Crise nas forças armadas mundiais

[hades767676]

O texto é de 2009, mas como de lá para cá os cortes só aumentaram, da para se ter uma idéia do enfraquecimento militar da europa ocidental.

União Europeia
Uma potência cada vez mais fraca
Enquanto os orçamentos militares da China, Rússia, EUA e da Índia não param de aumentar, o da União Europeia é o mesmo de há dez anos atrás. A Europa tem hoje menos capacidade de influência em matéria de "soft power", lamenta-se o El Pais.
Andrea Rizzi

Julho tem sido um mês muito duro para as tropas britânicas destacadas no Afeganistão. A morte de 19 soldados em três semanas, a maior parte devido à explosão de bombas, desencadeou um aceso debate em Londres sobre se as forças do Reino Unido têm equipamento à altura da situação.

A polémica no Reino Unido – que, juntamente com a França, é a primeira potência militar europeia – coloca uma questão política vital à escala do continente: em que estado se encontram as forças europeias? Acompanham de forma adequada a sua ambição de ser uma potência mundial? As estatísticas relativas às despesas militares fornecem uma resposta clara: enquanto, que na última década, todas as grandes potência mundiais aumentaram os respectivos orçamentos militares a um ritmo vertiginoso, a Europa gasta hoje o mesmo daquilo que gastava há 10 anos. Comparativamente, o poder militar europeu enfraquece de dia para dia.

Os factos não deixam margem para dúvidas. Entre 1999 e 2008, a China aumentou as despesas militares em 194%, em termos reais, a Rússia em 173%, os Estados Unidos em 66% e a Índia em 44%. No mesmo período, a França aumentou o seu orçamento em 3%, a Itália em 0,4% e a Alemanha retrocedeu 11%. No Reino Unido, as despesas militares registaram um acréscimo de 20%, devido ao forte envolvimento do país nas guerras do Iraque e do Afeganistão. No conjunto do continente, houve um aumento de 5%. Os dados são do prestigiado Instituto Internacional de Estocolmo para a Investigação sobre a Paz (IIEIP).



"As despesas militares são estimuladas por três factores de base", comenta Samuel Perlo-Freeman, investigador do departamento de despesas militares do IIEIP. "Envolvimento em conflitos armados, como os EUA; ter ambições de potência militar mundial, como a China ou a Rússia; ou beneficiar de um crescimento económico elevado, que facilita o aumento das despesas militares. A Europa não é incentivada por nenhum dos três factores. Os países europeus deram prioridade a objectivos para os quais não consideram necessário nem útil o desenvolvimento do poder militar."



Assim, a capacidade de influência da Europa à escala mundial fica cada vez mais dependente do chamado soft power que assenta no poder económico e comercial, na sedução cultural e na sua mistura atraente de mercado livre e protecção social. Para muitos, isso é positivo mas, sobre este assunto, há opiniões muito diversas. No entanto, os factos recordam que os concorrentes são duros, num mundo muito menos nobre do que aquele com que sonham os defensores do soft power. Um mundo onde o hard power conta quase tanto como na época em que, ao ser interrogado sobre as relações com a Igreja Católica, Estaline perguntou ironicamente: "O Papa? Quantas divisões tem o Papa?"



"A Europa distanciou-se do ritmo de crescimento das outras potências e isso é bastante preocupante", observa Yves Boyer, director-adjunto da Fundação Francesa para a Investigação Estratégica . "Se quisermos evitar uma Europa condenada à decadência, os Governos têm de a dotar de meios, nos sectores industriais, culturais, diplomáticos mas também militares. Mesmo indo contra as respectivas opiniões públicas, os Governos têm o direito de agir segundo o interesse estratégico dos seus países."



No entanto, observa-se uma estagnação absoluta na última década e as projecções relativas aos próximos orçamentos não invertem essa tendência. A crise económica mundial reduz ainda mais a margem de manobra.



"Apesar do abrandamento dos investimentos, que afecta a disponibilidade de materiais", adianta Boyer, "a Europa continua a dispor de vantagens comparativas no que se refere ao savoir faire. Mas até o próprio savoir faire precisa de meios para se manter actualizado e a espiral actual pode ser perigosa."



Para se ter uma ideia da dimensão do problema, o total dos orçamentos militares das cinco principais potências militares europeias – França, Reino Unido, Alemanha, Itália e Espanha – que têm uma população equivalente à dos EUA e um PIB conjunto pouco inferior, representa 40% do orçamento dos EUA.



