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Economics and Trade

Adam Smith Would Have Supported the Jones Act

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By Michael D. Purzycki

Advocates of free trade often criticize the Jones Act as an unnecessary protectionist measure. Today, with inflation and supply chain weaknesses prominent in the news, the requirement for all cargo moving between American ports to be transported by U.S.-flagged ships strikes many as a senseless increaser of prices. Critics allege that the Jones Act makes intra-U.S. shipping “prohibitively expensive,”1 and call for “repeal or significant reform of this outdated law.”2 Why, they ask, should consumers pay higher prices so American sailors can protect jobs that foreign sailors could do just as well, for less money?

However, a strong case for the Jones Act can be found in the writing of one the first great advocates of the free market: Adam Smith. While he is remembered as the father of modern capitalism, he did not believe in market forces reigning supreme in every sector of the economy. One of the exceptions to his laissez-faire beliefs was the Navigation Acts, Britain’s equivalent of the Jones Act in Smith’s time, which he defended on national security grounds.

There is a lesson in Smith’s stance for the Jones Act’s critics. All sectors are not created equal – those that help support national security are different in importance, and different in the need for government intervention, from those that support private consumption. By giving American seafarers opportunities to practice their skills, the Jones Act helps the United States prepare for great power conflict. This is especially vital when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded the world how important NATO is to international security, and how vital it is for the U.S. to be ready to quickly defend its allies when they are attacked.

The Importance of the Merchant Marine

Passed in 1920, the Jones Act was intended to rectify a national security weakness that had emerged during World War I. As the Navy League has put it, “having realized the nation’s merchant fleet was not independently robust enough to neutralize German attacks,” Congress was determined not to allow such vulnerability in future conflicts.3 By making the transportation of cargo between domestic U.S. ports the preserve of American ships and their crews, it sought to give the U.S. Merchant Marine experience that would prove valuable during another major war.

If there were ever a situation in which the Merchant Marine proved its worth, it was World War II. Merchant mariners were the ones who brought American weapons, ammunition, and food to Britain in the face of Nazi U-boats. Their casualty rate was higher than any branch of the military, with 9,300 merchant mariners killed.4 But thanks to the Merchant Marine, when the Allies began to liberate Europe from Hitler, “[n]o Allied army was ever driven back from a hard-won beachhead for lack of supplies,” as TIME put it in 2016.5

Today, thanks to the Jones Act, the U.S. has “thousands of skilled mariners who, during surge sealift operations, can operate government-owned sealift vessels and provide supplemental crews on international fleet ships,” in the words of the Navy League.6 The act has endured for more than a century despite long-standing criticism from those whose belief in free trade trumps what value they might see in America’s sealift capability. For the sake of national and international security, it should be kept in place; however, many voices continue to clamor for its repeal.

When Free Trade Works

There are cases in which free trade makes geopolitical as well as economic sense. After World War II, the U.S. undertook the reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, helping to ensure they would not fall into the Soviet orbit during the Cold War. It did this not only through direct funding efforts like the Marshall Plan, but by opening the American market to European and Japanese exports, helping to revive industrial bases devastated by the war. As Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind noted in American Affairs in 2019, when West German and Japanese industries began to gain ground against their American competitors, “the U.S. government looked the other way (or in some cases, provided active support for these policies), in the interest of a unified alliance against the Soviet Union.”7 Pairing NATO and the U.S.-Japan alliance with economic growth across the Atlantic and Pacific tightened the links between the U.S. and its allies in the struggle against communism.

Similarly, had the United States ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), today it would be standing at the head of a twelve-nation bloc making up 40% of the world’s GDP – including highly developed economies like Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Chile – while pointedly excluding China.8 The U.S. would be taking the lead in writing the rules of trade in the Pacific, rules serving the interests of American industries and workers rather than the Chinese Communist Party. Instead, since the U.S. abandoned the TPP, a successor agreement has emerged – one that China now seeks to join.9

The value of excluding China points to the need for a national security exception to free trade. While Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has understandably focused the world’s attention on eastern Europe, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or a Chinese attack on Japan, is a continuous possibility. When conflict with rival great powers is on policymakers’ minds, sealift capability should be, too. If the U.S. cannot get its troops and their supplies to the front, it will be at a disadvantage. A country unable to protect its vital interests is a country unable to enjoy the benefits of international trade.

Can the U.S. Do Sealift?

