Amazonian Geopolitics

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American Geographical Society

Amazonia and the Politics of GeopoliticsAuthor(s): Ronald A. ForestaSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Apr., 1992), pp. 128-142Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/215427

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AMAZONIA AND THE POLITICS OF GEOPOLITICSRONALD A. FORESTA

ABSTRACT. Since 1964, geopolitical doctrine and other political considerationshave competed in shaping Brazilian policy for Amazonia. Early in the period,the military government employed geopolitics as the basis of Amazonian de-velopment but then downplayed geopolitics when its maxims failed to providenecessary progress. More recently, the successor civilian government, with noideological commitment to geopolitics, has pursued Amazonian policies shapedby geopolitics to keep the military harmlessly occupied in a remote region ofthe country. The case of Brazil suggests that although geopolitics overtly stressesbroad national interests, partisan politics can figure strongly in its employ.

The role of geopolitics in recent Amazonian development provides im-portant insights on how geopolitics interacts with a nation's politicallife. Geopolitical doctrine was a key part of the Brazilian military's

ideology, and the military government that ruled from 1964 to 1985 placedthat doctrine at the center of the national political arena. Much Braziliangeopolitical writing focused on Amazonia and viewed the region as the keyto the Brazilian future. Yet many other elements of Brazilian public life,including developmentalism, regional equalization, authoritarianism, anddemocratic resistance, also had an Amazonian dimension (Foresta 1991) andcompeted with geopolitics in informing Amazonian policy. How the com-petition played out reveals much about geopolitics as an element in thepolitical life of a modern nation-state.

BRAZILIANGEOPOLITICALOCTRINEBrazilian thinking about the future of the country followed two distinct

paths in the late nineteenth century. One was explicitly spatial. When thecentury began, the interiors of the Americas, Africa, Australia, and Eurasiawere largely domains known only to tribal peoples. By the last decades ofthe century, these interiors were being transformed into vast, settled regionsof commercial agriculture, with the change propelling the states that con-tained them, such as the United States, Australia, and the Russian Empire,to power and prosperity. Brazilians assumed that their future as well was tobe found in the continental interior. Many held that by shifting the heartlandfrom the coast to the interior, Brazil would forge a strong sense of nationalidentity and gain the power that a nation of its size deserved (Meira Mattos1975, 41-49).

The second path emerged from positivism, which envisioned an affluent,scientific, rational future achieved by social planning and beneficial author-

* DR. FORESTAs a professor of geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,Tennessee 37996-1420.


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AMAZONIA AND GEOPOLITICS

itarianism. That canon of thought had a strong influence throughout SouthAmerica (Burns 1982, 132), but its effect on Brazilian intellectual life wasextraordinary. The corruption and shortsighted politics of the era contrastedstarkly with the exalted ideal of public life espoused by positivism (Haring1968, 138-141).The Brazilian military of the late nineteenth century fashioned a senseof its place in national life from those two perspectives. The military vig-orously embraced positivism, because it saw itself as the only institution inthe pluralistic milieu of late-nineteenth-century Brazil with the disciplineand selflessness to provide the benevolent authoritarianism that positivismfavored. One nineteenth-century Brazilian observed that young officersweremore familiar with the teachings of Comte than with conventional militarysubjects like ballistics and tactics (Haring 1968, 140).Although the popularityof positivism as an explicit doctrine declined in the early twentieth century,the attitudes it encouraged in the military about its own role in national liferemained deeply ingrained.The military also shared the vision of the inland empire. The view ofthe interior as the key to the national future, combined with the tentativenessof Brazil's actual occupation of its western and northern territories,producedan undercurrent of national paranoia (Sternberg 1987). Brazil's neighborsand the great powers of the northern hemisphere were presumed to covetthe region and its putative riches. The military had to defend the region and,with it, Brazil's future.Writers associated with the Brazilianmilitary fused the indigenous visionof an inland empire with geopolitical ideas emanating from Europe into adistinctly Brazilian school of geopolitics in the 1920s and 1930s. Stronglyinfluenced by the writings of Friedrich Ratzel (1897) and Rudolf Kjellen(1917), Mario Travassos (1935) and Everardo Backheuser (1926, 1952) statedwhat were to become the basic motifs (Hepple 1986):an organismlike in-terpretation of the Brazilian nation-state, an image of its long frontiers asflexible diaphragms rather than fixed boundaries, and a sense that a risingBrazil needed to bring more territory under its effective control to deepenits sense of nationhood. Travassos was also influenced by the thinking ofHalford Mackinder (1904) and envisioned the Amazon basin as the SouthAmerican equivalent of the Eurasian heartland. Brazil had to develop east-west axes of settlement to secure the heartland before its neighbors did. Onlythrough this interior thrust could Brazil fulfill what Travassos called its"continental destiny."Brazilian geopolitics also tapped positivist thought about benevolent au-thoritarianism. Geopolitical writers assumed that the interior could be con-quered only if Brazil was under a government capable of marshaling andapplying national resources with exceptional single-mindedness. Nery daFonseca (1940) contended that Brazil could become a great power in twentyyears under an efficient and determined government.

