A military exercise carried out in the Amazon with 1,500 men from Brazil and the United States, throughout November, exposed how the region remains increasingly crucial to the global strategic scenery. The CORE Combined Operation and Rotation Exercise) is a bilateral initiative carried out annually – started in 2021, and should continue until 2028 – which aims to expand the experiences of Brazilian and North American troops in the largest tropical forest on the planet, with knowledge exchanges about military doctrines, techniques and tactics. Carried out on Brazilian territory, and, this year, involving the states of Pará and Amapá, the mobilization is one of the greatest reflections of a long history of military cooperation treaties involving Brazil and the USA.
Special incursions by the US troops into the Amazon have been occurring for many years. Still during the Second World War, for example, the capital of Pará, Belém, was chosen to house some of the air bases installed in Brazil by the USA to support the offensives of allied countries against the nations that were part of the then-called Eixo [Axis] - group which brought together Germany, Italy and Japan. Currently, these military partnerships remain solid in new agreements signed between the two governments, such as CORE.
Foreigners in the forest
The Comando Militar do Norte (CMN) [Northern Military Command] of the Brazilian Army was responsible for coordinating CORE activities in Pará and Amapá in November. In total, the exercise brought together around 1,200 Brazilian and 300 North American military personnel, involved in several days of training, between November 1st and 16th. Out of these, a group made up of 60 foreigners learned about survival and acting maneuvers in the jungle. The ways of obtaining food of plant origin and the methods of locomotion and patrolling in the forest were some of the focuses of the phase held in Belém, between the 2nd and 4th of the month, in the so-called Estágio de Vida e Combate na Selva (EVCS) [Jungle Life and Combat Stage]. The module was taught by the 2º Batalhão de Infantaria de Selva (2º BIS) [Army's 2nd Jungle Infantry Battalion].
Adapting to the Amazon climate was one of the greatest difficulties experienced by North Americans, says Sergeant Justin Reed, a soldier stationed at Fort Campbell, a United States Army installation located between the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. He reports that the experience was good, even considering the unusual feeling of high humidity and heat of the region. Reed was part of the group of soldiers that went to the second phase of training, in Amapá, where operations focused on tactics and aerial jumps. “But despite that [the heat], it was great. It was fun. You always want to get 1% better every day, that's what we say at Fort Campbell. So, I think we definitely did that by coming here,” said the soldier.
The result of the training and everything that was learned over the days, according to Sergeant Reed, will be passed on to the other soldiers who were not present at the exercise. For him, it is necessary for everyone to have this experience and understand the difficulties encountered in other regions of the world, so that they can improve techniques and tactics – precisely, the CORE's objectives. “Next time we go to the field, we will definitely take some things from here [the Amazon]. It's difficult, it's very difficult here. At Fort Campbell it’s very easy, so we have to find a way to make difficult too”, he says.
Brazilian and US military men carry out joint operations in the region
Regarding the first phase of the military exercise, focused on teaching soldiers combat and survival techniques in the jungle, Brigadier General André Laranja Sá Corrêa, head of the Centro de Coordenação de Operações do Comando Militar do Norte [Operations Coordination Center of the Northern Military Command], assesses that the results obtained with the training were good, even with the weather problems faced by the North Americans.
“They did basic training, with exercises in our rivers, exercises to adapt to combat in the jungle, with patrols in the operational environment, orientation exercises, day and night, obtaining food, how to hunt, fish, how to make shelters in the jungle. ”, lists the general.
General Sá Corrêa, however, summarizes one of the biggest goals of integration between troops, which is the great impetus for the realization of CORE. “The goal is interoperability. It’s like operating our troops together”, he explains.
Survival
CORE involved training that helped soldier Miranda Casey, also from Fort Campbell, develop better survival insights. Miranda says that the climate issue was, in fact, a challenge, but she emphasizes that she would go through the exercises again if she had the opportunity. “My experience here was really unusual, because where we come from, at Fort Campbell, it's not as hot and humid and bright as it is here. But it was very good".
For Miranda, the survival module based on plant origin foods in the jungle was one of the most useful. “It wasn’t too difficult for me to understand different types of fruit and where they come from, because some of the same fruit from here went to America. For some, I just thought: ‘oh, this is different’. It was very different, but it was really cool to try it”, says soldier. “Water training was a very impactful experience for me. So I think if we could do more training like that in America, it would really help people survive types of water problems and things like that.”