Today, America’s ability to bring its forces and supplies to battle is far from certain. In January 2020, Rear Admiral Mark Buzby told the Surface Navy Association Symposium that, in a September 2019 exercise to test the Ready Reserve Force’s ability to sail on short notice, only about 40% of the vessels involved proved ready to leave port.10 This is a troubling statistic at a time when the U.S. may have to rapidly move personnel and equipment across the Atlantic to protect NATO allies from Putin’s forces.

Meanwhile, an October 2020 report by CNA on COVID-19’s effects on seafarers around the world, described “despair in the US Merchant Marine.” It was unclear whether Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) “Gangways Up” policy, keeping mariners on their ships to protect them from the pandemic, was truly “balancing the health of the fleet with the wellbeing of the mariners.”11 Mariners’ health should be factored into discussions of the Jones Act. If the crews who transport troops and equipment are not physically or mentally healthy, even vessels ready to set sail may not be of much use.

These vulnerabilities coincide with the relatively low priority the U.S. places on military sealift. At a February 2022 conference of the National Defense Industrial Association, Eric Labs, a naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, described sealift as the “black sheep” of shipbuilding.12 Even though sealift vessels move about 90% of Army and Marine Corps combat equipment and supplies, less than two percent of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget is being allocated to sealift platforms.13 If low investment in vessels is paired with the U.S. undermining the crews needed to man those vessels, American sealift could be doubly weakened when the country needs it.

Britannia Ruled the Waves

When 17th century England sought to become the world’s preeminent sea power, it understood the importance of a nation’s hard power to its trade. Beginning in 1651, the Navigation Acts sought to ensure England had a robust maritime workforce. The first act, passed during England’s brief period as a commonwealth after the execution of King Charles I, read:

“…no Goods or Commodities whatsoever, of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of Asia, Africa or America, or of any part thereof…as well of the English Plantations as others, shall be Imported or brought into this Commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, or any other Lands, Islands, Plantations or Territories to this Commonwealth belonging, or in their Possession, in any other Ship or Ships, Vessel or Vessels whatsoever, but onely in such as do truly and without fraud belong onely to the People of this Commonwealth, or the Plantations thereof, as the Proprietors or right Owners thereof; and whereof the Master and Mariners are also for the most part of them, of the People of this Commonwealth”14

After the monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II continued the policy. The second Navigation Act, passed in the first year of his reign, stated:

“…noe Goods or Commodities whatsoever shall be Imported into or Exported out of any Lands Islelands Plantations or Territories to his Majesty belonging or in his possession or which may hereafter belong unto or be in the possession…in any other Ship or Ships Vessell or Vessells whatsoever but in such Ships or Vessells as doe truely and without fraude belong onely to the people of England…or are of the built of, and belonging to any of the said Lands Islands Plantations or Territories as the Proprietors and right Owners therof and wherof the Master and three fourthes of the Marriners at least are English.”15

This was, as James Fallows noted in a 1993 Atlantic article comparing different philosophies of trade, “blatantly protectionist legislation.”16 At first glance, these laws appear likely to alienate an advocate of the free market like Smith. And yet, the patron saint of capitalism supported them.

Smith’s National Security Exception

In his 1776 magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote:

“The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The act of navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in some cases, by absolute prohibitions, and in others, by heavy burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries.”17

And:

“As defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.”18

There is a sense in which Smith’s position should not be especially surprising. His book is, after all, about the economic strength of nations, not individuals or corporations. Given his understanding of the need for geopolitical power to protect trade, it makes sense that he would favor British seafaring strength over market forces when the two conflicted.

America’s strength and prosperity, like Britain’s before it, has always depended on maritime power. Like the Royal Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries, the United States Navy is the ultimate guarantor of its country’s preeminence on the world stage, both economically and politically. And like Smith’s Britain, today’s America requires a capable maritime workforce, one that can regularly exercise its skills, so it is prepared for war when the time comes.

Follow Smith’s Example

At a time of high inflation, it is understandable that consumers and their representatives would look for any possible way to lower prices. But quickly putting more money into people’s pockets is not the only aim of public policy with a maritime component. National security, including the ability of a country to win conflicts and protect its interests abroad, makes national prosperity possible in the long term – and conflicts like the current war in Ukraine show just how vulnerable economic forces are to the military power of America’s rivals.

