The United States and the 1964 Brazilian Military Coup

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matias Spektor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
White House ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Rural Workers ◽  
Financial Pressure ◽  
Military Support ◽  
The Military

The John F. Kennedy administration took a bet on the incoming president of Brazil, João Goulart, as he took office on September 8, 1961. Goulart was not a radical socialist, but his opponents portrayed him as an unpredictable nationalist who might unadvisedly fuel the flames of social upheaval and radical revolution, turning Brazil into a second Cuba. Yet, the White House estimated that Goulart was someone they could do business with and sympathized with the idea of Reformas de Base (Goulart’s program of “basic reforms”), which included the extension of labor protections to rural workers, redistributive agrarian reform, and universal suffrage. United States support for Goulart materialized in the form of economic aid, financial assistance via the IMF, and development assistance via the Alliance for Progress partnership. Within a year, however, the tide turned as Goulart failed to comply with American demands that he ban leftists from his cabinet. In a matter of months in 1962, the White House abandoned any hopes of engagement with the Brazilian president. While the crisis that led to Goulart’s fall in March 1964 was the making of domestic political actors within Brazil—as was the military coup to unseat the president—the likelihood and success rate of the golpe grew as the United States rolled out successive rounds of targeted actions against Goulart, including diplomatic and financial pressure, threats of abandonment, support for opposition politicians, collusion with coup plotters, signaling future military support for the plotters in the eventuality of civil war, and the granting of immediate diplomatic recognition for the incoming authoritarian military leaders after the coup. After Goulart, Brazil remained under authoritarian rule for two consecutive decades.

scholarly journals Military Coup in Burma Draws International Condemnation and Pressure

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-567
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
One Year ◽  
Head Of Government ◽  
The Military

On February 1, 2021, the military in Burma overthrew the democratically elected government, declared a one-year state of emergency, and installed Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as the head of government. Since the coup, the military has cracked down on protestors, killing over 800 people and detaining many more. Numerous countries and international organizations, including the United States and the United Nations, have condemned the coup and ensuing violence and called for the restoration of a democratic government. The United States and other countries have also imposed rigorous sanctions on the Burmese military, its officials and affiliated corporations, and social media companies have imposed content restrictions to prevent the spread of pro-military propaganda.

The New Civil-Military Relations

1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gene M. Lyons
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Historically the character of civil-military relations in the United States has been dominated by the concept of civilian control of the military. This has largely been a response to the fear of praetorianism. As recently as 1949, for example, the first Hoover Commission asserted that one of the major reasons for strengthening the “means of exercising civilian control” over the defense establishment was to “safeguard our democratic traditions against militarism.” This same warning was raised in the report of the Rockefeller Committee on defense organization in 1953. While the overriding purpose of the committee's recommendations was to provide “the Nation with maximum security at minimum cost,” the report made it clear that this had to be achieved “without danger to our free institutions, based on the fundamental principle of civilian control of the Military Establishment.” Finally, during the debate on the reorganization proposals of 1958, senators and congressmen used the theme of a “Prussianized” military staff to attempt to slow down the trend towards centralization in the military establishment.Despite this imposing support, the concept of civilian control of the military has little significance for contemporary problems of national security in the United States. In the first place, military leaders are divided among themselves, although their differences cannot be reduced to a crass contrast between dichomatic doctrines. Air Force leaders who are gravely concerned over the need to maintain a decisive nuclear retaliatory force are by now acknowledging the need to develop a limited war capability.

Militarized Ministries of Defense?

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-134
Author(s):  
Peter B. White
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Duty ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Officer ◽  
White House ◽  
Us History ◽  
Active Duty Military ◽  
Military Background ◽  
The Military

General (Ret.) James Mattis’s tenure as secretary of defense represents a rarity in US history, in that at only one other time has the United States had a retired general in that post. This chapter places Mattis’s tenure in a comparative context. It leverages new data on comparative ministries of defense to examine patterns in the military background of ministers of defense (MoD) across a range of countries from 1964 to 2008. The analysis shows that, while not unprecedented, having a retired or active-duty military officer as MoD is relatively rare among democracies. The chapter concludes by examining the implications of another retired general or flag officer being appointed as secretary. The chapter argues that while a shift toward retired military officers as secretaries of defense would not necessarily increase the conflict propensity of the United States, it could harm the defense policymaking process. The effect would likely depend on whether a future secretary’s tenure saw the continued marginalization of civilian voices in policymaking in the Pentagon and White House.