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The evolution of geopolitical thought in other South American countriesfollowed a similar course. South American geopolitical writers were con-cerned with defending territorialclaims, especially to the little-explored landsin the continental interior, and saw the future of their countries as dependenton the expansion of the national ecumene into these areas. These writersusually perceived the military as the key instruments of national well-being.Whereas geopolitics went into decline in Europe after World War II, it re-mained vigorous in South America. In Brazil,prewar theoreticians remainedactive, and younger writers, foremost among them Golbery do Couto e Silva,emerged to continue and update the tradition. Couto e Silva (1957) wascentrally concerned with Amazonia, which he saw as the core of the SouthAmerican heartland. He stressed that although Brazil had gained sovereigntyover much of the Amazon basin through diplomacy, the area would neverbe securely Brazilian unless fully occupied and integrated into national life.He perceived the world as a darkly competitive place. There was no middleground for Brazil when it came to Amazonia; it could develop the regionand secure grandeza(national greatness), or it could lose the region and, withit, Brazil'sgrand destiny.The Brazilian military continued to nurture the positivist component ofits ideology. During the 1950s, Brazilian military thinkers elaborated thedoctrine of seguranqay desenvolvimento security and development), whichheld that national security and therefore the purview of the military extendedbeyond traditional defense considerations to the creation of astrong economyand a stable state (Hepple 1986).The doctrine of seguranSay desenvolvimentoand the Brazilian geopolitical tradition were reticulately linked in the writ-ings of Couto e Silva, who argued that only through the development of amodern economy would Brazil have the resources to carryout the geopoliticalagenda (Couto e Silva 1967;Selcher 1977).The post-World War II ideology of the Brazilian military was fashionedand disseminated at the Escola Superior de Guerra (National War College),founded in 1949to train upper-level officersand selected civilians to performexecutive and advisory functions in the Brazilian state. Most postwar geo-political writers taught at the college, which promoted a centralized, goal-oriented, security-conscious state and an expansive interpretation of the mil-itary's role in national life. Most of Brazil's general officers were graduatesof the school and had been bathed in its doctrines by the early 1960s(Schnei-der 1971, 244).Disturbed by the spreading chaos of the Goulart presidency and fearinga leftist takeover, the military staged a coup d'etat in 1964. It settled intopower and remained there for more than twenty years. The coup broughtgeopolitical doctrine and its forgers close to the center of the national politicalarena. Couto e Silva became an important figure in the military governmentas directorof the powerful National Intelligence Service and as a close advisorto the president. General Meira Mattos, his younger associate and successor

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as the leading Braziliangeopolitical writer, played an active role in the coupand became an important member of the officer corps.POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF AMAZON GEOPOLITICS

The geopolitical doctrines of the Brazilian military were merely unex-pressed idea sets before it came to power, and praxis never had the oppor-tunity to illuminate the contradictions that those doctrines might have con-tained. Furthermore, the doctrines sprang from two distinct fonts, whichheightened the possibility of internal contradiction. The military in poweralso faced the complex and ever-changing task of administering the country,which raised the likelihood of problems for which its doctrines offeredinadequate guidance or none at all. These conditions of doctrine and powergreatly complicated the relationship between the military and geopoliticalthought in Brazil (Hepple 1986).The military, nonetheless, quickly put its geopolitical doctrines into prac-tice, especially with regard to Amazonia. In 1966, the government launchedOperation Amazonia, the very name of which reflected military-style think-ing and the goal-oriented aggressiveness of Brazilian geopolitical doctrine.The initiative aimed at increasing the region's population and forcing thepulse of its economy. Under the program, roads linking Amazonia to therest of the country were upgraded and new ones were begun. A new de-velopment agency, the Superintendency for Amazon Development, and anew regional-development bank, the Bank of Amazonia, were established.Tax exemptions for investments in Amazonia were instituted. The city ofManaus was declared a free-trade zone.Even before the military launched Operation Amazonia, however, itbegan to put the positivist, focused-state side of its ideology into practice bycentralizing economic decision-making and transforming the federal admin-istration into a technocratic, development-promoting instrument (Schneider1971). The ministries of planning and finance were turned into supermin-istries and were given extensive budgets and policy control over the otherministries. Under the watchful eye of the military, these superministries putinto practice many of the then-accepted international doctrines of develop-ment: assertion of strong state leadership of a capitalist economy, concen-tration on industrialization as the engine of modernization, cultivation offoreign investment, and promotion of exports, especially manufactured ones.The economists and technocrats to whom the generals had delegated themanagement of the national economy did not necessarily share the geopo-litical perspective of the military leadership. Driven by prevailing doctrinesof economic development, they favored investing in the regions with thegreatestcapacityto turn capital into efficient production, that is, the urbanizedand relatively affluent southern parts of the country. They saw Amazoniaas lacking the infrastructure for quick growth. Its low population densityand remoteness from the national centers of industry prevented adequate

