Paramilitary: Safe in Brazil

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August 6, 2025: The top one percent of Brazilians have long had problems with personal security. The result has been a rapidly growing security industry to protect the wealthiest one percent. Currently there are over a million people working in this business. Most of them are engaged in protecting the two million wealthiest Brazilians and their families. While the police and military will help out in major emergencies, the government forces spend most of their time training, peacekeeping and dealing with terrorist and gangsters. Drug related crime is a major problem that also impacts the wealthy one percent. These people and their families are always vulnerable to kidnapping for ransom. The annual number of these incidents varies over the decades, but is always a threat. If a few large ransoms are paid, more kidnappers appear to get some of that cash. The growth of the private security industry has kept the kidnapping threat to the wealthiest at bay. The kidnappers now also go after the growing number of mid

Brazil is the largest country in South America, with a population of 213 million and a $2.1 trillion GDP. Out of the 35 nations in the Americas, Brazil is the second largest in population and just about everything else, except for GDP with the second largest GDP belonging to Canada, with $2.5 trillion. Brazil, founded by Portugal in the early 1500’s, gained its independence from Portugal in 1822. At first there was a monarchy, but by 1889 that was replaced by a series of republics that persist into the 21st century.

Brazil has become increasingly influential throughout Latin America and beyond as a military power. Brazil has long possessed the largest armed forces. Brazil was one of the few Latin American countries that sent combat units to fight alongside Allied troops during World War II.

As part of its -great power status in Latin America, Brazil has been strengthening its hold on its borderlands, increasing border posts to secure its very long frontiers and prevent border incursions by foreign military, paramilitary, and guerrilla groups, while reducing smuggling and the drug trade. Brazil has also begun reaching beyond the limits of the Americas. Brazilian economic and military advisors have been active in Portuguese-speaking parts of Africa. The Brazilian Army provided training, in the Amazon, for Angolan troops, who subsequently performed well in operations against separatists in the Cabinda Region back home.

Like all Latin American countries, Brazil is wary of the U.S., but appears to be willing to cooperate on regional security. As the second largest military in the Americas, Brazil is also the eleventh worldwide. Current armed forces strength is about 370,000 and an annual budget of $25 billion. That’s only 1.1 percent of GDP compared to 3.6 percent for the United States.

The Brazilian forces spend most of their time dealing with problems along the country’s nearly 19,000 kilometers of land borders and contributing to international peacekeeping operations.

The Brazilian armed forces are, by Latin American standards, well trained and equipped. Brazil has taken advantage of all the high grade ships and warplanes that became surplus at the end of the Cold War. The Brazilian navy is the only one in South America with an aircraft carrier. Moreover, Brazil produces many of the weapons it uses, and even exports military equipment to other nations. Increasingly, though, the armed forces and police are serving on the borders, trying to control the drug trade and illegal migration.

Brazil has been at war with drug smuggling gangs for decades. These activities take place all over the country, from urban areas to remote jungle airstrips where drug gangs move cocaine out and other contraband into the country. This is literally a war. Aerial reconnaissance has discovered dozens of illegal air strips in remote areas. The military is often called in and uses its propeller-driven aircraft or helicopters to attack these locations.

All that drug money has corrupted government and military personnel and institutions. The gangsters are particularly keen to buy access to national intelligence services. Another target is senior judges. Some will, for a large fee, see that a convicted wealthy drug lord ultimately goes free.

This is a common problem in South America, where most countries have had frequent problems with the military taking over the government, or the national intelligence agency going into business for itself. Even in North America, there have been instances of police and intelligence agency operatives operating on their own. In this part of the world, the government is more concerned with internal enemies, than external ones. So the national intelligence agencies tend to put most of their efforts into domestic, rather than foreign, operations.

In Brazil, military rule is a relative recent memory, having been replaced by elective leaders in 1988. Any hint of generals and spymasters trying to take over again, gets a lot of Brazilians upset. That said, intelligence operatives, both at the national and local level, have often hired themselves out to politicians, often in return for favors. Another client base is criminals at the local level. This has been a perpetual scandal in Brazil. While progress is often made in reducing this corruption, a few years of clean operations eventually gets corrupted again.

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