After his election to the presidency, Lula established transitional task forces in almost every department except the Department of Defense. Despite the fact that the number of academics in the region grew and was consolidated with the National Defense Strategy formulated by the Lula government in 2008, the President-elect preferred not to hint at changes in the military establishment and did not consider working with any of to speak to them of his legacy defending the academic community. He elected an old acquaintance, José Múcio, a veteran right-wing politician, to head the defense ministry.
President Lula pragmatically chose to promote the new commanders of the three forces by seniority, but nonetheless received protests from those leaving power. Former Navy commander Admiral Almir Garnier dos Santos declined to attend the ceremony. The pre-inauguration crisis meant that General Julio César Arruda, the new army commander, took office before Lula took office.
Never in the recent history of Brazilian democracy has a military commander refused to attend the ceremony conferring the highest post in the force. Garnier was responsible for the impromptu military parade in August 2021, when naval vehicles were used as leverage for Congress to approve an old Bolsonaro agenda, the return of printed voting.
In the military regulations, the constituted power is saluted. In a professional military, this is an impersonal process. Bolsonarismo has distorted the military establishment and given credit to those who defend politician Bolsonaro at the expense of institutional, Republican and Democratic cannons. One of the possibilities of charismatic leadership, Max Weber reminds us, is the constant tension with the rational legal order.
Bolsonarismo stimulated reactive militarism. She has inherited the fierce anti-communism of previous generations, just as she has adapted to the method of spreading fake news on social media. Like a kind of new fascism, it clings to unknown truths and to the exaggeration of myth.
Bolsonaro’s militarism is autophagic and, like all militarism, goes beyond the barracks into society while undermining military professionalism. It devours its moderate supporters and anything labeled as opposition. During the elections, some of the generals in the army high command, who were inclined to take the highest position in Lula’s government, were dubbed by Bolsonaro’s militancy as watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside), an old term for reference to left-wing officers.
More recently, when Bolsonaro’s campers realized that the high command respected the election result, a spate of curses were written on social media: The army and armed forces became the glass ceiling of Bolsonaro hatred and were labeled with the hashtag Frouxas Armadas ( armed swoons). Despite the criticism, many of these campers stayed in front of the barracks.
For the first time since the return to democracy, the military commanders whimsically interpreted the movement that occupied the walls of the barracks and called for military intervention, a euphemism for a coup d’etat, as a democratic demonstration. The commanders’ agreements were related to the profile of the demonstrators: among them were relatives of soldiers who supported Bolsonaro.
The Lula government can only deactivate the bomb installed by Bolsonaro if there is a clear conviction: professionalism must protect the institution and its members. Bolsonaro’s adventure has resulted in military attrition and may result in armed forces fragmentation. Sunday’s events showed the level of destruction.
There are certain aspects that the President might consider. Within the legalistic mindset of a general officer, service in high command is the successful outcome of a three-decade career in which honor rests on servility to the constituted powers and ability to contribute to the institution. The idea of honor and sacrifice suits the defense of the institutions, of democracy, of the state, as defined in the oath that the applicant takes when becoming an officer. It will be up to Lula and his defense minister, José Múcio, to reorganize the ministry with trained civilians, to elect officers with a legalistic profile, not only for the high command but also for the strategic commands of each of the armed forces. If the seniority criterion was used to select the commanders of the armed forces, the criteria of merit for the others must be evaluated in order to restore institutionality and the value of professionalism.
If the new government, formed with the support of judicial officials, does not respond, the barracks will be used as a place to maintain a tactic of political attrition of the government. It will be a win for the Bolsonaristas; for democracy, the most devastating defeat, a kind of behemoth, the biblical monster fueling civil war, immortalized by Thomas Hobbes.
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