MILITARY, INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, POLITICAL SCANDALS, AND DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL - 1998-2000, THE

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2003 by Zirker, Daniel, Redinger, Matthew

Columnist Luis Fernando Verissimo was more to the point: "almost all of the [scandals] in the Brazilian government are reflections of some fight between big dogs [major economic interests]" (Verissimo, 2000). At the forefront of these struggles appeared to be the neo-liberal process of privatization, the determination of the Lasswellian calculus, "who gets what, when, and how." It will be interesting to observe the new Lula government in this context.

NATIONALISM AND ITS PERCEIVED THREATS: A RAISON D'�TRE FOR AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

Brazilian national security, in its evolving definitions, remains a fundamental concern of the military branches, and military influence extends in this regard to all of the other organs of internal security as well. Conceptually, the understanding of Brazilian national security, even in its varying definitions, has long had coequal domestic and international components. Emerging characteristics of the "New World Order" have contributed to this, including the growing economic disparities and ecological degradation associated with neoliberal industrialization. Domestically, the Landless Movement (MST), organized crime, and even (at times) the environmental movement, and the Workers' Party (PT) have been regarded at the very top of the democratic and military power structures as challenges, if not direct threats, to national security.5 There is continuing evidence, moreover, of the existence of antagonistic military factions organized around contrasting understandings of national security and Brazil's place in the political and economic world communities (Martins Filho & Zirker, 2000).

A crucial political catalyst appears to have had a significant impact upon these concerns. International economic and political pressures in security matters, including apparent pressures by the United States further to unify the hemispheric armies under its aegis (McSherry, 1998:17),6 and a continuing emphasis by the US on military-to-military contacts (McSherry, 1998:17), contrary to the spirit of democratic politics, may have reinforced a growing nationalistic backlash in some countries. Moreover, intense efforts by the US to counter the traffic in illegal narcotics, which has sometimes been linked on Brazil's border with Colombia and with the Colombian leftist revolutionary group, FARC, exacerbated these feelings.7 The US has stressed the participation of Latin American military establishments in drug interdiction, a role generally opposed by senior Brazilian officers and by the first (fired) civilian Minister of Defense of Brazil, �lcio �lvares (Estadode S. Paulo, 8 December 1999).8 Reports of CIA recruitment (in Brazil) of Brazilian mercenaries to fight against FARC may have triggered the strong presidential statement that Brazil would not participate in any kind of intervention in Colombia (Estado de S. Paulo, 9 November 1999).