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returns on investments, especially in the distant western and northern partsof the region. They saw Amazonia's role in national growth as a secondary,supporting one: its raw materials would supply the industries of the southand earn foreign exchange (Kleinpenning 1977;Stone 1985, 84-85). In linewith this perspective, top Brazilian economic planners encouraged foreignbusinessmen to invest in large resource-extraction projects in Amazonia.Daniel Ludwig committed to the massive Jari project in 1967, and the dis-covery of the Carajas ron-ore deposits that same year gave Amazonia anotherattraction for foreign investors. Thus, although the first years of the militaryregime were characterized by an intensification of federal development ac-tivity in Amazonia, the role of the region in building the national futureremained unresolved, which reflected the contradiction at the center of themilitary vision of the national future.The contradiction-fed tensions about Amazonia produced a policy debatethat spilled from the closed chambers of the junta in the late 1960s (Flynn1979,425-430). Afonso de Albuquerque Lima,a senior officer and the interiorminister, opposed the concentration of development efforts in the south,with the argument that it exacerbatedregional differences and left Amazonia-exposed to foreign designs. The development that had occurredin Amazonia,he contended, did not favor the national interest as seen through the lensof geopolitics. The incentive-driven growth of Amazonian cities and areasof commercial agriculture on the eastern and southern fringes of the regionhad left the interior and frontier areas dangerously underpopulated. Albu-querque Lima took a stand against the foreign-financed extraction projects,which he saw as loosening Brazil'sgrip on the region. He argued that Ama-zonia must be fully settled and made part of the national ecumene withdomestic, not foreign, resources. He summed up his position with the phrase"integrar para nao entregar" (integrate the region or lose it).The federal government and the armed forces were seriously divided onthe issues Albuquerque Lima raised, which ultimately hinged on whetherto ignore or respect the imperatives of geopolitics. Several important figuresin the government and many junior officerssupported him. The technocraticestablishment, which held that diverting capital from areas where it wouldproduce maximum returns and cutting off the flow of foreign funds woulddampen national growth, solidly opposed him. The debate caught the mil-itary on the two prongs of its own ideology.The issue was decided against Albuquerque Lima, who was forced fromoffice. General Emilio Medici, the new president, excluded officers identifiedwith Albuquerque Lima's views from the inner circle of power. Partly as aconcession to the geopolitical perspective, however, Medici unveiled theNational Integration Plan (PIN) in 1970. PIN called for the construction ofthe Transamazon Highway, running from northeastern Brazil westwardacross the heart of Brazilian Amazonia, and another highway from Cuiabain Mato Grosso to Santarem on the banks of the Amazon in western Para

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1 t/-' s i'NORTHERNERIMETER

SantarIni :?i'~~'~~"".::Vttii :

-- PIN Pioneering Highways E PIN InitialZone of Influence--- Other Main Amazon HighwaysFIG. 1.-PIN highways and area of influence.

(Fig. 1). A network of feeder roads would be constructed from these highways,and large agrarian colonies would be established along them. A hierarchyof central places would be created ex nihilo to serve the developing regions,and landless peasants from the overpopulated northeast would be encour-aged to migrate to the newly opened lands. Within five years, farms for100,000 families would be provided; within ten years perhaps as many as amillion. The Land Redistribution Program (PROTERRA) was established in1971 to complement PIN by financing the acquisition of large landholdingsfor redistribution to small farmers on the frontier. The following year, PIN'soverall budget was increased 40 percent, and a third pioneering road, theNorthern Perimeter Highway, which would run just south of the northernborder, was announced. PIN's planning documents urged placing the stampof Brazilian settlement so firmly on Amazonia that Brazilian sovereigntywould never be contested (Fearnside 1984, 47).PIN went poorly. In 1974, with only a few thousand colonists settled andmany of them already failing, the project was canceled. The failure reflectedbadly on the geopolitical tradition. Like their earlier European counterparts,Brazilian geopolitical writers thought in sweeping terms. They envisionedvast developing regions spanning, indeed, ignoring, rivers, mountains, andother physical obstacles. They favored grand historical analogy over mar-shaling detailed proof; other continental interiors had been successfully set-tled during the nineteenth century, they contended, so in the twentieth