As a superpower whose closest allies are oceans away, the U.S. must always be able to bring its troops and their supplies quickly across those oceans to its allies’ defense. The current threat of Russia, and the long-term threat of China, should focus policymakers’ attention on sealift capability. Keeping the Merchant Marine in good working order is in America’s interest, even if it raises prices a little. In the spirit of Adam Smith, and his nuanced understanding of markets and security, the U.S. should keep the Jones Act in place.

Michael D. Purzycki is an analyst, writer, and editor based in Arlington, Virginia. He has worked for the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Army. In addition to CIMSEC, he has been published in Divergent Options, Merion West, the Washington Monthly, Wisdom of Crowds, Charged Affairs, Braver Angels, and more. He can be found on Twitter at @MDPurzycki and on Medium at https://mdpurzycki.medium.com/. The views expressed here are his own.

References

1 The Editors. “Supply-Chain Crisis Isn’t Going Away.” National Review, December 15, 2021. https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/supply-chain-crisis-isnt-going-away/#slide-1

2 Grabow, Colin, and Inu Manak. “The Case against the Jones Act.” Cato Institute, June 2020. https://www.cato.org/books/case-against-jones-act

3 Navy League of the United States. “China’s Use of Maritime for Global Power Demands a Strong Commitment to American Maritime.” November 2020. https://navyleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020_Jones-Act_digital.pdf

4 Geroux, William. “The Merchant Marine Were the Unsung Heroes of World War II.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 27, 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/merchant-marine-were-unsung-heroes-world-war-ii-180959253/

5 Geroux, William. “World War II Shows Why We Need the Merchant Marine.” TIME, April 21, 2016. https://time.com/4303121/world-war-ii-merchant-marine/

6 Navy League of the United States. “China’s Use of Maritime for Global Power Demands a Strong Commitment to American Maritime.” November 2020. https://navyleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020_Jones-Act_digital.pdf

7 Atkinson, Robert D., and Michael Lind. “National Developmentalism: From Forgotten Tradition to New Consensus.” American Affairs, Summer 2019. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/national-developmentalism-from-forgotten-tradition-to-new-consensus/

8 Granville, Kevin. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Accord Explained.” New York Times, July 26, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/business/international/the-trans-pacific-partnership-trade-accord-explained.html

9 Reuters. “China applies to join Pacific trade pact to boost economic clout.” September 17, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-officially-applies-join-cptpp-trade-pact-2021-09-16/

10 Werner, Ben. “Test of Ready Reserve Force Exposes Need For Newer Ships, More People.” U.S. Naval Institute, January 16, 2020. https://news.usni.org/2020/01/16/test-of-ready-reserve-force-exposes-need-for-newer-ships-more-people?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=b5cddb026e-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-b5cddb026e-234331785&ct=t(USNI_NEWS_DAILY)&mc_cid=b5cddb026e&mc_eid=bf408583f1

11 Tallis, Joshua, Cornell Overfield, Kevin Inks, and Cherie Rosenblum. “Adrift: COVID-19 and the Safety of Seafarers.” CNA, October 2020. https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/PDF/CSI-2020-U-028490-Final.pdf

12 Harper, Jon. “Military Sealift Considered ‘Black Sheep’ of Shipbuilding Family.” National Defense, March 25, 2022. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/3/25/military-sealift-considered-black-sheep-of-shipbuilding-family

13 Ibid

14 “An Act for increase of Shipping, and Encouragement of the Navigation of this Nation.” https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp559-562

15 “An Act for the Encourageing and increasing of Shipping and Navigation.” https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol5/pp246-250

16 Fallows, James. “How the World Works.” Atlantic, December 1993. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/12/how-the-world-works/305854/

17 Smith, Adam. “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm

18 Ibid

Featured Image: A large banner bearing “Jones Act” is featured on a large container ship (Credit: Kendra Seymour).

Force Structure

20 Years of Naval Trends Guarantee a FY23 Shipbuilding Plan Failure

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By Matthew Hipple

“About 300 ships, achieved in FY2018, will provide a force capable of… assuring access in any theater of operations, even in the face of new anti-access/area-denial strategies and technologies.” —Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels, June 2014

In 2014, before the scale of Chinese naval development was widely appreciated, the Navy reported to Congress a Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 near-term requirement of 300 ships for “conducting a large-scale naval campaign in one region while denying the objectives of an opportunistic aggressor in a second region.” In the time since, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) added more than 120 battleforce ships and countless maritime militia – while the U.S. Navy still remains short of the lapsed 300-ship goal, and 57 ships short of its current 355 ship requirement. In the past 20 years the Navy’s ideal battleforce goals have all exceeded 306, but the fleet has not broken 300 ships since 2003 (Figure 1).