Por outro lado, é evidente que a soma das despesas militares europeias continua a ser mais uma realidade aritmética do que política. Apesar de a subida ao poder de Sarkozy e da sua aproximação à NATO e aos EUA abrirem caminho para o desenvolvimento de uma defesa comum europeia, a verdade é que não há progressos significativos nesta matéria. O esforço militar europeu continua ser muito fragmentado, ao mesmo tempo que surgem no horizonte realidades nacionais mais coesas e cada vez mais armadas.
http://www.presseurop.eu/pt/content/art ... mais-fraca

[marcelo l.]

[marcelo l.]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/1 ... ny-storage


It has been an awfully long time since British tanks rumbled their way across Europe towards the Rhine – 67 years, in fact.

So the Germans will be intrigued to learn the Ministry of Defence is plotting another push east, albeit an unconventional one that has been forced on it by budget cuts.

Thousands of the British military's tanks, carriers and cars will head across the Channel because of MoD plans to sell off its vast complex at Ashchurch in Gloucestershire. This is where it stores or repairs up to 6,000 vehicles, ready for duty.

The problem of where to put them all when the 72-hectare (178-acre) site is sold has been troubling military planners, who have plumped for Mönchengladbach in western Germany. The city in North-Rhine Westphalia is home to the British-owned Ayrshire barracks.

Whitehall sources hope that moving tanks and other heavy vehicles to Germany will be only a temporary measure, buying time for the MoD to find a more permanent home for them in the UK.

But while the idea might be practical on some levels, insiders at the MoD can see the potential for farce.

The UK is in the process of withdrawing thousands of troops from Germany, at the same time as thousands of military vehicles could be heading in the opposite direction.

There will also be some anxiety about so many of them being relocated outside the UK, where they will not be ready for instant use in any emergency.

"Moving so many vehicles to Germany would be quite a feat, especially any tanks," said David Willey, curator of the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset.

"You can only get one on every loader. Taking them to Germany would be quite expensive, and they need to be kept in a very secure environment because they have systems that the military need to protect."

The sale of Ashchurch is one of the money-making measures the MoD is having to push through to raise cash at a time of budget cuts and redundancy rounds.

The land is a prime spot for property development, and plans are already being developed by the local council.

The site near Tewkesbury has been likened to an enormous garage, where military vehicles are stored and kept ready for action. It is the only storage facility of its type in the UK and has a staff of about 700, made up of military, civilians and contractors.

The most valuable vehicles are kept in a 47,000 sq m super-shed, which has controlled humidity. The UK has 300 Challenger 2 Tanks, and Willey said keeping them in good order was essential – because they are becoming irreplaceable.

"There's no market to make them any more. I hope they will be looked after."

Another source, who asked not to be named, said the idea had caused hoots of laughter when it was first suggested. "It wasn't quite so funny when we realised this could happen," he said.

A spokesman for the MoD said: "The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has been considering the future re-provision of facilities to meet the ongoing operational need at Ashchurch.

"As part of this evaluation a number of options are being assessed that would render Ashchurch operationally surplus.

"Consequently, the DIO has engaged with the local authorities to discuss the future use for the Ashchurch site and the site has been allocated as a potential strategic allocation (should it close), alongside adjoining land to the north for around 2,100 dwellings in the Joint Core Strategy for Gloucester, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury, which is currently out for public consultation.

"This approach offers us an opportunity to address local needs as well as those of the MOD."

Sources said the MoD would not have to send all 6,000 vehicles to Germany because there were other sites in the UK that might be used.

[marcelo l.]

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/arti ... erspective

Last week, while in Poland to deliver a series of lectures on defense issues, I traveled by train from Warsaw to Krakow and was reminded why Norman Davies titled his magisterial history of the countr, “God’s Playground.” Aside from the Great Plains of North America, one would be hard-pressed to find terrain better suited to armored and cavalry warfare -- and more inviting to invaders on all sides.

So it was no surprise that during my visit, many of the questions I heard from Poles concerned the health and future of the NATO alliance. Americans are fortunate enough to no longer really need NATO. Speak to a U.S. military officer or diplomat these days, and they will refer to NATO as if it is a collection of far-off allies, one that the United States is no longer really a part of.

