Brazil’s Defense Ministry this week released its guidelines for updating the country’s National Defense Policy (PND) and National Defense Strategy (END), which define Brazil’s military response in the event of foreign threats.
By law, both documents must be updated every four years, with the most recent version issued in 2022, at the end of the administration of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro — himself a former Army captain.
According to the ordinance published in Tuesday’s edition of the Official Gazette, the next update of the PND and END will begin with the military’s Department of Strategic Affairs carrying out a study and drafting an action plan involving several cabinet ministries of its choosing and the foreign affairs committees of both the House and Senate.
The proposed plans will be put to the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force for tweaks before being submitted to Congress. The Intelligence Activities Control Committee, made up of senators and representatives, will then vote on the updated documents before final approval.
The current version of the PND, the only one to be drafted during the Bolsonaro government, was called into question for its references to potential conflict within South America. During a hearing on the proposal last July, lawmaker Arlindo Chinaglia asked then-Army Commander Marco Antônio Freire Gomes if there were any “concrete reasons” for the Armed Forces to suspect...
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