Key Points
Strike Itaipu and Brazil is finished — close the port of Santos and hit the dam at the same time, and it is game over. Those are not the words of an adversary but of Admiral Ilques Barbosa Junior, who commanded Brazil’s Navy from 2019 to 2021, writing in a new paper on the country’s Brazil defense vulnerabilities. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, examines why his argument matters now.
Brazil Defense Vulnerabilities Go Beyond Weapons
In a document titled “The Paxes — The End, The Return, and The New,” Ilques argues that Brazil’s defense debate is trapped in a narrow military mindset while the real threats are infrastructure-based. Energy grids, fertilizer supply chains, cybersecurity networks, ports, and nuclear facilities are all unprotected strategic targets with no civilian authority assigned to defend them.
The admiral’s central case is that defense and national security have merged. A cyberattack on Angra’s nuclear power plants, a disruption to fertilizer imports that halts food production, or a blockade of Santos — which handles a quarter of Brazilian trade — would each constitute acts of war that no number of fighter jets could resolve.
A Civil-Military Council, Not a Joint Command
His proposal directly challenges the Air Force. Former Air Force commander Carlos Baptista Junior recently advocated a U.S.-style Joint Chiefs structure where a single supreme commander would rank above the individual service heads. Ilques rejects this, warning it would trigger an internal power struggle that would paralyze the armed forces further.
Instead, Ilques wants civilian experts in energy security, cybersecurity, biosecurity, and transportation logistics seated alongside the military joint staff at equal authority. His model resembles the U.S. Department of Homeland Security more than the Pentagon — a politically led body that integrates defense with civilian infrastructure protection.
Why Brazil Defense Gaps Matter Now
The timing is not accidental. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz demonstrated exactly the kind of infrastructure-based warfare Ilques describes, sending oil prices above $92 a barrel and disrupting economies across Latin America. Meanwhile, a Brazilian Army study of the Iran conflict warned that drone saturation, cyberattacks on logistics, and strikes on critical infrastructure are now standard tactics.
Ilques points to a specific operational failure: it took six weeks to move an Army division by truck from southern Brazil to Roraima in the north. No railway or inland waterway was available. The transport and energy ministries have no coordination with the military, and Brazil has no pre-positioned forces near its most critical energy installations.
The R$800 Billion Question
The armed forces have presented President Lula with an R$800 billion ($140 billion) modernization plan through 2040, focused on submarines, Gripen fighters, and air defense systems. Ilques supports the spending but warns that pouring money into hardware without addressing who protects Itaipu, Belo Monte, Tucuruí, and the Angra nuclear complex is a strategic failure.
He also insists Brazil must build its own supply chains. When the country shut down its fertilizer plants over corruption scandals, it eliminated the factories but never punished the corrupt. Now Brazil imports nearly all its fertilizer, a dependency that a hostile power could weaponize overnight.
The debate between Ilques and the Air Force camp reflects a deeper question that will shape how Brazil spends its defense budget for the next decade. Whether the country needs a stronger general or a broader national security architecture may determine whether the R$800 billion buys real protection or simply more expensive equipment with the same blind spots.