That’s not the case for the Poles. At the National Defense University of Warsaw, the NATO flag is proudly displayed next to the national colors, as are the NATO pins on Polish officers’ uniforms. Poland is still counting on NATO. Having spent the Cold War oriented to warding off threats from the west, with its armor units concentrated in Silesia, Poland now looks east with the wariness of a nation that experienced Russian aggression all too often in the 20th century. After being stopped on the banks of the Vistula in 1920, the Soviets conspired to massacre Polish officers and intelligentsia during World War II, and then sat on the outskirts of Warsaw in 1944 as German forces reduced the city to rubble.

Many Poles now worry the NATO alliance is but a shadow of its former self and wonder whether it can be counted upon for support in the future. Though there is indeed cause for much concern in this regard, there is also reason for some optimism.

The last two campaigns waged by NATO have been in Afghanistan and Libya. The former has been an abject failure. The latter has largely been a success.

In Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is comprised of troops from 47 different nations -- in addition to, as U.S. military officers wryly add, the U.S. Marine Corps. The fact that this unwieldy coalition of nations with widely differing interests has held together over the past six years is no small feat. But for successive commanders of ISAF, keeping the coalition together has been, by their own admission, a more pressing task than defeating the Taliban.

To properly understand the problems of the coalition in Afghanistan, it is useful to draw a table with two columns, one representing will and the other capability. The armed forces of some contributing nations are both competent and willing to fight. Some, meanwhile, are competent but unwilling to fight, while others are willing to fight but incompetent. Finally, some forces are both incompetent and unwilling to fight. The commander of ISAF -- an acronym that is sometimes caustically if inaccurately said to stand for “I Saw Americans Fighting” or “Internationals Sit, Anglos Fight” -- is burdened with all four kinds of forces and must do his best with each.

An officer in the hollowed out, post-Vietnam U.S. Army in the 1970s or 1980s would have admired the then-superior German Bundeswehr. A U.S. officer in Afghanistan, by contrast, thinks of the German contribution dismissively if at all. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the United States covers much of the logistical burden for Germany, Europe’s strongest economy and the fourth-largest in the world. Germany can spend more on defense -- it simply chooses not to do so.

A year ago, a German military analyst warned me that if the United States withdrew its forces from Europe, the European nations would respond by only carrying out independent operations in Europe and North Africa. I couldn’t help but respond that would be a tremendous improvement. For as we can observe from the NATO intervention in Libya, the European NATO states are still heavily dependent on the United States for even military operations in their own back yard.

The intervention in Libya was, all things being equal, a tremendous success for the alliance. Skeptics of the intervention, including myself, were caught off-guard by the ease with which the NATO air campaign hastened the rebel march on Tripoli. But behind the eventual success of the campaign, as well as the genuinely encouraging defense cooperation between the United Kingdom and France that it underscored, were some worrying signs.

For one thing, the Libya intervention demonstrated that the militaries of non-U.S. NATO nations have not invested in an appropriate amount of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms or in in-flight refueling capabilities. Virtually all of the targeting and air tasking orders were provided by the United States, which also had to provide much of the ammunition once the allies simply ran out. In addition, a recent report by the Royal United Services Institute notes that up to 85 percent of the fuel for the air campaign in Libya was provided by the U.S. Air Force.

Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, which guarded the sea commons for a century, is today a shadow of its former self, with just 19 frigates and destroyers. That is barely more than the number of ships, 18, that were lost or damaged in the Falklands campaign. One British warship previously destined for the scrapheap was turned around in order to participate in the Libya campaign.

Winston Churchill, a former first lord of the admiralty who would blush if he could see the Royal Navy today, once said that the only thing worse than fighting a war with allies is fighting a war without them. But there is a real risk that, for the United States in Afghanistan, that might turn out not to be true. And in Libya, a clear victory for the NATO alliance masks some serious capability gaps that will be tough to address in the current budgetary climate.

We have known for quite some time what the European states need to do to remain relevant militarily in a resource-constrained environment. The financial crisis highlights the degree to which monetary union was not followed by greater political integration, and in the same way, each European state still maintains its own independent military organizations. If the European member states of NATO were to better pool their resources, with each state investing in niche capabilities, Europe could still field robust, deployable, independent military forces. Aside from the encouraging Anglo-French cooperation, though, that does not seem likely to happen. At the end of the day, states are reluctant to rely on their neighbors to provide core defense requirements, yet they are also reluctant to reallocate the resources of the state toward their own militaries.

