Ideas and Armaments
Author: David M. Schwam-Baird
Publisher: University Press of America
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9780761806134
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the short space of 20 years, Brazil emerged from relative technological backwardness to become a major exporter of tanks, rockets and aircraft. This book examines the various ideologies, strategies and conflicts of Brazil's military leaders of the period that lay behind this phenomemon. Building upon two schools of thought, this book explains the phenomenal emergence of the Brazilian arms industry. The first school of thought attributes its success to the implementation of the National Security Doctrine by many of Brazil's leading officers. The other attributes the success to the pursuit of the corporate interests of the military. A discussion both of the articulated ideology found in the National Security Doctrine, and the corporate ideology of the Brazilian military, set against the development of governmental policy and factional in-fighting among groups of officers, will reveal that neither of these theories alone provide an adequate explanation. A third element, the corporate ideology of the civilian technicos, must also be taken into account.