The Contribution of the Armed Forces to Brazilian Geopolitical Thought in the First Quarter of the 21st Century

Abstract

The renowned Brazilian geopolitical school attributes to the country the vocation to become a great world power with the backing of its Armed Forces. In this context, the objective of this article is to analyze the role played by the Brazilian Armed Forces in the 21st century and their contribution to national geopolitical thought. Methodologically, this is a qualitative research with an explanatory approach, in which data obtained from bibliographic and documentary sources and interviews are triangulated to understand the factors that affect the military's contribution to the five identified axes of the Brazilian geopolitical thought. As a result, it has been verified that the Armed Forces contribute to a great extent to the first axis, which corresponds to the integration, development and protection of the national territory. However, the military plays a more modest role in relation to the other four axes of the geopolitical thought oriented towards external projection. In addition, it has been demonstrated that financial, cultural, geographical, conjunctural and historical aspects explain the accentuated prioritization that the Armed Forces attribute to the axis of the geopolitical thought dedicated to the interior of the national territory.