Though glaring, the fleet’s numerical crisis is merely a symptom of the Navy’s 20-year institutional inability to overcome the pressures driving down fleet numbers and ship production. The nature of the financial, material, programmatic, institutional, historical, and political pressures suppressing fleet growth are up for debate – but the extrapolated results of these downward pressures are not, as seen in the Navy’s failure to meet the various Shipbuilding Plans. However, those missed shipbuilding plans also represent the Navy’s resistance to the significant pressures that would degrade or trade away the fleet.

Since 2016, even enshrining the 355-ship fleet in law only produced a net battleforce increase of 19 ships over seven years, a rate by which the Navy would gradually reach 355 ships by 2041. Unfortunately, the FY23 Shipbuilding Plan eliminates what upward pressure contributes to a modest improvement in fleet size trajectory. The FY23 Shipbuilding Plan proposes a 10-year drop in fleet numbers that deviates in spirit from every shipbuilding plan since 2012. During this dangerous decade, the FY23 Shipbuilding Plan returns the fleet to a size that precipitated the period of panic that inspired Congress to enshrine the 355-ship goal into law (Figure 2). The FY23 Long Range Shipbuilding Plan will miss the defunct, minimum goal of 300 ships by another decade, and is less likely to meet the Navy’s legal and operational 355-ship requirement

The FY23 Shipbuilding Plan’s change in course is doubly precarious as its dangerous decade fleet reduction also embraces the downward pressures the shipbuilding plans struggled to resist. This resistance is comparable to the navigational concept of “crabbing” – where a ship is driven at odd angles up a channel to resist currents driving it into danger. The Navy, with the wheel hard over to increase the size of the fleet, had only achieved marginal success. Driving with that downward current into a fleet reduction would be disastrous, and likely drive fleet numbers lower than anticipated.

In an attempt to assess the downward current and potential results of the reduction, we must assess the difference between the Navy’s ordered and true course for fleet size. As with a large ship, the Navy can take time to respond to rudder orders – so we extrapolate the impact of shipbuilding plans by looking to their effects five years in the future. The average gap between ordered and achieved battlefleet size over the last five years was roughly 10 ships. Integrating the precipitous drop from 2022 to 2023 and loosely projecting that magnitude of 50 ships over five years shows a battleforce of 275 ships or smaller (Figure 3).

During a decade that many U.S. Department of Defense leaders have characterized as particularly dangerous for deterrence of China, the conventional PLAN may outnumber the total USN by 50 percent. The United States nor its Navy would fight China alone – but the rapidly worsening margins remain a concern. The majority of U.S. allies in the region fall well within the PLA/N/AF’s collective weapons engagement zone, the PLAN retains significant mining stockpiles alongside fielding a vast maritime militia, and the PLAN benefits its regional focus with even greater numerical superiority compared to U.S. warships immediately present in WESTPAC. That the Navy has struggled to improve fleet growth in the face of such grave circumstances bode poorly for a post-FY23-reduction recovery.

Further, buried within the FY23 capacity gap is a lethality gap. To avoid the appearance of unfairness in comparison, we look at the FY17 Shipbuilding Plan which represents a conservative mid-point between the Obama and Trump administrations’ more robust FY15 and FY19 shipbuilding plans (Figure 4). Before the FY23 Shipbuilding Plan’s proposed courses of action begin to significantly deviate in 2032, battleforce shortages are primarily restored by support and logistics ships, with a smaller number of attack submarines. The strategic decision to shift resources to the long-neglected logistical tail is sound. Nonetheless, failing to fix cruiser modernization or increase production leaves this better-supported fleet gapped by a number of surface combatants that is roughly the equivalent of the forward deployed 7th Fleet at a time when the PLAN will exceed a battleforce of 420 ships.

Though the FY23 Shipbuilding Plan anticipates recovery in the early 2030’s, the signal to industry is an average ships-per-year rate lower than the FY19 Shipbuilding Plan and only marginally higher than the past decade of plans (Figure 5). Given the immediate downward trajectory planned by the Navy and the Navy’s track record of falling short of its plans, shipbuilders may be reticent to make the major capital and labor investments necessary to sustain the current industrial base, much less expand and modernize it.

