The Brazilian Armed Forces (Portuguese: Forças Armadas Brasileiras, ) is the unified military organization comprising the Brazilian Army (including the Brazilian Army Aviation), the Brazilian Navy (including the Brazilian Marine Corps and Brazilian Naval Aviation) and the Brazilian Air Force.
Brazil's armed forces are the largest in Latin America, with 327,710 active-duty troops and officers. With no serious external or internal threats, the armed forces are searching for a new role. They are expanding their presence in the Amazon under the Northern Corridor (Calha Norte) program. In 1994 Brazilian troops joined United Nations (UN) peacekeeping forces in five countries. Brazilian soldiers have been in Haiti since 2004 leading the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH).
The Brazilian military, especially the army, has become more involved in civic-action programs, education, health care, and constructing roads, bridges, and railroads across the nation. Although the 1988 constitution preserves the external and internal roles of the armed forces, it places the military under presidential authority. Thus, the new charter changed the manner in which the military could exercise its moderating power.
Read more about Brazilian Armed Forces: Organization, Military History of Brazil, Ministry of Defense, Brazilian Army, Brazilian Navy, Brazilian Air Force, Military Industry, Extensive Modernization Program, Earth Observation
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“If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.”
—Sting [Gordon Matthew Sumner] (b. 1951)
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“There will be no greater burden on our generation than to organize the forces of liberty in our time in order to make our quest of a new freedom for America.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)