The Politics of Intervention: The United States and Argentina, 1941–1946

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Large Material ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Military

In Argentina during World War II the US stepped outside the limits of the Good Neighbor policy proclaimed by the Roosevelt administration in 1933 and attempted to overthrow the government of a major Latin American power.1Between 1941 and 1945 Argentina was not only treated differently from the rest of Latin America by the United States, but was also singled out for harsher treatment than other neutrals, despite its large material contribution to the Allied cause. In 1944 Washington was readier to compromise with Franco's Spain, a country whose Axis connections were notorious, than it was to seek a settlement with the government in Buenos Aires.2The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of US interference in Argentine affairs after Pearl Harbor and the reasons for US hostility to the rise of Perón following the military coup of June 1943.

scholarly journals The Path to Democracy? Foreign Aid Post-Military Coup in Myanmar

Global Focus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-163
Author(s):  
Bima Nur Muhammad Rizky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
To Receive

Aid has transformed into a promising tool of policy to spread, gain, or maintain power and influence internationally. One of the common aid institutions keeps actively promoting and pushing norms and values of democracy internationally in the United States through USAID. Upon that, one of the recipient countries to receive USAID programs in Myanmar. USAID has been focusing on and pushing democratization to occur in Myanmar and creating supporting programs to respond to the 2015 election, increasing the number of aids after the majority win of the NLD Party in the 2015 election. However, after the military coup successfully seized the government on February 1, 2021, USAID decided to shift its programs to support the civil society movement and strengthen democracy in Myanmar. Within this paper, there will be explanations of how USAID's programs after the military coup occurred in Myanmar, and why it matters to the United States not fully to halt their programs and aids of USAID. This paper will also show how USAID programs and aid to Myanmar before the coup.

scholarly journals The War on Drugs in Colombia: The Environment, the Treadmill of Destruction and Risk-Transfer Militarism

2014 ◽  
pp. 185-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad L. Smith ◽  
Gregory Hooks ◽  
Michael Lengefeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Risk Transfer ◽  
Military Support ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

Ecological damage, including global climate change, is commonly connected to practices and behaviors associated with economic activity and the Treadmill of Production (ToP). Less attention is paid to the connection between the military and environmental degradation, but recently the Treadmill of Destruction (ToD) has been documented as a global phenomenon with negative environmental effects. The ToD directly and indirectly contributes to environmental problems on many fronts, but one of the least obvious means by which the U.S. military influences the environment is through its policies supporting the "war on drugs. " The U.S. military aids Latin American countries, particularly Colombia, in the war on drugs in a number of capacities, including military support and training, weaponry, fumigation of crops, and logistical and surveillance support. The effort of the United States to curb the proliferation of illegal drug crops in Colombia is the most direct role that the military has played in this effort. Within the context of the "war on drugs" the United States is now engaged in risk-transfer militarism in which the consequences of this military action are borne by the Global South. We document the scope, magnitude, and consequences of the ToD in the war on drugs and the ways it negatively impacts the environment. Our argument reframes the ToD by emphasizing the role of risk-transfer militarism within the emergence of "new" wars as represented in the case of Colombia.

The Washington Consensus, liberal ideas and terms of the military-technological policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 2103-2123
Author(s):  
V.L. Gladyshevskii ◽  
E.V. Gorgola ◽  
D.V. Khudyakov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Complexes ◽  
The Military

Subject. In the twentieth century, the most developed countries formed a permanent military economy represented by military-industrial complexes, which began to perform almost a system-forming role in national economies, acting as the basis for ensuring national security, and being an independent military and political force. The United States is pursuing a pronounced militaristic policy, has almost begun to unleash a new "cold war" against Russia and to unwind the arms race, on the one hand, trying to exhaust the enemy's economy, on the other hand, to reindustrialize its own economy, relying on the military-industrial complex. Objectives. We examine the evolution, main features and operational distinctions of the military-industrial complex of the United States and that of the Russian Federation, revealing sources of their military-technological and military-economic advancement in comparison with other countries. Methods. The study uses military-economic analysis, scientific and methodological apparatus of modern institutionalism. Results. Regulating the national economy and constant monitoring of budget financing contribute to the rise of military production, especially in the context of austerity and crisis phenomena, which, in particular, justifies the irrelevance of institutionalists' conclusions about increasing transaction costs and intensifying centralization in the industrial production management with respect to to the military-industrial complex. Conclusions. Proving to be much more efficient, the domestic military-industrial complex, without having such access to finance as the U.S. military monopolies, should certainly evolve and progress, strengthening the coordination, manageability, planning, maximum cost reduction, increasing labor productivity, and implementing an internal quality system with the active involvement of the State and its resources.

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