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century it was South America's turn. They had an ebullient but unplumbedfaith in applied science, which Meira Mattos (1980, 147)asserted had broken"the tyranny of geography." Their level of argument did not lend them toscrutinize the failure of earlier organized settlements in Amazonia. Geopo-litical writers had casually assumed that the causes of these failures, whateverthey were, could be overcome by an act of national will. Geopolitical thinkersdid not concern themselves with the specifics of the resource base on whichAmazonian development must depend. They conveniently fell back on oldmyths of Amazonian riches, and let it go at that.Several factors seem to have contributed to the failure of PIN. Manycolonists had farming skills inappropriate for the region. Access to credit,markets, and professional advice was inadequate. Conflicts between settlersand speculators were rife (Bunker 1979;Moran 1983;Stone 1985). Most im-portant, however, seem to have been unrealistic expectations for the regionitself. Detailed soil-fertility studies were seldom prepared before the agri-cultural colonies were situated, and as a result many were located on poorsoils (Moran 1981, 109, 219-21). Nor were careful cost-benefit studies com-mon; it was simply assumed, for example, that the roads associated with theproject would prompt whatever levels of economic activity were needed tocover costs (Ministry of Transportation 1970),but they seldom did. In short,PIN seems to have foundered on exactlythe detailsthatgeopolitics overlooked.Even as PIN was failing, Brazilprogressed toward the greatness foreseenby its visionaries. Gross national product (GNP) doubled between 1967 and1974, the years of vigorous growth called the miracle. By the mid-1970s,Brazilhad emerged as the undisputed political and economic leader of SouthAmerica. Brazil gained a new measure of international respect and came to"bask ... warmly in the sun of international finance and business approval"(Flynn 1979, 454). Brazil became an exemplar of progress in the developingworld.After a decade of practical testing, the geopolitical paradigm seemedwrong in every particular.Brazil's new prosperity rested on industrializationand the modernization of agriculturein the long-settled and urbanized south-ern regions. Prosperity had accompanied increased trade and contact withthe outside world, not involution. The value of Brazil'sexports expanded atan average annual rate of 27 percent between 1968 and 1973. Amazonia'scontribution to the new prosperity was minimal: the six northern states andterritories contained only 4.2 percent of the Brazilian population in 1977, arise of 0.4 percent compared with the previous decade; regional productivityper capita stood at less than 60 percent of the national average. The attemptto open Amazonia to the kind of pioneering that had tamed other continentalinteriors in the nineteenth century had been a drag on the national economy,not its engine.Although the mystique of an Amazon empire lingered in the media andthe popular imagination, a very different picture of Amazonia's potential

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MARAJOManaus MARAJOALTAMIRATAPAJOS ALTAMRA PRE-AMAZONIAN

f ^ ,^ 1MARANHAOJURUA-SOLIMOES MAHCARAJAS0

^ARIPUANA ARAGUAIA-TOCANTINSoACRE

,-. ^.. . ,JURUENA XINGU-ARAGUAIA'. RONDONIA\ 0Cuiaba 0OBrasilia

,, ORAZILi' MilitaryConcentrations [ Calha NorteZone of Operations

W POLAMAZONIAevelopment PoleFIG. 2.-POLAMAZONIA development poles and Calha Norte zone of operations.

was emerging from soil sampling, mineral prospecting, and aerial surveyingby the 1970s. Scattered mineral deposits, including bauxite, iron ore, tin, andgold, and some areas of good soil were set in a regional matrix of poor soilsand modest prospects. A uniformly settled Amazon in the stamp of theprosperous rural regions of the south now appeared unlikely. The new, moremodest picture of Amazonia's potential was the foundation of the SecondPlan for Amazonia (PDAM II). Scheduled to run from 1975 to 1979, the planhad at its heart the POLAMAZONIA program, which would maximize Ama-zonia's contribution to the national product through development of primaryindustries in fifteen selected areas (Fig. 2; Table I). The most expensive polewould focus on the enormous iron-ore deposits of Serra dos Carajas; anotherwould center on large bauxite deposits along the Rio Trombetas.PDAM II was at best geopolitically neutral. Although it would bringpeople to Amazonia, it would concentrate them, leaving most of the regiona demographic void. It would increase the economic pulse of the region, butit would rely heavily on foreign investments in doing so. Agriculture wasa component of the plans, but for the most part it would be large-scale,capital-intensive agriculture concentrating on exports or serving the massmarkets of the south, not the grass-roots pioneering that lay at the heart ofthe geopolitical vision. In fact, such pioneering was now actively discouragedin all but a few areas of Amazonia (Schmink 1982).

