The Brazilian Armed Forces (Portuguese: Forças Armadas Brasileiras, ) is the unified military organization comprising the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviation), the Brazilian Navy (including the Brazilian Marine Corps and Brazilian Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force.
Brazil's armed forces are the largest in Latin America, with 327,710 active-duty troops and officers. With no serious external or internal threats, the armed forces are searching for a new role. They are expanding their presence in the Amazon under the Northern Corridor (Calha Norte) program. In 1994 Brazilian troops joined United Nations (UN) peacekeeping forces in five countries. Brazilian soldiers have been in Haiti since 2004 leading the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH).
The Brazilian military, especially the army, has become more involved in civic-action programs, education, health care, and constructing roads, bridges, and railroads across the nation. Although the 1988 constitution preserves the external and internal roles of the armed forces, it places the military under presidential authority. Thus, the new charter changed the manner in which the military could exercise its moderating power.
Read more about Brazilian Armed Forces: Organization, Military History of Brazil, Ministry of Defense, Brazilian Army, Brazilian Navy, Brazilian Air Force, Military Industry, Extensive Modernization Program, Earth Observation
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“If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.”
—Sting [Gordon Matthew Sumner] (b. 1951)
“A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner;
Under it wisdom stands, and I alone
Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone
Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost
In the confusion of its night-dark folds,
Can hear the armed man speak.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)