War, Military Forces, and Society in Colonial Brazil

Author(s):  
Miguel Dantas da Cruz

War played a crucial role in the political and administrative development of colonial Brazil. The adoption of different government solutions, from the initial naval expeditions and proprietary captaincies to the establishment of a general government, were, in part, a response to the military challenges the Portuguese faced in the New World. In the 17th century, the leading municipalities in Brazil expanded their political prominence and reinforced their autonomy precisely when they assumed the commitment to feed the troops and pay for the army’s wages. War and military conflicts also played an important role in the formation of the colonial society in Brazil. There was a natural overlay between the hierarchical structure of the military institutions created in, or transplanted to, the colony and the hierarchical society the Portuguese established in America. The armed forces consolidated the social status of local elites; while they provided opportunities for the more marginalized groups of blacks, mixed-race, and Indians—active participants in the defense of Brazil from the outset—they also helped colonial administrators organize society along racial lines. Regulars, militias, ordenanças, and other military units filled different functions in the territory. They often took part in different military operations in a territory that was hardly suitable for large-scale operations, prolonged siege warfare, or coordinated deployment of mass infantry formations. In Brazil, similarly to other colonies in America, a distinct kind of warfare emerged, marked by a synthesis of European, Indian, and African military knowledges. It was called Guerra Brasílica, and it was both admired for its effectiveness and disparaged for not fitting nicely in traditional European military orthodoxies and for being undisciplined and supposedly “uncivilized.” The negative imageries attached to military campaigns in Brazil persisted in the minds of colonial administrators for a long time, underpinning the territory’s undeserving military status (when compared with India and North Africa)—a status that the colony seldom escaped.

Author(s):  
Vladimir Zolotovskiy ◽  

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to determine the specifics of the Byzantine war strategy in Asia Minor. A qualitative military and political characteristics of the main military expeditions to the eastern borders are crucial for the disclosure of this problem. From this aspect, the study addresses the following issues: defining of the role of the eastern military campaigns in the complex of military-strategic measures on the state scale; characteristics of the features the armed forces used, as well as the tasks solved during military expeditions to Asia Minor; disclosure of the features of military-technical measures to ensure the security of Byzantium eastern borders. Methods. Critical use of elements of civilizational, formational and systemic approaches is the methodological basis of this study. It should be noted that the use of a systematic approach in the analysis of the Byzantine troops combat practice in east direction, allows to determine the strategic objectives of military expeditions in Asia Minor, to reveal the logic of warfare in the eastern theater, to determine the functional purpose of military-technical measures. Analysis and Results. The study reveals the strategic concept of Byzantium armed forces military operations during the reign of the first Palaeologus on the Asia Minor territory. Analysis of combat practice allows us to conclude that the strategic priority of the western and northwestern directions, which required the use of the most combat-ready troops consisting of mercenaries during the reign of Michael VIII, determined the need to use the Byzantine troops at the eastern borders of the empire. TheByzantine army was episodically involved in major defensive expeditions to the borders of the empire. We determined that the purpose of these campaigns is to stop the advance of enemy armies and their subsequent expulsion from the empire. This logic of military operations does not mean the loss of strategic initiative at the eastern direction. The strategy of passive defense which determined the nature of the military confrontation in the Asia Minor region was ensured by the creation of a garrison system, or a line of fortresses, on the eastern borders of the empire. Fortification activities of Michael VIII and Andronikos II in 1280–1282 temporarily stopped the advance of the Turkish troops. However, natural factors and the intensification of the economic crisis at the end of the 13th century made it impossible to preserve the defensive line located along the banks of the rivers that served as the borders of the Byzantine state. In addition, the strengthening of the military-political power of the emirates of Menteşe, Aydinoglu and Osman led to the loss of the initiative by the Byzantine troops and, as a result, the reduction of the Asia Minor territories of the empire. In an effort to change the situation, Andronicus II proceeded to implement an active defense strategy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-83
Author(s):  
Serhiy Orel ◽  
◽  
Vadim Durach ◽  
Bohdan Sjoma ◽  
◽  
...  

