Brazil military drills prepare soldiers for invasions
Brazil military drills prepare soldiers for invasions
November 8, 2014 10:33 PM
Simon Romero / The New York Times
MANAUS, Brazil — Brazil’s army is deploying troops this month to the far reaches of the Amazon in a military exercise simulating a foreign invasion of the rain forest, focusing attention on sensitivity over sovereignty in a region rising in importance as a strategic pillar of Latin America’s largest economy.
The troop mobilization, starting Monday and called Operation Machifaro, points to a deepening of a central element of military doctrine in Brazil, which holds the defense of the Amazon as a top priority. The Amazon’s mineral wealth and vast reserves of fresh water place the region “in the context of potential threats,” military officials here said in a statement.
“The operation will provide ways for optimizing a strategy of resistance in the region,” said Gen. Guilherme Cals Theophilo Gaspar de Oliveira, chief of Brazil’s Amazon Military Command. He also emphasized that the exercise was aiming to “consolidate a doctrine of jungle combat.”
The drill aims to prepare soldiers to respond to a foreign military force larger than Brazil’s armed forces, officials said. While Brazil has long been at peace with its smaller neighbors in the Amazon and no country was specified by name in the preparations for the exercise, some military strategists in Brazil have long focused on the United States as a potential threat.
More:
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/world/2014/11/09/Brazil-military-drills-prepare-soldiers-for-invasions/stories/201411090191
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