The Brazilian National Defence Strategy: Defence Expenditure Choices and Military Power

In the last decades, Brazil has become a regional military and economic power in South America, accounting in 2017 for the largest defence budget in the region, the eleventh defence expenditure in the world, and almost 60% of South American GDP. The enactment of the National Defence Policy resulted in an increase in defence expenditure in Brazil that was primarily focused on developing and buying modern equipment and paying better salaries. The policy was implemented during three investment cycles that began with off-the-shelf acquisitions and moved to the execution of defence programmes aiming to develop indigenous technologies, substituting imports on the way. Despite the effort, we argue that the most likely scenario is that the achievement of the vision established in the National Defence Policy will be compromised, and that constant delays caused by the expenditure constraints might result in the delivery of outdated technologies and weapon systems, keeping a never-ending technological gap.