None of that should worry U.S. defense planners, for whom Europe is now a tertiary concern. But spare a thought for those still living in God’s playground.

Andrew Exum is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and teaches a course in low-intensity conflict at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He blogs at Abu Muqawama. His WPR column, Abu Muqawama, appears every Wednesday.

[marcelo l.]

http://www.thelocal.se/40554/20120430/

Sweden’s armed forces would not be able to defend Sweden should the need arise, according to experts, who point to the lack of protection against radiation, chemical and biological warfare, and the needs for field hospitals and helicopter training.

“The Swedish armed forces could not be deployed if the situation would require it,” said defence analyst Johan Tunberger, formerly of Sweden's Defence Research Agency (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut, FOI) to daily Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).

The government, prioritizing a “balanced economy” thinks that the armed forces should be reformed without a new cash injection; something Tunberger says is a recipe for disaster.

When the new minister for defence Karin Enström was appointed in mid-April, prime minister Reinfeldt said that one of the more fundamental tasks the new minister would face is to keep the armed forces’ finances in order.

However, this may be a tall order, as SvD showed that the need for a balanced economy in the military has meant that planned material investments have been postponed.

The military budget for 2012 amounts to 8.9 billion kronor ($1.3 billion), according to SvD. But the 27 material investments requirements that the military will file over 2012 will amount to 9 billion kronor, and so eat up all the allocated funds.

And according to SvD, this is not even counting orders that have already been despatched, not to mention the Gripen fighter jet project.

Without these investments, Sweden is at risk, according to Tunberger.

If Sweden would find itself in battle and suffer great personal injuries to the personnel, it is “utterly demoralizing” not being able to treat them or transport them to safety, he told the paper.

And that the Navy’s corvettes and the Army in general are lacking anti-aircraft missiles could have devastating effects, according to Tunberger.

“The Navy is already depleted and weakened. The ships haven’t got enough arms and are not a credible force if they needed to into battle. That we have 100 modern JAS fighter jets don’t matter if the lack of anti-aircraft defences in the army means we can’t protect our bases and the air force is defeated while on the ground," Tunberger told SvD.

The problem, Tunberger told the paper, is that there are systems that are functioning as they should but that they have no chance to work together.

”The armed forces can’t perform large scale operations and the overall result is that the Swedish defence won’t be able to be deployed if necessary,” Tunberger told the paper.

[marcelo l.]

Gurkha fim

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/nep ... e-1.176615

KATMANDU, Nepal - Deo Man Limbu sat in a veterans hall lined with pictures of old soldiers and reflected on his years of service, his battles and his dreams. The retired major with Britain's legendary Gurkhas faced the Argentines in the 1982 Falklands War, when being a member of one of the world's most feared fighting forces had its advantages.

Well before hostilities started, British military planners had encouraged photographs of Gurkhas sharpening their fearsome curved knives _ no one seemed to ask why you'd bring a knife to a gunfight _ and media stories about their fighting prowess.

The day before the final battle, loudspeakers warned the Argentines that the Gurkhas were coming. "We fired one or two shots and they all flew away," said Limbu, whose enduring memory of the Falklands Wars is of lots of sheep. "It was very effective."

Other conflicts were not as easily won. Limbu tells of Gurkhas who were decorated in World War I and II, saw action in Borneo and died in Afghanistan in the 1980s as well as in the last decade.

"We fought many enemies," said Limbu, 60, who has the air of a dapper gentleman in a blue blazer, checked dress shirt and well-pressed brown pants. "But our politicians in Nepal are the worst."

Today, the Gurkhas' proud two-century tradition with the British army is under siege. Some in the communist-led Nepalese government object to the Gurkhas being hired guns for a former colonial power and are proposing to ban the practice, just as the British government makes deep cuts in its defense spending.

Britain's connection with the Gurkhas dates to 1815 when, having barely defeated them in battle, the British decided that if you can't beat them, have them join you. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Gurkhas have served under the Union Jack in peacetime and in war.

For much of that history, Gurkhas with their jungle-warfare skills did much heavy lifting but earned less than British soldiers. After a headline-grabbing campaign in 2009 led by actress Joanna Lumley, new rules gave Gurkhas serving after 1997 the same benefits, pay and pension as their British counterparts and the right to live in Britain. But those who served previously continue to receive

cont.

