Aircraft carrier does not hold corrupts
I already wanted to be an Air Force pilot. Since childhood I have been in love with the beautiful Tucanos made in Brazil and as a kid I dreamed of flying over the Amazon rainforest, protecting the national territory and fighting its many villains. Time has passed, and I finally understood that Brazilian villains do not risk aerial combat, they prefer the security of the Congress.
Of course I did not lose my passion for aviation, not even for tanks, camouflage uniforms and night vision equipment, I just stopped associating them with reality. I have found that it all goes well with fiction and electronic games, and not with the peaceful Latin American neighborhood, where even the most insane dictators avoid international conflicts (even if internal conflicts are scabrous).
People like armies, they feel proud to see thousands of soldiers saluting the national flag and marching with their feet perfectly aligned, as if they were paid for just that. One is proud to see the Esquadrilha da Fumaça (Smoke Squadran) representing Brazil well in the world, not only with its perfect acrobatics, but with the expertise of Brazilian aeronautical engineering, represented by the Tucanos. The problem is that all this is expensive.
A single rifle costs thousands of reais and a Super Tucano, around 50 million. With the retirement of the aircraft carrier São Paulo (future museum, which I will definitely visit), we are already talking about the construction of a new one, with an estimated cost between 3 and 5 billion dollars (yes, dollars), close to 36 Swedish Gripen fighters.
Brazil insists on being one of the great nations of the world and therefore invests heavily in Defense. It wants to be recognized as the greatest regional military power and one day to win the dreamed spot at the window, also known as a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. That is the reason for the inexplicable need to buy fighters and build aircraft carriers, not to mention the nuclear submarine, a 50-year-old novel. Mountains of public money that does not even go close to the real problem.
The Ministry of Defense’s budget for 2018 was 100.5 billion of reais. It’s difficult to understand such large values, so compare with the Ministry of Education (110 billion), and the Ministry of Health (130.5 billion). Yes, it’s a lot of money, and there are still 550 million more for the Military Justice alone.
It’s unbelievable, but there are more servants in the Army (400,000) than in Education (375,000), with salaries that can reach 704,000 reais per year. As the Public agency noted in an excellent article, military pensions account for 80% of staff spending, “6% of all federal government expenditure with staff”.
Despite so much money, the great truth is that Brazil is a very small compared to the military might of countries like the USA, China and even Russia. It makes more sense if you ally with these nations and stop burning money with imported obsolete scrap, and invest where so much money is really needed, such as Education, Health and Safety.
As The Economist points out, the Brazilian Army is becoming a common police force, so would not it be better to transfer some of that budget directly to the Public Security, which would hire more police officers and could offer adequate training to the function?
Of course we can not be naive to think that the Army can be dismantled overnight. Many costs now applied in defense would have to be passed on to other ministries, and Brazil could hardly interrupt its relevant military contribution to the UN forces.
I am sure that Brazil is not the only country that needs to reduce its military budget (utopically, all countries would be). An intelligent and elegant solution would come from the union between the South American armies, reducing costs, reaffirming pacifist ideals, expanding democracy and approaching the neighborhood. Thus, we might even dream of the day when the war will be forbidden, and that there will be only one army in the world.
For those still passionate about tanks and fighters, I recommend the electronic games, their wars and virtual deaths.
