A Military-Green Biopolitics: The Brazilian Amazon Between Security and Development

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the Brazilian defense policy toward the Amazon has been oriented by the security/development binomen. This was simultaneously a directive for the Brazilian authoritarian regime and for US defense doctrine for the Americas. We argue in this paper that despite the structural influence of US hemispherical security and defense strategy, the formulation of an Amazonian defense strategy by the Brazilian military responded to peculiarities attached to local military historical practices regarding civilizational values, concepts of security and development, and geopolitical targets. We claim that Brazilian defense strategy towards the Amazon is a local manifestation of a biopolitical approach to both the forest and its natural resources and to its population. It is our goal to point out that the local version for the duality security/development has been a manifestation of a set of technologies of government in a biopolitical strategy.

Environmental defenders suffering death threats and "under protection" in the state of Pará, Eastern Amazonia, Brazil

“…The fallout from these measures has been discussed by Araújo (2020), Thomaz et al (2020), , Menezes & Barbosa Jr. (2021), Rodrigues & Kalil (2021), Rapozo (2021), Pelicice & Castello (2021), Souza et al (2021) and Deutsch & Fletcher (2022). Dismantling of environmental governance in Brazil is not merely a rhetorical and ideological mechanism conducted by a national political group, but a political tactic designed to legitimize the promotion of "total neoextractivism" (Buzogány & Mohamad-Klotzbach, 2021) and the economic and political support of neoextractivist agents for hegemonic political groups.…”

“…With the support and legitimization of the Brazilian state power which has completely changed the Brazilian environmental structure, neoextractivist activity (mining and agribusiness) face less constraints on approvals and activities (Menezes & Barbosa Jr., 2021). For Rodrigues & Kalil (2021), it is the rolling out of an ecological and political and economic approach by the Bolsonaro government. From the ideological point of view, the government expresses climate change denial and argues that environmental destruction is necessary for social development.…”

“…From the ideological point of view, the government expresses climate change denial and argues that environmental destruction is necessary for social development. From a political and economic perspective, it has simply sought to satisfy the agribusiness and mining sector (with its legal and illegal elements) that are important political forces in the Brazilian National Congress (Rodrigues & Kalil, 2021). 15 The effects of Bolsonaro government policy on indigenous peoples 16 were, according to the Indigenist Missionary Council -CIMI 17 (CIMI, 2020), included more cases of conflicts and violence, which almost doubled in the first year of the government (in 2019), compared to 2018.…”