[marcelo l.]

http://www.ndu.edu/press/next-security- ... itain.html

The Next Security Era for Britain
By John Mackinlay

Resumo:
No contexto de retirada do Afeganistão, os efeitos da Primavera Árabe, o colapso económico na Europa, ea evolução contínua das técnicas de levantamento de 2015 pode marcar o início de uma era de segurança bastante diferente para os britânicos. Após um século de operações expedicionárias, que deve agora determinar se a segurança de sua própria população tem prioridade sobre o apoio às operações dos EUA no exterior. Três condições podem definir a segurança era próximo para eles: o provável fim de operações expedicionárias, a necessidade de dar primazia à sua segurança nacional, ea necessidade de desenvolver as forças de segurança nacionais e de uma doutrina que são relevantes para as evoluções da insurgência.

[marcelo l.]

queda é muito grande dos gastos no Reino Unido...vai sobrar ainda mais para as forças armadas.

[marcelo l.]

It's taller than Nelson's Column and generates enough energy to power 5,500 homes - but does Britain really need a super-sized £3.5bn aircraft carrier?

Today it looks like a ramshackle tower block – its nine storeys are covered with makeshift scaffolding and white plastic sheeting that billows in the breeze.
But this is a huge chunk of HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s new class of aircraft carrier and the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy.
HMS Queen Elizabeth will be three times the size of HMS Illustrious, our sole remaining carrier currently being used to transport helicopters and commandos, and will be second only to the giant American nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers.
While debate has focused on rising costs (up to £7 billion for two carriers) and what aircraft should fly from the ships, construction work has been quietly continuing at six shipyards around the country.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is being built in sections, which are then transported by sea to the Number 1 Dock at Rosyth, just north of Edinburgh, to be welded together
‘Our contract was to build two ships, and we’ve just been getting on with it,’ says Geoff Searle, programme director for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, from his office at Rosyth, in the shadow of the Forth Rail Bridge.
‘They are the largest surface warships ever to be built in the UK, weighing in at 65,000 tons, offering four acres of sovereign territory, and set to be in service for up to 50 years.
'They are a significant diplomatic tool and they can go anywhere and do anything, from disaster relief and delivery of aid through to war fighting.’

cont.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... z1wkZV2XwQ

[Boss]

Nos falta uma empresa como a BAE, eles fazem de tudo...

[Clermont]

Os argentinos vão ter que correr antes que o novo porta-aviões britânico fique pronto, se tiveram a intenção de reconquistar as Malvinas pela força...

[Sterrius]

Eu acho que esse carrier é maior dos que as necessidades e nova realidade econômica da inglaterra.

È so ver que ele não é apenas 2x, é pelo menos 3x maior do que o antigo carrier. Isso significa bem mais aviões, armamentos, pessoal e custo de manutenção.

Tb significa um maior trabalho pra proteger isso.

[Túlio]

E enquanto isso a Royal Navy encolhe, vai entender...

[Wingate]

It's taller than Nelson's Column and generates enough energy to power 5,500 homes - but does Britain really need a super-sized £3.5bn aircraft carrier?

Today it looks like a ramshackle tower block – its nine storeys are covered with makeshift scaffolding and white plastic sheeting that billows in the breeze.
But this is a huge chunk of HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain’s new class of aircraft carrier and the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy.
HMS Queen Elizabeth will be three times the size of HMS Illustrious, our sole remaining carrier currently being used to transport helicopters and commandos, and will be second only to the giant American nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers.
While debate has focused on rising costs (up to £7 billion for two carriers) and what aircraft should fly from the ships, construction work has been quietly continuing at six shipyards around the country.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is being built in sections, which are then transported by sea to the Number 1 Dock at Rosyth, just north of Edinburgh, to be welded together
‘Our contract was to build two ships, and we’ve just been getting on with it,’ says Geoff Searle, programme director for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, from his office at Rosyth, in the shadow of the Forth Rail Bridge.
‘They are the largest surface warships ever to be built in the UK, weighing in at 65,000 tons, offering four acres of sovereign territory, and set to be in service for up to 50 years.
'They are a significant diplomatic tool and they can go anywhere and do anything, from disaster relief and delivery of aid through to war fighting.’

cont.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive ... z1wkZV2XwQ

Interessante o sistema que adotaram para a construção do NAE. Lembra um pouco o conceito de construção naval dos "Liberty Ships" do Henry Kaiser (EUA).

