Armed Forces clash with NATO with spending profile – 01/16/2024 – Power

The Armed Forces spent 85% of its 2023 budget on personnel pay, driven by rising expenses for active, inactive and retired military personnel. The spending profile on salaries and benefits for a large number of military personnel and family members distances Brazil from its goal of budgetary modernization, which uses NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as a model.

Personnel expenses put pressure on the rest of the Navy, Army and Air Force budgets. In 2023, the Brazilian Armed Forces allocated only 5% of their expenses to investments (R$5.8 billion) and 10% to funding (R$11.3 billion).

The numbers were organized by Sheet with data from the final 2023 budgets available on the Transparency Portal.

The breakdown shows that the Armed Forces spent four times more on military pension payments (R$ 25.7 billion) than on investments — a scenario that should be alleviated with the new PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), which allocated R $52.8 billion for Defense projects through 2030.

The general profile of defense spending in the 29 NATO member countries is different from Brazilian spending. Only 9 countries in the military alliance have a budget consumed by personnel equal to or greater than 50% — and only 3 countries (Portugal, Canada and Belgium) spend less than 20% on investments.

The bulk of military spending on personnel is focused on three groups: active, inactive and pensioners.

In 2023, the Brazilian Armed Forces spent R$32.4 billion on paying the salaries of active military personnel and R$31.2 billion on reserve and retired personnel. The expense is driven by the Army, the Force with the largest number of personnel, which consumed R$47.3 billion in personnel.

The Army has around 212 thousand active soldiers and 145 thousand inactive. Another 112,800 are beneficiaries of military pensions — 3,734 of whom are family members of marshals. The last military member of the Force to achieve this rank was Waldemar Levy Cardoso, who died in 2009.

The Force has, since 2019, invested in a personnel reduction plan, which reduced the number of active military personnel by 9,017 by 2023. “The Army fully complies with its rationalization planning […]which effectively translates into an annual reduction of its contingent by 10% until the year 2029”, says the institution, in a note.

The Army also stated that other measures, adopted after a 2019 law, have reduced its costs, such as increasing military service time from 30 to 35 years, reducing the number of dependents and limiting economic rights arising from pensions. military.

In the Navy, the reduction in personnel was almost 5,000 soldiers from 2018 to 2023 — a drop of 6%, from 80,485 soldiers to 75,482. “[A Força] permanently undertakes efforts to improve its human resources management, through a planned and balanced readjustment of its workforce, in order to increase its efficiency and reduce costs for the Brazilian State”, he says.

The Air Force maintains the smallest personnel, with 67,605 active military personnel, with the group being divided almost in half between career and temporary personnel.

“In addition to reducing the annual payroll, savings were sought with hierarchical promotions, with movements, occupation of National Residential Own, number of inactive and pensioners and users of the Air Force’s health system”, states the Air Force about the policy of increase the number of temporary workers.

The measures, however, have not yet been able to change the spending profile of the Armed Forces. To reverse the low investment scenario, commanders Marcos Olsen (Navy), Tomás Paiva (Army) and Marcelo Damasceno (Air Force) began to defend the approval of a PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) to ensure that the budget of the Ministry of Defense is set at 2% of GDP.

The proposal was discussed between the commanders and the Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, but did not receive support from Palácio do Planalto at first.

With the project stuck in the government, the Navy coordinated the presentation of the proposal with opposition senator Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ), former government leader Jair Bolsonaro (PL), and began an offensive for the approval of the PEC.

“The PEC […] is seen as a legal instrument capable of guaranteeing the flow of budgetary resources necessary for the execution of investments in strategic programs, throughout the entire period of their development, minimizing liabilities and the critical situation of investments and renewal of naval resources”, says the Navy.

“The increase in the percentage of GDP will allow the Brazilian Army to improve its deterrent capacity, based on the incorporation of modern and effective equipment, continuing its transformation and rationalization process”, adds the Army.

The percentage was defined based on the budget target stipulated by NATO for its 29 member countries. Despite this, only 7 nations that are part of the Western military alliance have reached the desired levels.

They are Greece (3.54%), United States (3.46%), Lithuania (2.47%), Poland (2.42%), United Kingdom (2.16%), Estonia (2.12% ) and Latvia (2.07%). The data is in the latest report released by NATO, in 2023, and refers to budgets executed in the previous year.

“The Brazilian challenge would be to break this traditional budgetary pattern typical of developing countries, which prioritize spending on personnel”, assesses political scientist Octavio Amorim Neto, from FGV (Fundação Getúlio Vargas).

He states that Senator Portinho did not consider in the proposal that the Navy and Army’s expenditure on personnel is “very heavy, especially at the top of the career ladder.”

“There are too many officers for too few troops. It’s a sign of inefficiency, it has to do with the organization of the Forces. […]. It is legitimate to increase military spending and provide predictability, but Congress must demand compensation from the Armed Forces. Rationalize your expenses, reduce overhead”, he adds.

Ana Penido, political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Unicamp, states that the Armed Forces and Congress sent a negative signal by increasing benefits for military personnel in the career-specific pension reform in 2019.

For her, it is important that the Ministry of Defense exercises civilian control over the military and redefines the sector’s priorities in the context of updating the National Defense Strategy — the guiding document for the Armed Forces’ policies.

“A War Shot in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, for example. From the point of view of Defense policy, it has no function. But it has cultural values ​​in that municipality, there will be City Hall saying that it generates resources for the municipality […]. It’s not a simple discussion, but Brazil needs to redefine its priorities and then make personnel and budgetary adjustments”, he adds.

Professor at PUC-Minas and member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London Eugênio Diniz says that, “in the abstract”, there is sense in the argument especially used by the Navy that long-term strategic programs require availability and predictability of resources for their continuity.

“But this does not necessarily mean that this expense should be fixed and frozen […]. The target of 2% of GDP was set by NATO, it was defined according to NATO’s circumstantial arrangement. There is nothing sacred about this, no solid argument supports the need for 2%.”

Diniz states that the Navy is reaping today what it has sown in the last 20 years. “In 2001, the Navy had a staff of around 30 thousand people. Today it is around 75 thousand. And the main ships, the quantity, is almost similar to that time. What explains such growth in terms of personnel? “, he asks.