Military impact on the environment can be defined as two components: 1) impact on the environment in time of daily activities during the training of troops and 2) impact on the environment during the combat operation. In the Armed Forces of Ukraine, to some extent, environmental security measures are implemented only during daily operations in peacetime. As for taking into account the impact of fighting on the environment in time of planning combat operations, this issue is usually not even raised in their preparation. On the other hand, NATO member states understand that military operations can be inherently destructive to human health and the environment. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the educational requirements for commanders, especially for officers who provide environmental protection in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, based on NATO regulations and the experience of Allies. The article considers how environmental issues are integrated into the military operation at each stage: planning, pre-deployment, deployment (execution and force rotation), redeployment, and post-deployment. The main tasks of environmental officers at each stage of the operation are defined. Based on the tasks solved by officers, the requirements for their education are formed, the subjects studied by US environmental officers are considered.


2021 ◽  
pp. 248-299
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany

In Chapter 6 the various strands of the study come together as the actual performance of the Gulf armies is appraised. Given the limited involvement of GCC countries in military operations, the available evidence to base judgments upon their battlefield effectiveness is slender. Therefore, the analysis integrates lessons that may be learned from training and large-scale exercises GCC armies have participated in. To understand Gulf armies’ deficiencies, special attention is paid to the instruction and cultural aspects of the most prestigious military specialization, pilot training. In the second section the scant foreign deployment of Gulf militaries is examined, with special emphasis on the UAE, the only GCC army with extensive experience in this area. The bulk of this chapter centers on the ongoing civil war in Yemen in which the Saudi and Emirati armed forces have played a major role, thus allowing us the opportunity to assess their performance.


Author(s):  
Fabrizio Coticchia

Public attitudes are greatly shaped by the cohesiveness of the strategic narratives crafted by policy-makers in framing the national involvement in war. The literature has recently devoted growing attention toward the features that define successful strategic narratives, such as a consistent set of objectives, convincing cause–effect chains, as well as credible promises of success. This paper provides an original framework for ‘effective strategic narratives’ for the case of Italy. The military operations undertaken by Italian armed forces in Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya represent the cases through which the framework is assessed. Drawing on content and discourse analysis of political debates and data provided by public opinion surveys, this paper explores the nature of the strategic narratives and their effectiveness.


Subject The political role of the armed forces. Significance The armed forces have recently assumed an unusually high political profile. The current government has appointed generals to high-level positions and ordered a large-scale intervention led by the army in Rio de Janeiro state security institutions. These measures, many of them unprecedented, are an attempt by President Michel Temer to boost his popularity as a ‘tough-on-crime’ leader. The armed forces are one of the few public institutions enjoying high levels of trust among Brazilians. Impacts Despite recent protest calls for a military coup, support for such a move is restricted to a radical minority. Resistance against further reliance on the military for domestic law enforcement will rise, including among senior officers. Bolsonaro will focus his message on crime, promising to bring more military members into his cabinet, including the Education Ministry.


Author(s):  
Andrey Manoilo ◽  
◽  
Elena Ponomareva ◽  
Philipp Trunov ◽  
◽  
...  

Introduction. One of the key tendencies of modern international development is the growing importance of the “factor of power”. In this context, the initiated long process of the potential growth of the armed forces of the countries participating in NATO, which is of particular importance in the growth of new unconventional threats (one of the triggers of the Alliance transformation including through the strengthening of national units has become a global pandemic) is important from scientific and practical points of view. Methods and materials. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the theory of building armed forces. The basic sources for the analysis are official documents of military departments, as well as materials from related information centers, which reveal the parameters of the prospective appearance of the armed forces of the countries under study. NATO’s statistical and summit reports also occupy a special place. Analysis. The goal of the article is the research of the armed forces building processes in Germany and Norway for the future until the mid-2030s. These case countries can show the tendencies of military development of NATO European member states in the whole taking into account the differences between Germany and Norway in terms of the geographical location, the population as the main human resource of the armed forces, as well as the transformation of leadership and dynamics of relations between the “historical West” and the Russian Federation, which allows us to characterize the overall trends in the military and political development of European NATO member states. Results. It is proved that the growth of military potential is based on two main groups of reasons. The first is due to the strategic deterioration of relations between the West and Russia since the mid-2010s. The second is that the armed forces of the European member States of NATO have reached the “bottom” position in terms of almost all quantitative parameters. The continuing trend of decreasing numerical indicators (people and technology) threatens to reduce the role of the state on the world stage. Therefore, it is natural to see Germany’s desire to become a “framework nation” in the recruitment of NATO rotation groups in Europe, as well as in the deployment of peacebuilding and peacekeeping missions outside the area of responsibility of the Alliance, which inevitably leads to a large-scale increase in the number of armed forces and the cost of their modernization. In the case of Norway the transformation of the armed forces occurs in the conditions of refusal to increase included human resources and enhance the value of the military presence of NATO partners (primarily the US) first of all in the process of reorganizing the national system of territorial defense. In both cases, there are still tendencies to transform the role of the US in Europe and to consolidate the confrontation with the Russian Federation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 829-836
Author(s):  