Previously, the Navy’s shipbuilding plans made evolutionary progress (Figure 6). The Obama administration’s post-sequestration FY15 plan appropriately departed from the FY13/14 plans by increasing the fleet’s status-quo, pushing for a de-facto baseline of 310 ships. As the threat of the PLAN evolved and long-awaited silver-bullet technologies did not appear, the Trump administration’s FY19 plan replaced previous plans’ period of stability from 2031-40 with a fleet increase. In retrospect, both plans failed – but both plans applied necessary upward pressure and both ensured a minimum fleet size was retained. The FY23 plan will kill that pressure – and must be revised to improve on FY15 and FY19’s positive movement rather than embrace the false promises of divesting capacity today to gamble on solutions a decade or more away.

While the FY23 shipbuilding plan accepts a third gapped decade, the PLAN’s size, skill, and industrial base will continue to grow. With global commitments and the tyranny of distance, the United States faces a Port Arthur problem with being able to respond to the CCP’s maritime behemoth much like a split Russian fleet was defeated by Imperial Japan’s modernized and regionally-focused Navy. We must provide serious focus to the lagging Pacific Defense Initiative while the USN maximizes its efforts to retain working warships until replacements come online and the supporting maritime industries sufficiently expand. In developing replacements, the Navy must make clear commitments that signal to industry a sea change in ship demand that will justify the intensive investment needed for new and/or expanded shipyards, like the Lordstown-Lorain project – if not pursue new yards of the Navy’s own.

The time has passed for the resets and divestments of the past revisited by the FY23 shipbuilding plan. The currents ahead are strong, and the Navy must resist them rather than be driven up onto the shoals. Decline is a choice we must resist.

Matthew Hipple is an active duty naval officer and  former President of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC).

Featured Image: The U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer USS Ramage (DDG-61) in a floating dry dock at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia (USA), on 25 May 2012. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Podcast

Sea Control 343 – 10 Years of CIMSEC with Sally DeBoer, Daniel Stefanus, and Dmitry Filipoff

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By Jared Samuelson

The celebration of CIMSEC’s 10-year anniversary continues! Former presidents Sally DeBoer, Daniel Stefanus, and Director of Online Content Dmitry Filipoff join the podcast to celebrate the organization and reflect on their respective tenures.

Download Sea Control 343 – 10 Years of CIMSEC with Sally DeBoer, Daniel Stefanus, and Dmitry Filipoff

Jared Samuelson is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact him at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

Latin America

Brazilian Navy Participates in Exercise Obangame Express 2022

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By Wilder Alejandro Sánchez

The Southern Tide

Written by Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, The Southern Tide addresses maritime security issues throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. It discusses the challenges regional navies face including limited defense budgets, inter-state tensions, and transnational crimes. It also examines how these challenges influence current and future defense strategies, platform acquisitions, and relations with global powers.

“Whether [working] against COVID, transnational criminal organizations, the predatory actions of China, the malign influence of Russia, or natural disasters, there’s nothing we cannot overcome or achieve through an integrated response with our interagency allies and partners.” – General Laura J. Richardson, Commander, U.S. Southern Command”  

Exercise Obangame Express 2022, the largest multinational maritime exercise in Western Africa, concluded its 11th iteration in Dakar, Senegal, on March 18. A total of 32 nations participated, including regional countries like Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, extra-regional nations like France and the United States, and multinational agencies including the Economic Community of West African States and the Economic Community of Central African States.

One extra-continental participant was the Brazilian Navy (Marinha do Brasil), via oceanic patrol vessel (OPV) Amazonas (P120). Brazil’s participation is neither an oddity nor a development that should be overlooked in Washington; the Brazilian military, particularly the navy, has a long history of close relations with many African militaries to increase the Portuguese-speaking nation’s presence and image across the South Atlantic, as well as strengthen military-to-military relations.

Amazonas in Obangame Express

A good place to begin this analysis, and to properly explain Brazil’s military relations with African partners, is by listing recent developments. During its voyage to Africa, Amazonas docked in Walvis Bay, Namibia. Two officers from the Namibian navy came aboard and were observers during Obangame Express 2022. As part of its activities throughout the exercises, Amazonas reportedly carried out maneuvers with the navies of Angola, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia. Amazonas’ mission “contributed to maintaining maritime security in the South Atlantic,” the Brazilian navy explained in a Tweet.

