Prepared for what? Brazilian debate on military competence for public security operations

ABSTRACT

The military domestic deployment in operations involving the use of force attracted particular attention in the last decades for challenging the traditional conception of the armed forces as instruments of foreign policy. It led to concerns about the adequacy of military training and equipment to act domestically against nonmilitary actors, which can be divided into three arguments: training adequacy, threat adequacy, and pragmatism. The present paper argues that these perspectives are embedded in contrasting normative conceptions about how the state’s violence is to be organized. In this sense, the technical narrative works as a mechanism of legitimation, through which claimants convey a sense of obviousness about the armed forces’ deployment, framing it as the only course of action available. This argument is developed through the analysis of the public debate on three military operations in Brazil: Operation Rio (1994–1995), Operation Arcanjo (2010–2012), and Operation Rio de Janeiro (2017–2018).

KEYWORDS:

• Armed forces
• security
• Brazil
• blurring

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Bárbara Motta for reading and commenting previous versions of this article. The responsibility for the content is entirely of the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A complete compendium of the primary sources and coded segments is provided as supplemental material.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP (2018/11168-3) and São Paulo State University (UNESP) Pro-Rectory for Research.

Notes on contributors

David P. Succi Junior

David P. Succi Postdoctoral Researcher at the Graduate School of International Relations “San Tiago Dantas” (UNESP/UNICAMP/PUC-SP). Defense and International Security Studies Group (GEDES).