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THEGEOGRAPHICALREVIEWGEOPOLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY

Quite apart from being a false guide to national development, by themid-1970s the Brazilian geopolitical tradition seemed like an outmoded basisfor foreign policy. With its implication that the country would achieve great-ness only if it secured the continental interior before one of its neighborsdid, Brazilian geopolitics gave national prosperity the defining attribute ofa private good: what was appropriated by one country was not available toanother. This lent a competitive cast to Brazil's relationship with its neigh-bors, and rivalries for the interior became a cornerstone of Brazilian conti-nental policy. Brazil's relations with the Andean countries especially weremarked by mistrust regarding Amazonia. It was natural that the rapid eco-nomic growth of Brazil heightened the fears of its neighbors. A senior Pe-ruvian military officer noted that Brazil was "like the United States a hundredyears ago as it expands to the Pacific, and Peru is California" (Child 1985,36). Venezuelan President Caldera attempted to form an alliance of Spanish-speaking countries to counter Brazilian expansionism, and Venezuelan effortsto develop its southern region had largely the same end (Bond 1980).

TABLEI-POLAMAZONIA DEVELOPMENT OLESPOLE ECONOMIC FOCUS

Xingu-Araguaia Ranching, beef processingCarajas Iron extractionAraguaia-Tocantins Ranching, mineral extraction, hydroelectricity productionTrombetas Aluminum extractionAltamira Commercial farming (coffee, pepper, sugarcane)Pre-Amazonian Maranhao RanchingRond6nia Commercial farming, tin extractionAcre Rubber productionJuria-Solim6es ForestryRoraima Ranching, beef processingTapaj6s Long-cycle crops, ranching, hydroelectricity productionAmapa Fishing, forestry, manganese extractionJuruena Commercial farming, ranchingAripuana Mineral extraction, forestryMaraj6 Ranching, forestry, rubber productionSource:Superintendency of Amazon Development 1979.

The economic miracle changed the calculus of Brazilian foreign policy.Having far outdistanced its neighbors in economic strength, Brazil had theself-assurance to discard its view of them as rivals. Cooperation rather thanrivalry now seemed to promise higher yields; Brazil wanted access to itsneighbors' markets and aspired to lead them en bloc in global politics (Roett1984, 200). Even Brazilian geopolitical writers tried to adjust to this new self-assurance (Meira Mattos 1975; Olivera Lima 1975) and proposed Amazoniandevelopment as an international rather than strictly Brazilian endeavor. MeiraMattos envisioned vast development nodes spanning international bound-aries, each dotted with cities, laced with roads and connected to populationcenters on the periphery of the basin.

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Brazilian diplomacy responded to this new foreign-policy thinking withefforts to forge Brazil's neighbors into a coterie of trading partners andpolitical allies. The promotion of a treaty pledging all Amazonian countriesto cooperate in management of the region was a key element of those efforts(Medina 1980). The neighbors were wary of the initiative, because relationshad been competitive for too long. When Brazilian President Geisel andBolivian President Suarez signed a pact pledging economic cooperation in1974,students rioted in LaPaz and Bolivian opposition politicians denouncedit as a capitulation to Brazilian expansionism. The new strain of Braziliangeopolitical writing hardly put fears to rest: it mentioned cooperation butleft no doubt as to the primacy of Brazil (Kelly 1984).Intense diplomatic efforts persuaded Brazil's neighbors to consider anAmazonian pact, but the draft of the agreement submitted by Brazil raisedold fears. It echoed the Brazilian geopolitical tradition in its emphasis ondefense and security. Clauses referring to regional economic integration andjoint resources exploitation contained the newer integrationist themes inBraziliangeopolitics and sounded equally unsettling (Medina 1980).To allaythese fears, Brazil needed a wholly different rationale for Amazonian co-operation, so diplomats negotiating the pact seized on environmental pro-tection. Collective defense and regional development were downplayed inthe new draft, and cooperation in protecting nature in the basin becameprominent. The shift was successful: the Treaty of Amazon Cooperation wassigned by the Amazonian countries in July 1978. With this treaty, Brazil setits international ambitions in a benign context far removed from geopoliticsand cast an image of maturity and responsibility.

