Lula is introduced to new general officers; understand promotion rules in the Armed Forces – 04/04/2023 – Politics

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) holds this Tuesday (4th) the greeting ceremony for newly promoted general officers. The ceremony, despite being traditional, marks a moment when the PT and the Armed Forces commands rehearse a rapprochement, after a troubled period in which the military mixed with politics in the wake of Bolsonarism.

The event, at the Planalto Palace, is the first of a series that the Army is preparing for this month, with the expectation that Lula will participate in some of them. On April 19, Army Day, the president must participate in the commemoration of the date; a lunch between the president and the generals of the High Command of the Force should also be held this month.

During the government transition period, there was fear among the military that Lula could embrace the idea that grew in the PT, in 2016, of changing the criteria for promoting officers.

Lula, however, issued a message through interlocutors that he only wanted to depoliticize the Armed Forces and seek rapprochement through increased investment in strategic defense projects.

The promotion system is similar in each of the Armed Forces, despite changes in nomenclature and numbers of general officers.

The path to generalship takes decades and depends on several factors. Promotions throughout the career are determined by seniority, merit, and specific choice—and gallantry, in times of war.

The bulk of the troop, however, is in the lower ranks, ranging from private to non-commissioned officer and accounting for almost 85% of the force’s personnel. There, the promotion criteria are more automatic.

A successful officer can have a career of around 40 years. The current commander of the Army, Tomás Paiva, for example, joined the Army in Aman in 1975, graduated in the class of 1981 and only reached the generalship in 2011.

He received the fourth star on his shoulder in 2019 and retired in January of this year after being named commander of the Army – reaching the maximum period of 12 years that general officers can remain on active duty before going to reserve.

Every year, on two or three occasions, there are meetings of the High Command of the Army, the Air Force and the Admiralty, to determine who will be promoted in the three levels of generalship. Here, unlike the officer career that extends from aspiring colonel, there are always political considerations involved in addition to merits.

As in every corporation, there are groups of officers with more affinity, usually those who worked together in a subordinate relationship.

The branch of the Army chosen (“weapon” in the jargon) matters especially in combat officers: cadets trained in the Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery tend to coalesce.

When promotions occur, the whole scale moves. If a four-star vacancy opens up, by seniority, the dispute for it will be given between the three-star generals usually from a class below —there may be variations.

The military member of the oldest group will then always be chosen. If he is more modern, that is, with less time in the barracks and age than his colleagues, this usually pushes the others to the reserve —since they are theoretically already at the usual limit of four years for each generalate post.

There are filigrees that cause variations, not infrequently. In the Navy, for example, there’s only one four-star Marine at a time, so they maneuver to stay longer as two- and three-stars, increasing the number of those who can compete for the spot at the top.

In the Army, there are cases where the newly appointed commander is older than a general in the High Command. This is the case of Tomás Paiva, who was chosen for the position and did not directly push his oldest classmate Valério Trindade Stumpf, chief of staff of the Army, into the reserve.

Stumpf, however, will go into inactivity in early April.

Faced with an intricate system of promotions, even with openness to political decisions, the military are usually not satisfied when a president of the Republic decides to nominate a more modern general officer for the position of commander of the Force.

In practice, the choice of a more recent officer causes a domino effect, with all senior officers going to the reserve.

That was why the Minister of Defense, José Múcio Monteiro, decided that he would choose only the most senior general officers of each Force to lead them — it was a political gesture of non-interference in the barracks.

By decree of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), there are, in 2023, 149 general officers in the Army (15 with four stars, 48 ​​with three, 86 with two), 87 in the Navy (8 with four stars, 26 with two , 53 out of three) and 85 in Air Force (8 out of four stars, 25 out of three, 52 out of two).