This study reveals the research principles of the results of the management of the Ukrainian military administration of the strategic (operative) level in the course of organizational issues evaluation during state defense system forming as well as building and development security and defense components, particularly the Armed Forces of the Ukraine. This principles structure defines the subject, the object and the parties, the basic tasks of the military legal expertise, guidelines for legal expert (board of legal experts) in the course of evaluation of the military administration management activity in the course of reforming and development of the Armed Forces, as well as during the course of planning and conducting military operations (battle actions) of the military units (forces). Developed principles also refer to the following researches: cause and effect relationship of the breach of legislation of the Armed Forces of the Ukraine and other legal military and law enforcement units administrations officials, which led to negative consequences such as people deaths, loss of weapons and military equipment in the course of military operation. Key words: level of state defense, evaluation of managerial decisions, officials.


Author(s):  
Vladimir Zolotovskiy

Introduction. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the state, nature and the leadership system of stratiotic forces as part of the Byzantine provincial armed forces of the Early Palaeologian period. The paper aims to determine the methods of organizing Byzantine provincial armed forces in the context of the characteristic of the early Palaeologian armed forces and the institute of pronoia. The author defines the military-strategic, social and economic characteristics of the stratiotic military service. Methods. Critical use of elements of civilizational, formational and systemic approaches is the methodological basis of this study. It should be noted that the system approach is used to determine the specificity of the relationships within all essential structural elements of the military organization. It also makes it possible to identify the factors of its modernization in connection with social and state processes. It allows to reveal the functional features of the military organization elements. Analysis and Results. The analysis of act materials and narrative sources shows a clear social difference of soldiers-stratiotes from the rest of the empire’s population, including proniares. The author determines that the sources contain information about all economic institutions that characterize stratiotes in their traditional, early byzantine military-technical definition. The statements of Byzantine historians about the participation of stratiotes in military actions clearly indicate the preservation of the military-administrative function of “theme organization”. Act materials do not contain information about a specific number of stratiotes. This makes it difficult to determine the total number of stratiotic formations. However, the participation of stratiotic detachments in almost all military operations of the Byzantine army is a well-known fact. Narratives indicate their number. All this makes it possible to draw a reasonable conclusion about the preservation of stratiotic armed forces and the traditional system of their recruitment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Marina Ika Sari ◽  
Yuli Ari Sulistyani ◽  
Andhini Citra Pertiwi

<p>The involvement of the military in the global health crisis has begun since the COVID-19 outbreak broke out in Indonesia, starting from the implementation of Large-Scale Social Distancing to the implementation of the new normal adaptation phase. However, the involvement has received mixed responses. Some parties consider it as natural, while others question the urgency of the military involvement. This study focuses on the role of two defense institutions, namely the Indonesian National Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense in handling the COVID-19. It employs a qualitative research method and the theory of role, the concept of national defense, and the concept of Pandemic Management to analyze the problem. This study finds that the Indonesian National Armed Forces has a strategic role in several fields such as health, security and socio-economic as part of the efforts to contain COVID-19. The Ministry of Defense also plays a strategic role both internally and externally, by cooperating with other ministries, domestic private companies, state-owned enterprises in the defense industry sector, and with other countries in containing the COVID-19 pandemic.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>role, defense, military, pandemic, COVID-19.</p>


Author(s):  
Dubuisson François ◽  
Koutroulis Vaios

This contribution discusses the hostilities that opposed Israel against Egypt, Syria and the armed forces of other Arab states, which took place in October 1973. After setting out the context of this confrontation, which is directly linked to the 1967 Six Days War, it presents the legal positions of the main protagonists (Israel, Egypt, Syria) as well as those of third states and international organizations. The third section examines the legality of this resort to force under jus ad bellum and concludes that the military operations on behalf of the Arab states can be justified as an exercise of the right to self-defence. Finally, the conclusions discuss the limited precedential value of this specific incident with respect to the interpretation of the prohibition to use force in international relations.


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