LATENT FUNCTIONS OF GEOPOLITICSBrazilian geopolitics was excessively literal in its interpretation of therelationship between space and power, so development policies based on itignored the important physical realities of Amazonia and failed. Its paranoid,aggressive qualities set the tone for a foreign policy that was counterpro-ductive in a political environment where cooperation was increasingly val-ued. The failure of geopolitics to satisfy either domestic or foreign policyimperatives led to its eclipse by the late 1970s. Younger foreign-service andmilitary officers discarded geopolitical theory, and even the curriculum ofthe Escola Superior de Guerra, the font of Brazilian geopolitical doctrine,deemphasized it.Braziliangeopolitical doctrine survived its failures and returned in force,albeit in a new form, as an element of national policy. In 1985, the year

Brazilfully restored civilian government, the CalhaNorte (Northern Trough)Project was unveiled. The product of the military-dominated National Se-curity Council and a high-level interministerial working group, the projectintended to secure the country's hold on its northern Amazon marches(Sanders 1987-88). The project was set in a government-manufactured at-

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mosphere of paranoia: it was justified on the basis of internal disorder inthe neighboring countries, conflicting territorial claims, especially those ofGuyana and Venezuela, and the possibility that unspecified east-west an-tagonisms might find their way into northern South America and loosenBrazil's grip on the region. The plan was accompanied by government-inspired stories in the press about foreign missionaries working to turn theregion into a huge, international Indian reserve. The Calha Norte Projectenvisioned a greatly increased military presence in a wide zone along thenorthern frontier and a forced pace of development to tie northern Amazoniamore securely to the national economy. The project was still in effect at thebeginning of the 1990s, incongruously set against more progressive actionslike the establishment of protected natural areas and the expulsion of goldminers from Indian lands.Why were the old, discarded geopolitical approaches rejuvenated? Onereason, perhaps, was that geopolitical ideology had become an instrumentof institutional self-justification. The military's ideology had been forgedduring republican times, when the military was one of many interests andinstitutions clustered at the center of the national political arena, each want-ing greater power and access to state resources. As the defender of Brazil'sinterior-based future and the instrument of its rational, progressive future,the military demanded a privileged position in the political order. The Bra-zilian military's geopolitical and positivist-inspired doctrines continued toserve these organizational ends well for most of the twentieth century. Theywere a basis for esprit in the military. They laid an ambitious claim to nationalresources for the military and to pride of place in the political order. Creatingpolitical space for ambition, sustaining a sense of self-importance, and res-onating with prevailing public values, not verifiable correctness or internalconsistency, were important in serving these institutional goals.Once the military was in power and its senior officer corps became anexecutive cadre with a purview that extended to the nation as a whole, logical

inconsistencies and disjunction between doctrine and verifiable reality mat-tered a great deal. Its doctrines no longer had to argue for an expanded roleor pride of place for the military in national affairs; the military had nowseized both. Rather, geopolitics had to serve as a blueprint for economicgrowth. To be effective, the military government had to be accepted by theother elites and by much of the nation at large, but having overthrown aduly elected civilian government, it had no claims to legitimacy on consti-tutional grounds. Its claims therefore had to be based on the delivery ofmaterial benefits (Wesson and Fleischer 1983, 25). In short, the traditionalgeopolitical doctrines did not meet the needs of the military in power if theydid not keep their promise of national prosperity. Instead, economic advancebased in the southern heartland, not the conquest of the interior, brought anew sense of confidence and a new, proud place in the world order to Braziland a legitimacy to its government.

