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Exército Brasileiro - Brazilian Army Brigades

On 18 December 2008, President Lula signed the National Defense Strategy, concluding a fifteen month drafting exercise. The document was principally drafted by Minister for Strategic Planning Roberto Mangabeira Unger, and it provides a security policy framework that places defense in the context of the government's broader goal of national development.

According to this Strategy "Although the Army is used in a progressive way in crises and armed conflicts, it must consist of modern means and very well trained troops. The Army will not have a vanguard in itself. The Army, as a whole, would be the vanguard itself. The main practical expression of the concept of the Army as a vanguard is its own reorganization based on a brigade module, which is the basic combat module of the Ground Force. In the current composition of the Army, the Rapid Reaction Strategic Force brigades are those that better express the ideal of flexibility."

The composition model of the Rapid Reaction Strategic Forces does not need or have to be strictly followed, without taking into account the typical operational problems of the different theater of operations. However, all Army brigades should adopt, in principle, the following elements so that the absorption of the concept of flexibility can be generalized:

• Highly motivated and with effective operational training human resources, typical of the Special Operations Brigade, which makes up the strategic reserve of the Army today;
• Communication and monitoring equipments that allow them to network with other Army, Navy and Air Force units and be supplied with information resulting from the land monitoring from air and space;
• Mobility equipments allowing them to move quickly by land, water and air – to and within the theater of operations. By air and water, the mobility would usually proceed through joint operations with the Navy and the Air Force;
• Logistic resources capable of supplying the brigade, even in isolated and inhospitable regions, during several weeks.

The qualification of the brigade module as a vanguard requires a wide spectrum of technological means, from the least sophisticated – such as portable radars and night vision instruments – to the most advanced forms of communication between ground operations and space monitoring.

The knowledge on mobility has impacts on the evolution of armored vehicles, mechanized resources and artillery. One implications of this knowledge is harmonizing protection and movement technical characteristics while designing armored vehicles and mechanized resources. Another implication – in armored vehicles, mechanized resources and artillery – is to prioritize the development of technologies capable of ensuring shot accuracy.

The transformation of the whole Army with vanguard focus, based on the brigade module, would take precedence over the strategy of presence. In the course of this transformation, priority would be given to the equipment based on the completeness and modernization of the operational systems of the brigades, providing them with the capacity to being rapidly present.

The transformation, however, would be compatible with the strategy of presence, especially in the Amazon region due to the obstacles to both movement and force concentration. In all circumstances, the military units deployed at the borders would function as advanced military detachments of surveillance and dissuasion. In the strategic centers of the country – political, industrial, technological and military –, the strategy of presence of the Army would also contribute to the objective of ensuring the antiaircraft defense capacity at both quantity and quality, especially using medium altitude antiaircraft artillery.

The Army would continue to maintain regional and strategic reserves coordinated on standby. The strategic reserves – including parachutists and special operation troops – would be established at the central region of the country, in order to contribute to the capacity of rapidly concentrating forces.

Within the brigade module, monitoring/control and mobility are complemented by measures aiming to ensure the achievement of effective combat power. Some of these are technological measures: the development of weapon and guidance systems to allow shot of accuracy, and the development of the capacity to produce all kinds of non-nuclear ammunitions. Other measures are operational: the consolidation of a repertoire of practices and training activities that provide the Ground Force with knowledge and skills for both conventional and non-conventional combat, in order to make it capable of acting adaptively under the widely varied conditions of the national territory. Other measures – even more important – are educational: a military training that brings together qualification and roughness.