Wingate

[LeandroGCard]

Artigo superficial, mas não deixa de trazer informações interessante.

Mas achei a comparação entre Brasil e Alemanha desvirtuada, provavelmente devido às nossas despesas estarem incluíndo aposentados e pensionistas, que deveriam ser contados como previdência e não como despesas militares.

Gastos militares no Brasil aumentaram em 56% em dez anos
Desembolso mundial sobre queda, mas emergentes começam a substituir ricos em gastos militares


Jamil Chade, de O Estado de S.Paulo - 14 de abril de 2013

GENEBRA - Pela primeira em 15 anos, os gastos militares no mundo sofrem uma contração, puxados pela crise na Europa e Estados Unidos. Mas governos latinoamericanos, China e Rússia continuam a expandir seus investimentos em armamentos, no que seria para os especialistas o início de uma transição em termos de gastos militares dos países ricos aos emergentes.

O Brasil registrou uma leve queda em 2012, de 0,5%. Mas o País tem o 11º maior orçamento militar do mundo e, em dez anos, o aumento de gastos militares no Brasil foi de 56%, bem acima da média mundial. Na América Latina, a Venezuela dobrou seus gastos militares em dez anos e, apenas em 2012, o aumento foi de 42%. O Paraguai teve a maior expansão, com 43% em um ano.

Os dados globais registraram uma contração de 0,5%, com um total de US$ 1,75 trilhão e a primeira queda desde 1998. As informações foram publicadas pelo Instituto de Pesquisas da Paz de Estocolmo, que insiste que, ainda assim o volume é superior ao pico de gastos durante a Guerra Fria.

Mas o que mais chama a atenção é a disparidade entre países ricos e emergentes. Em crise e cortando gastos militares, Estados Unidos e Europa ainda registraram uma redução em seus efetivos no Iraque e Afeganistão. Os americanos ainda lideram o ranking e tem gastos 5 vezes o da China, cerca de US$ 682 bilhões. Mas, em 2012, a contração no Pentágono foi de 6%. Pela primeira vez desde o colapso da URSS há mais de 20 anos, os americanos tiveram uma participação inferior a 40% nos gastos militares mundiais.

Na Europa, membros da OTAN reduziram em 10% os gastos militares por conta da crise, o que leva os pesquisadores e acreditar que haverá uma contração nos investimentos totais mundiais ainda nos próximos 3 anos.

Mas os países emergentes vivem uma situação bem diferente. Na China, quinto maior exportador de armas e segunda maior em termos de gastos militares, o aumento de seus investimentos foi em 7,8% em 2012 e um total de US$ 166 bilhões. Em dez anos, a expansão foi de 175%, ainda que Pequim insista que não existe motivo para o mundo temer suas ambições militares. Na Ásia, Vietnã, Filipinas e outros governos ampliaram de forma substancial seus gastos militares.

A terceira posição mundial é da Rússia, com um aumento de 16% em apenas um ano e US$ 90 bilhões em gastos. Isso tudo no ano do retorno de Vladimir Putin à presidência.

Na América Latina, o aumento de gastos foi de 4,2%, apesar de uma redução dos investimentos no Brasil de US$ 36 bilhões em 2011 para US$ 33,1 bilhões no ano passado. O Brasil representa metade dos gastos da região e destina 1,5% do PIB às Forças Armadas, bem acima de países como Alemanha.

Entre 2003 e 2012, o aumento de gastos nacionais foi de 56%, bem superior ao aumento média de 35% no mundo. Mas os especialistas apontam que a expansão nacional sofreu uma desaceleração desde 2009.

No restante da região, os gastos aumentaram na Argentina, Chile, Colômbia e Peru. Na Venezuela, a expansão foi de 42% e, em dez anos, o governo de Caracas dobrou o orçamento aos militares, atingindo US$ 4 bilhões em 2012. O México também incrementou gastos em 9%, diante da guerra contra o narcotráfico.

"O que estamos vendo é o que pode ser o começo de uma transição no equilíbrio dos gastos militares mundiais dos países ricos do Ocidente para regiões emergentes", indicou Sam Perlo-Freeman, um dos autores do informe. Dos 11 maiores orçamentos mundiais, quatro são dos países que formam o grupo dos Brics.

No Oriente Médio, os gastos em 2012 aumentaram em 8% diante da revoluções e da guerra na Síria. Arábia Saudita e Omã registraram os maiores aumentos.

Leandro G. Card