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The reestablishment of democracy in the 1980s changed the roles of themain participants in Brazilian national politics. The democratic forces, pre-viously repressed by the military, returned to power, and the military re-turned to the barracks and the wings of power for the first time in twodecades. With this change in roles, the military and the democratic forcesfaced complementary challenges. The former had to find a satisfying nichefor itself in the newly redemocratized, civilian-led nation. The latter had tokeep the military, whose latent power remained formidable (Schneider 1991,374), from becoming so dissatisfied with its reduced, apolitical role that itwould attempt to retake the reins of government.The two strains of the military's traditional ideology, the geopolitical andthe positivist, though mutually reinforcing, made somewhat different state-ments about the military's place in national life and consequently differedin their usefulness in different political circumstances. The positivist strainwas compatible only with an authoritarian state under the direction of themilitary. It was, in fact, a thinly veiled argument for military control of thestate. To be sure, the geopolitical strain had political biases: geopoliticalwriters envisioned their schemes of interior conquest carried out underauthoritarian governments with the strength to marshal national will andresources for the task. Nevertheless, the geopolitical strain, unlike the pos-itivist, was not inherently incompatible with a pluralist, democratic state inwhich the military was one of many focuses of power. The military coulddefend the interior base of future greatness under any type of government.It was therefore in the interest of both the new civilian government and themilitary to stress the geopolitical rather than positivist perspective on thelatter's role in national life. In sum, the primary requirement of militarydoctrine was now exactly the opposite of what it was when the military wasin power; the doctrine had to confer status and sense of institutional purpose,not successfully guide national policy.The great irony of this shift was well expressed in the Calha Norte Project.Whereas Amazonia's perceived centrality to the national future was one ofthe cornerstones of Brazilian geopolitical doctrine, it was the remoteness ofthe northern Amazonian frontier from the national ecumene and the relativeunimportance to national well-being that now made it an ideal place to givevent to geopolitical thinking and thus to serve as a sink for military energiesthat might otherwise go into political misadventures.

CONCLUSIONNo one case can provide a fully ramified theory of geopolitical expression.

Yet the recent Brazilian experience does offer some generalizing insightscapable of bearing the weight of prediction and theory. First, geopolitics asan idea set should not be exclusively associated with any specific historicalera. Although the grand panoply of European history forged geopolitics, theBrazilianexperience showed that geopolitics was capable of using whatever

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THEGEOGRAPHICALREVIEWintellectual material the modern era offered in keeping its value referentscurrent. Students of geopolitics have emphasized the degree to which nine-teenth- and early-twentieth-century geopolitical doctrine rested on many ofthe worst intellectual canards of the era, including geographical determinism,inappropriate organismic and sociological analogy, racial stereotyping, andteleological reasoning. Yet South American geopolitical doctrine remainedvigorous in the late twentieth century, long after its original intellectualprops were discredited. In the case of Brazil, it underwent a revival evenafter its lack of realism had led to manifest policy failure.All of this suggests that geopolitical expression is probably best under-stood in the context of immediate political environments. Geopolitical doc-trine is a useful if specialized political instrument. It will be removed fromthe shelf of ideas about statecraft when some player deems it useful. Geo-politics will express itself in state agendas or policies when such expressionserves the interests of those with the power to set agendas and policies. Itwill be returned to the shelf when its employ or espousal is no longer deemeduseful by any important players.Even if a systematic understanding of geopolitical expression must ac-cumulate casewise and inductively, the Brazilian case presents some usefulguides to the analysis. First, the elements in the state responsible for territorialdefense or acquisition, such as militaries, security agencies, defense contrac-tors, and their dependents, will most commonly be the permanent reposi-tories of geopolitical doctrine. The grounding of geopolitical doctrine interritory legitimizes their mission, budgets, and profits. But the degree towhich such elements carry and give vent to geopolitical doctrine dependson immediate political circumstances. The postwar militaries of westernEurope, locked into the NATO alliance and the broad parameters of Sovietcontainment policies, found it difficult to maintain geopolitical doctrine intheir institutional cultures, much less give expression to it. The militaries ofSouth America, less secure in their national political systems, but also lessconstrained by them, made geopolitical doctrine a key part of their institu-tional cultures and forced its occasional expression in policy.Second, because the tone of geopolitics is inherently aggressive, it is likelyto find expression in national policy when tensions with neighbors are highand the rewards of cooperation seem modest or beyond reach. When co-operation is ascendant, geopolitical doctrine becomes inconvenient and isretired.

Third, because geopolitics tends toward a spatial literalism that is seldomfully confluent with reality, it is likely to come to the fore when realism isnot an especially important criterion. Examples include periods when dem-agoguery, the politics of symbolism, or the accommodation of competingpolitical factions takes precedence over the need to deliver material benefitsto broad groups in the body politic, or when absence of any possibility ofmaterial progress forces a displacement of notions of the commonweal intojingoistic and spatially literal forms.

