Brazilian Navy
The Brazilian Navy is the naval and coast guard service branch of Brazil's Armed Forces as well as its maritime authority. It has defense, management and constabulary roles in Brazilian jurisdictional waters and broader missions in the South Atlantic. Its naval, aviation and marine assets are spread between a combat Fleet based at Rio de Janeiro state and auxiliary and patrol assets along the coast and the Amazon and Platine basins.
The 19th century Imperial navy, organized from a section of the Portuguese Navy and influenced by the Royal Navy, was key to the Brazilian state's consolidation and foreign policy in the Platine region. By 1870, it was the world's fifth largest navy. However, the late century Republican coup and naval revolts downgraded its position relative to the Army. Its main rival was still the Argentine Navy, but German submarines were the enemy in both world wars. The Cold War fleet was an anti-submarine force under strong influence from the United States Navy until it sought greater independence and diversified capabilities. Over its history, its largest ships were the Minas Gerais-class battleships and the aircraft carriers Minas Gerais and São Paulo.
Historical fleet composition mixes imports from the United States and Western Europe with the work of local shipyards. The current fleet can be classed as a green-water navy, with some limited power projection capability. It has a flagship helicopter carrier, the Atlântico, frigates, diesel-electric submarines, landing ships, an expeditionary brigade of marines and aviation squadrons. Long-term ambitions include a nuclear submarine.
Within Brazilian society, the Navy seeks attention and funding by attempting to include maritime spaces, which it calls the "Blue Amazon", within national identity. Compared to the Army, it has a greater focus on external defense and a much lower dependence on conscription. Relations between officers and enlisted men were the point of two seamen's mutinies in 1910 and 1964. Contacts are made with the scientific community, among them the nuclear and antarctic programas, continental shelf delimitation and occupation of the Trindade and Saint Peter and Saint Paul archipelagoes to include them in the exclusive economic zone.
Role
The Navy, Army and Air Force make up the Brazilian Armed Forces, "permanent and regular national institutions, organized on the basis of hierarchy and discipline, under the supreme authority of the President", intended, in the words of the Constitution, for the "defense of the Fatherland, guarantee of constitutional powers and, at the initiative of any of them, of law and order".The Navy's particular role is the preparation of employment of naval power i.e. naval, aviation and marine assets and their bases and command, logistical and administrative structures, along with Army and Air Force assets assigned to naval operations. Naval power has four basic tasks under Brazilian doctrine: sea control, sea denial, power projection over land and deterrence. Sea control and power projection over land are the prevailing tasks in Brazilian naval history. The 2008 National Defense Strategy proposed a novel priority in sea denial. Naval power is the military component of maritime power, which includes the merchant marine, port infrastructure, shipbuilding, resource extraction and other national activities at sea. The Brazilian merchant marine serves as a reserve to the Navy and may be mobilized in wartime.
Mentions to constitutional powers and law and order have echoes in almost all previous constitutions and roots in the military's history of involvement in politics and internal conflicts. In the current legal order, political authorities may call on the Armed Forces for law and order operations. The Navy's first widely reported participation in these missions was in the 2010 operations in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. However, compared to the Army it is more concerned with external defense than internal security. The image it seeks is that of a more professional service branch, which fights on internal military conflicts, when it fights, on the government's side.
Subsidiary roles
Brazilian legislation also provides subsidiary roles for the military: to contribute towards national development and civil defense and prevent and repress crimes in the land border and at sea. The Navy's Commander is designated as the country's "Maritime Authority" to exert the service's particular subsidiary roles:- Oversee and control the Merchant Marine and related activities in what concerns to national defense;
- Provide safety in waterway navigation;
- Contribute in the writing and implementation of national policies concerning the sea;
- Implement and police laws and regulations at sea and inner waters, in coordination with other bodies of the executive power, federal or state, when necessary, given specific competences;
- Cooperate with federal bodies, when necessary, in the repression of crimes of national or international repercussion on the use of the sea, inner waters and prot areas, in the form of logistical support, intelligence, communications and instruction.
For this purpose, naval assets are used in patrol and inspection operations, not to be confused with sea control, a distinctly military operation. Naval patrol wields limited force against smuggling, arms or drug trafficking, unauthorized fishing, terrorism, piracy and other crimes. Naval inspection refrains from the use of force and seeks to safeguard human life and navigation safety and prevent pollution. In these activities, the Navy's opponents may include bad fishermen, drunk recreational boaters and owners of boats which do not comply with security norms. Crewmen board vessels to check documents, mandatory equipment, repairs and damages. Foreign ships are subject to port state control to verify their compliance with international conventions.
This opens some overlap in tasks with the Federal Police, which has a maritime service for port zones, waterways and maritime accesses to critical points of the coast. On environmental enforcement, tasks may possibly overlap with those of the Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. Execution of subsidiary roles demands contact with the Federal Police, IBAMA, National Water Transport Agency, Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation and Department of Federal Revenue. Regulations enacted by the Navy are related to regulations by other government agencies in fields such as transport, infrastructure and the environment, as well as those of international agencies such as the International Maritime Organization. And as the Maritime Authority, the Commander of the Navy represents Brazil in international fora addressing issues covered by the service's subsidiary roles.
In its role in waterway safety, the Navy operates buoys, beacons, lighthouses, weather stations and communications centers, conducts hydrographic surveys and enforces the Waterway Traffic Law through its patrols and inspections. Out of 206 lighthouses present on the Brazilian coast in 2022, 199 were operated by the Navy. Navigation incidents are reported to the Admiralty Court. The Navy is also a port authority, controls professional maritime and port education and runs the merchant marine officer academy.
To comply with Brazil's commitments in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, the Navy and Air Force have a search and rescue role in an area extending as far as the 10th parallel west, over more than 14 million square kilometers of the Atlantic. And there are other humanitarian roles and civic-social actions, such as medical aid to riverine populations in the Amazon and Pantanal.
Coast guard
Patrol and inspection, sea rescue and waterway safety are typical roles for a coast guard. Brazil has no such agency and the Navy assumes the roles it would have. It describes itself as a "dual navy", fit for both warfare and coastal and riverine policing. There have been proposals for a separate Brazilian coast guard, of which the latest effort of note was attempted by Minister of the Navy Maximiano da Fonseca in 1983. A bill would create a federal autonomous agency linked to the Navy and controlled in wartime as a reserve force. It would assume all subsidiary roles and the personnel and materiel inventory of the Directorate of Ports and Coasts, which would then be disbanded. The proposal was highly unpopular in the Navy and none of his successors revisited the idea. Congress shelved the bill. In the early 2000s, the Federal Police's intelligence sector also recommended the creation of a coast guard.A coast guard would relieve the Navy of its long list of non-military roles to focus on naval warfare and potentially reduce crime in coastal regions, which the Navy has not managed to fully contain. This has already pressed several state police forces to create maritime security companies. On the other hand, its opponents argue the new agency would have enormous disputes with the Navy over the split of its properties, areas, resources and roles. Combat and patrol assets and their human and logistical inventories are currently shared and their separation would be more costlier than the current model. The new agency would in time be fully removed from the Navy's control, fight over its scarce resources and achieve a higher priority, as its services would be closer to society. According to Admiral Armando Vidigal, "the US Navy need not fear competition from a Coast Guard, which wouldn't be the case in Brazil". There are institutional interests at play: without its coast guard roles, the Navy would lose revenue from fares and port services and a reason for its existence.