. The argument of the author is that, as regards the security architecture of Latin America, there has been a growing incentive for the militarization of actions, which does not lend efficiency to them.

After all, also within the theme of national security and civil-mlitary relationships, David Pion-Berlin, in Cumprimento de missões militares na América Latina (Military Mission Compliance in Latin America), analyzes the correlation of forces and interests between political power and military power in Latin America in the last few years, and he identifies the issues that have, historically, led to the accomplishment or not by the military people of the missions assigned to them. Factors such as nature of the missing, experience, training and compatibility of functions, associated with the moral incentives or non-incentive of their actions have weighed as issues that are fundamental when the military people have to decide whether to accept such tasks or not. Peace preservation actions, civic actions and drug destruction missions have been historically more acceptable than the anti-crime missions or maintenance of public order, with a certain degree of possibility of negotiation when it comes down to anti-insurgence actions.

Thanking each one of the authors for their generous contributions, and certain that with this second Dossiê Vária História 2012 we are contributing to research into issues such as security, defense, intelligence in the country, I invite all of you to enjoy this reading.

1 OLIVEIRA, Eliézzer Rizzo de. Forças Armadas, política e ideologia no Brasil, 1964-1969. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, 1976.

2 MARTINS FILHO, João Roberto. O palácio e a caserna, 1964-1969. São Carlos, SP: Editora da UFSCar, 1995.

3 ZAVERUCHA, Jorge. Rumor de sabres: controle civil ou tutela militar? Estudo comparativo das transições democráticas no Brasil, na Argentina e na Espanha. São Paulo: Ática, 1994.

4 D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina, CASTRO, Celso e SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon. Visões do golpe: a memória militar sobre 1964. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1994; SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon, D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina e CASTRO, Celso. Os anos de chumbo: a memória militar sobre a repressão. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1994; SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon, D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina e CASTRO, Celso. A volta aos quartéis: a memória militar sobre a abertura. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1995.

5 BRANDÃO, Priscila. Serviços secretos e democracia no Cone Sul. Niterói: Editora Impetus, 2010, p.23.

6 CEPIK, Marco. Espionagem e democracia. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2003, p.63.

1

OLIVEIRA, Eliézzer Rizzo de. Forças Armadas, política e ideologia no Brasil, 1964-1969. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, 1976.

2

MARTINS FILHO, João Roberto. O palácio e a caserna, 1964-1969. São Carlos, SP: Editora da UFSCar, 1995.

3

ZAVERUCHA, Jorge. Rumor de sabres: controle civil ou tutela militar? Estudo comparativo das transições democráticas no Brasil, na Argentina e na Espanha. São Paulo: Ática, 1994.

4

D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina, CASTRO, Celso e SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon. Visões do golpe: a memória militar sobre 1964. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1994; SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon, D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina e CASTRO, Celso. Os anos de chumbo: a memória militar sobre a repressão. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1994; SOARES Gláucio Ary Dilon, D´ARAÚJO, Maria Celina e CASTRO, Celso. A volta aos quartéis: a memória militar sobre a abertura. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumara, 1995.

5

BRANDÃO, Priscila. Serviços secretos e democracia no Cone Sul. Niterói: Editora Impetus, 2010, p.23.

6

CEPIK, Marco. Espionagem e democracia. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 2003, p.63.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  07 Feb 2013
• Date of issue
  Dec 2012