Article 1: The Economic Powerhouses Become Military Powerhouses

Pillar of support for economic powerhouses – competition in the purchase of jet fighters

Brazil is leaving the status of emerging country and being a candidate of an economic powerhouse, according to currently one of the most influential bankers, Jamie Dimon, chairman & CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

In May, 2008, the credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s, raised Brazil’s foreign currency long term debt rate to “BBB-“, the first rate in the investment grade zone. The grade is given to countries unlikely of default; this means that Brazil offers low risks for foreign financial investors, which validates Mr. Dimon’s opinion. The credit rating agency Moody’s raised, in 2011, Brazil’s rate from BAA3 to BAA2, with positive perspective.

However, in order to Brazil’s become relevant as an economic powerhouse, various conditions need to be achieved, such as:  the capability to defend itself from potential national and foreign enemies; be able to impose commercial conditions without retaliation and the ability to influence and defend his relevant commercial partners. For that, it has to become a military powerhouse.

Looking at the history of several countries which became economic powerhouse, all without exception started having its military forces as a pillar of support in the geopolitical landscape. Let’s analyze the 20th century as an example. Several countries that achieved this status in that century, like United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), not only became a military powerhouse, but also started the wildest arms race of our history, the Cold War, dividing the world into two parts and creating two military alliances, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the Warsaw Pact. Both defended their commercial, ideological and geopolitical interests.

China, as the latest candidate for economic powerhouse, invested more than US$ 60 billion in 2008 on its military budget. Certainly, today this country is a big military powerhousewith an army that has more than 100 millions soldiers, and capacity to project and build top notch armament, like ballistic missiles and fifth generation jet fighters. In 2010, China’s military forces’ budget became US$ 114 billion, according to the publication Global Security. (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/budget.htm).

History shows countries that achieved an economic powerhouse status, also became military powerhouses. Brazil is quickly striding to become an economic power, but still is far behind in its armed forces. It is notorious country’s fragility when evaluating its armed forces, which besides having smaller amount of staff and weaponry than a country’s size like Brazil should have; it has many of its combat equipment with more than 30 years of use. Although the U.S. Air Force also has aircrafts in use for long years, as the strategic bomber B-52, the proportion of new versus old equipment are hundreds of times greater than Brazil’s.

An economic powerhouse needs to defend its interests within the international community, and often gets respect demonstrating its military strength.

In the next article we will analyze some examples of the armed forces’ use in order to defend the economic interests of a nation.