There is a famous popular saying in Brazil that goes, “Those who can command; those who have sense follow.” The saying comes from the country’s colonial legacy of bare exercise of hierarchy, which then became Coronelismo, and remains, to this day, in everyday relationships between subjects, including those who occupy high-ranking government positions. Turning things around, a question is posed: when those who have the power to command are also concerned about not being followed, is it worth commanding?
Ana Penido is a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and with the Study Group on International Security and Defence (GEDES–UNICAMP) investigating defence, armed forces, and military professionalization and education.
The first and second Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administrations were equally distant from the barracks. Few changes were proposed. There were actually record-breaking investments in equipment, career appreciation, and maintenance of military autonomy in areas they have historically considered theirs to control. In return, the military kept mostly quiet in the political realm, and there was an overall feeling among the Left that everything was going well inside the barracks.
The relationship with this segment of the population deteriorated more during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, which changed retirement rules, and later during the Dilma Rousseff administration, which created the Truth Commission and eliminated the Institutional Security Office.
The Third Lula Government
The third Lula administration then tried, from the beginning, to return to chapters 1 and 2. Words like peacemaking, or sensitive relations, prevailed. But the government is no longer the same, the military is no longer the same, and neither is the domestic and international situation.
After military officers massively supported the Jair Bolsonaro administration, it was not surprising that antagonistic views would grow between the military and the extremely broad democratic coalition that took office. The presidential transition happened under open or veiled criticism from the barracks, with no social participation whatsoever, despite that being a campaign promise, with the nomination of a Minister of Defense who pleased the Armed Forces and who had actually endorsed the “military family” that was camping outside the barracks, with an Institutional Security Office that replaced the previous minister but kept General Augusto Heleno’s team, with Lula allowing the military to maintain their autonomy and tutelage over broad political spheres, and with the inclusion of the military on the agenda of reindustrialization and environmental protection. That means that, if there is one word that cannot be used to characterize the third Lula administration, its “revanchism”.
Yet the coup attempt on 8 January 2023 dispelled any doubts about the participation of generals and colonels in the plot to support Bolsonaro. While we did not see a full-on military unit rising up, contamination by the far-right segments of the Special Operations command of the Brazilian Army, known as “black kids”, was apparent. The revelations of the Federal Police at the end of 2024 aggravated the situation, revealing that their plans included the assassination of authorities including Lula himself, his vice president, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The government was right in its response to 8 January: it did not issue a decree establishing an operation for the guarantee of law and order, but rather ordered a federal intervention in the Federal District. It chose a civilian official to coordinate the operation, dismissed the Army commander, General Júlio Cesar de Arruda, along with lower-ranking military officers, did not interfere with the agenda of the Judicial branch to hold those charged with undemocratic crimes accountable, and led an institutional reaction by the three branches of the Republic, albeit without people’s participation. Moreover, presidential security responsibilities were handed over to the Federal Police (PF), the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) moved from the Institutional Security Bureau (GSI) to the Office of the Chief of Staff, and relevant decrees on the country’s arms policy were revoked.
The government was wrong, however, to not make more use of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (CPMI) investigating the antidemocratic demonstrations to confront the militant military officers, as it was always guided by a reconciliation strategy; and for damming up policies dedicated to memory, truth, and justice — it did not even commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 coup.
While support for Bolsonaro has weakened, the far right remains well-organized, well-trained, mobilized, funded, and armed.
In the barracks, there was a clear division. On the one hand, generals led by Walter Souza Braga Netto and Augusto Heleno, endorsed by active-duty colonels, sought support from the Army High Command to prevent the elected government from taking office. On the other, high-ranking army generals saw the absence of minimum conditions to successfully stage a coup, like US support, unity among the Brazilian bourgeoisie, and press activism. Faced with the great risk of political failure and the high cost to the institution, they did nothing to suppress the mobilizations in order to increase their bargaining power with the new government.
Concurrently, the Army has been striving to improve its own image, shaken by its support to the Bolsonaro administration and the participation of officers in the 8 January attacks. They are being criticized from the right and the left, whether for supporting the coup plot too much or not supporting it enough. To tackle that, it has invested in the visibility of “subsidiary actions”: strategic public policy work to produce a positive image and feed the slogan “friendly hand,” and executing its public security attributions, feeding its image as a “strong arm”.
The third Lula administration is marked by a reconciliatory attitude towards the military. An “apolitical” and “fulfiller-of-their-constitutional-missions” military was sought, and the character elected to play that role was General Tomás Paiva, current commander of the Army. The commanders’ public profile is undoubtedly more discreet than it was in the previous period. However, the government did not issue commands and therefore did not test their obedience. Most of the time, it chose appeasement, preserved spaces of power for the military within the state, and maintained a politically hollow Ministry of Defence, very similar to the one under the Bolsonaro administration, the main concern of which seems to be to hide the large- and small-scale schemes carried out in recent years from the Federal Court of Accounts. As it did not take harsh measures inside the barracks after 8 January, the government missed a historic opportunity to improve the necessary correlation of forces to build reforms in the country’s defence policy and in the relationship with the Armed Forces.
Ongoing Tensions
Half-way into Lula’s term, relations are somewhat more tense. By including the Armed Forces in the planned budget cuts, the government tested the potential backlash among the military — and it came by ship, with explicit insubordination coming from the high ranks of the Navy. While the sea may seem calm on the surface, the recent episode reminds us that deep-ocean currents remain strong, antagonizing the Left.
The government continues to leave the mission of holding the military coup plotters accountable to the Supreme Court alone. In this sense, having General Braga Netto, vice president on Bolsonaro’s ticket, arrested for obstruction of investigations is certainly a historic move for the country. The plea bargain negotiated by Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid seems to have been key to the courts’ actions. But a feigned subordination of the military to the elected government is not enough for Brazilian democracy, and the scenario has deteriorated after the election of Donald Trump in the US.
The Executive and Legislative branches have virtually not advanced agendas that were theirs to push, including imposing a quarantine on military officers who wish to pursue a political career and taking the discussion regarding national defence documents and the Ministry itself to a more democratic arena. Those who could did not command, others did not obey because they did not have to.
Therefore, even if legal convictions do advance, no political convictions have been secured, and granting amnesty for coup plotters, whether in the military or not, remains a topic on the agenda. While support for Bolsonaro has weakened, the far right remains well-organized, well-trained, mobilized, funded, and armed. It is not appropriate to list here the myriad possible measures that could be taken in case the government decides to abandon its reconciliation strategy. Ultimately, a precondition for any of them should be highlighted: people’s mobilization and political education, including on defence policies and the Armed Forces.
Translated by Aline Scátola.