International agreements should safeguard sovereignty, an expert points out
Despite the benefits brought by international agreements, whether military or commercial, to the Amazon region, Brazil must be aware of the need to safeguard the territory and guarantee local sovereignty, states Ph.D. in international relations Mário Tito Almeida. “We know that the USA has great interest in the Amazon, for some reasons. First, due to the biodiversity in the region, strategic minerals, such as niobium, as well as interest in drinking water sources. Military exercises carried out under these circumstances provoke impact in the region. All kinds of military cooperation are welcome, as long as they do not cause any harm to our region”, he emphasizes.
“Relations between countries follow external guidelines. They form relationships with each other depending on local interests. A country's foreign policy is not necessarily the same across all governments, because each government is elected by a group of interests. Thus, if a particular president is elected with an interest ‘x’, they will act according to it. When the government changes, this group changes the way they act too”, highlights the scholar. “Historically speaking, Brazil has always been in the US zone of influence, regardless of the government, because it is included within the territory of America, in geopolitical interest. Brazil practices a policy called responsible pragmatism, that is, it will interact with everyone, depending on their interest.”
Limits
The arrival of the US military troops into Brazil, including the equipment used for the exercise, required approval from the Presidency of the Republic. Mário Tito highlights: this type of cooperation has always existed and, despite the apparent interest of the USA, he believes, CORE is a continuation of relations between the two countries.
“The government is not allowing everything. But civil society needs to pay attention. A presence in the Amazon, from a military point of view, can give rise to interests that go beyond cooperation alone. We must be careful regarding violation of sovereignty,” he ponders.
Belém was a strategic city for the USA in World War II
Relations between Brazil and the USA have already placed the Amazon, and more specifically Belém, at the center of relevant military movements during the Second World War. The capital of Pará was one of the cities chosen by the Americans to house military air bases. The reason is that due to the existing technology at the time, the United States needed support for planes in territories that would facilitate their arrival at the combat line.
Historian Diego Maia explains that, to reach this point, trade agreements involving the two nations needed to be signed, breaking previous ties with Germany. “Brazil was experiencing a scenario of personalist dictatorship [during the Getúlio Vargas era], which had aspects close to fascism. At that time, there was greater possibility of we allying with countries of the Axis [such as Germany]”, highlights the researcher.
Brazil and war
However, a series of events facilitated the beginning of North American influence in Latin America. One of them is the fact that Japan (another Axis country) blocked the supply of latex to the USA - an important raw material for several products -, in addition to the Japanese attack on the North American naval base at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, in Hawaii. “This marks the US entry into the war. Latex was very important for the weapons industry. At that moment, American imperialism began to intensify, because they needed to try to solve the problem of lack of latex and the biggest supplier was Brazil, in the Amazon”, highlights Diego.
“The US turns its attention to Belém, which was the gateway to the Amazon. The then president Getúlio Vargas was under a lot of pressure from the Americans to take a side in the war, and there was a plan to invade if he refused. Getúlio knew how to negotiate. He said he needed investments and, thus, in 1942, the so-called ‘good neighbor policy’ began. From that moment on, Brazil entered the war alongside the USA, embargoing Germany commercially and becoming the supplier of latex and other products”, details the historian. “Pará receives more investment to extract latex and begins to attract people to this work, in a war effort. The campaign called for manpower, either to the Amazon, or to the battlefront. And many people from the northeast started to come. They were called rubber soldiers”.
Military in the Amazon
The harvested latex was sent to the port of Belém. This second moment was fundamental for the development of the Amazon. “Belém was supposed to be an aircraft warehouse. An air base needed to be built here. At that time, the city only had bases for seaplanes, and the American military came here to develop it. The first base was close to the neighborhoods of Jurunas, Condor and Guamá. The largest base was built where Val-de-Cans is currently located. The Catalina region, a part of Bengui... everything was a reserved space for this air base”, adds Diego.
In addition to the economic influence that the American presence caused in the capital of Pará, several other sectors were impacted. “Behind all this, there are the social relations that were established in Belém. The city received many North American military men, somehow it affected local behavior and economy”, reiterates the historian, explaining that a casino was also installed in the so-called “Grande Hotel”, an imposing and luxurious building that, before being demolished, was where another hotel building is located today, close to República square, on Presidente Vargas Avenue.
“All that also stimulated inflation of some products that circulated in Belém. There was interest in selling for higher prices to North Americans who circulated around the capital. And this affected the poorest people in the city. These were relationships that affected our economic and structural context”, assesses the scholar.