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AMAZONIA AND GEOPOLITICS 141Fourth, because national politics can be very fluid at the level at which

geopolitics finds purchase, circumstances favorable to its espousal can quicklycoalesce. This fluidity also makes the advocacy of geopolitical doctrines op-portune to different players at different times. This fluidity makes it difficultto predict, in the long term, the alliances that will form behind geopoliticaldoctrine.Finally, if these conclusions about geopolitical doctrine and its expressionare correct,geopolitics will not soon disappear from the corpus of ideas aboutstatecraft. Rather, they will move into and out of fashion, changing theirstripes as they adapt to new political circumstances and intellectual currents.Such doctrines will continue to manifest themselves episodically in national

policy around the world, even if cooperation becomes one of the hallmarksof the post-cold-war international order. The political uses of geopolitics aretoo many and too valuable to make its permanent abandonment likely.REFERENCES

Backheuser, E. 1926. Das politische conglomerat Brasilien. Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik3:625-630.1952. Geopolitica geral e do Brasil. Rio de Janiero: Biblioteca do Exercito.Bond, R. D. 1980. Venezuela, Brazil, and the Amazon basin. Orbis22:635-650.Bunker, S. G. 1979. Power structures and exchange between government agencies in the expansionof the agricultural sector in Para. Studies in Comparative nternationalDevelopment 14:56-76.Burns, E. B. 1982. Latin America: A concise interpretive history, 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice-Hall.Child, J. 1985. Geopolitics and conflict in South America. New York: Praeger.Couto e Silva, G. do. 1957. Aspectos geopoliticos do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exercito.. 1967. Geopolitica do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio.Fearnside, P. M. 1984. Brazil's Amazon settlement schemes. HabitatInternational8:45-61.Flynn, P. 1979. Brazil: A political analysis. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Fonseca, L. N. da. 1940. Geopolitica. Rio de Janerio: Bedeschi.Foresta, R. A. 1991. Amazon conservation in the age of development. Gainesville: University ofFlorida Press.

Haring, C. H. 1968. Empire in Brazil. New York: W. W. Norton.Hepple, L. W. 1986. Geopolitics, generals, and the state in Brazil. Political GeographyQuarterly5:S79-S90.Kelly, P. L. 1984. Geopolitical themes in the writings of General Carlos de Meira Mattos of Brazil.

Journalof LatinAmerican Studies 16:439-461.Kjellen, R. 1917. Staat als lebensform. Leipzig: Hirzel.Kleinpenning, J. M. G. 1977. Evaluation of the Brazilian policy for the integration of the Amazonregion (1964-1974). Tijdschriftvoor Economieen Social Geografie68:297-311.Mackinder, H. 1904. Geographical pivot of history. GeographicalJournal23:421-437.Medina, M. E. 1980. Amazonian pact, a general analysis. Land, people and planning in contem-porary Amazonia, ed. F. Barbira-Scazzocchio, 78-91. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UniversityCentre of Latin American Studies.Meira Mattos, C. de. 1975. Brasil-geopolitica e destino. Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio.. 1980. Uma geopolitica Pan-Amaz6nica. Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio.Ministry of Transportation, Brazilian Federal Government. 1970. Transamazonian highways, reportpresented to the sixth world meeting of the International Road Federation, Montreal, Canada.Moran, E. 1981. Developing the Amazon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.. 1983. Government-directed settlement in the 1970s: An assessment of transamazon high-way colonization. Dilemma of Amazonian development, ed. E. Moran, 297-317. Boulder, Colo.:Westview.Olivera Lima, S. E. de. 1975. 0 despertar de um continente. Brasilia: Editoria de Brasilia.Ratzel, F. 1897. Politische geographie. Leipzig: R. Oldenbourg.Roett, R. 1984. Brazil: Politics in a patrimonial society, 3d ed. New York: Praeger.Sanders, T. G. 1987-88. Brazilian geopolitics: Securing the south and the north. Universities FieldStaff international report 23. Indianapolis.Schmink, M. 1982. Land conflicts in Amazonia. AmericanEthnologist9:341-357.


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Schneider, R. M. 1971. Political system of Brazil. New York: Columbia University Press.1991. "Order and Progress": A political history of Brazil. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Selcher, W. A. 1977. National security doctrine and policies of the Brazilian government. Parameters:Journalof the US Army WarCollege 7:10-24.Stone, R. D. 1985. Dreams of Amazonia. New York: Viking.Sternberg, H. 0. 1987. "Manifest Destiny" and the Brazilian Amazon: A backdrop to contemporarysecurity and development issues. Conference of Latin American Geographers Yearbook 13:25-35.Superintendency of Amazon Development. 1979. Amaz6nia: Novo universo (unpaged), Belem.Travassos, M. 1935. Projecao continental do Brasil, 2d ed. Sao Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional.Wesson, R. G., and D. V. Fleischer. 1983. Brazil in transition. New York: Praeger.

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