OPV Amazonas carried out maneuvers with the navies of Angola, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia as part of Obangame Express 2022. Photo Credit: Marinha do Brasil / Twitter Account, April 2, 2022

Moreover, personnel assigned to the Brazilian navy’s assistance commission (Missão de Assessoria Naval do Brasil) in Sao Tome and Principe assisted local forces as part of the Exercise. The Brazilian officers reportedly helped the local coast guard and also served as translators between the military personnel from Sao Tome and Principe and the United States.

The Brazilian navy is a constant participant of Obangame Express; OPV Araguari participated in the 2021 iteration, while Amazonas was also present in the 2020 version. Amazonas is assigned to the navy’s Southeastern naval group (Comando do Grupamento de Patrulha Naval do Sudeste). The Amazonas-class OPV (in Portuguese, Navio–Patrulha Oceânico: NpaOc) was commissioned in 2012 and has two sister ships, Apa (P121) and Araguari (P122).

By participating regularly in Obagame Express the Brazilian Navy can maintain a balanced level of interoperability with African Navies. In an interview with the author, Andrea Resende, Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Brazil’s Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC MINAS), who also monitors maritime security, explained that “the interoperability between the South Atlantic Navies is fundamental to not only send a message of power projection across the South Atlantic but to keep the gears of cooperation and understanding between South Atlantic powers.”

A summary of Brazil-Africa Defense Relations

Apart from strong diplomatic and commercial relations between Brazil and Africa, particularly during the Lula da Silva presidency, defense relations and weapons transfers should not be overlooked.

For example, personnel from the Brazilian Marine Advisory Training Team (BRAZMATT) traveled to Namibia in late February to help train local naval personnel. The Brazilian navy has had a permanent mission in Namibia since 2009 to promote cordial defense relations. Also in February, the Brazilian Defense Attache to Senegal, navy Captain Raphael Gustavo Frischgesell, met with a high-ranking official of the Senegalese military, Div General  Mamadou Gaye. Resende noted that Namibia is a key ally of the Brazilian navy, but the Brazilian armed forces also have, or recently had, “military agreements with Benin, Gabon, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, [and] Angola.”

Officers from the Namibian navy participated in Obangame Express 2022 aboard OPV Amazonas. Photo Credit: Marinha do Brasil.

For the period of 2022-2023, the Brazilian association of defense and security industries (ABIMDE) identified several potential customers for Brazilian military technology. In the African continent, the two countries mentioned were Egypt and Mauritania. Brazil has already sold equipment to other regional states. Resende added that “one of the most successful initiatives, in my opinion, was the A-Darter [short-range air-to-air] missile, to be integrated with the [Saab] Gripen fighters, that was developed by a cooperation between Brazil and South Africa.”

These developments are not new. Brazil’s relations with Africa, not just from a defense perspective, go back decades. As Resende notes, during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964-1985), “there was an interest in strengthening the South Atlantic sea powers and keeping the extra-regional powers (and its conflicts) out of the region. This proximity was expanded in 1986 when the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic (ZPCSA or ZOPACAS) was created, and solidified in the early 2000s with another main interest: to protect our natural resources through cooperation and maintain the area as a peaceful zone.”

A similar opinion is shared by Scott Morgan, a long-time African analyst and president of the Washington DC-based consulting firm Red Eagle Enterprises. Morgan explained to CIMSEC that Brazil has the most comprehensive foreign policy and “the best relations with the African continent,” when compared to other Latin American nations. Even though Brasilia’s African strategy has changed during the years, depending on who is president, Brazil is “engaging in Africa where traditional powers like France keep receiving black eyes on a strategic level.”

During incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro’s government, the relations with African nations indeed lost the same importance they had during the presidencies of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. The COVID-19 pandemic, the global economic crises, and new missions also negatively affected the strength of South Atlantic relations between Brazil and Africa; however, entities like the Brazilian navy continue to regard African states as key partners. For example, as Resende explained, in October 2021 the Brazilian Navy organized the First Maritime Symposium of ZPCSA, which was “incredibly successful,” as it promoted “pertinent discussions about common threats and challenges, as well [as] reinforced civilian-military relations. In my opinion, this was a very important step for ZPCSA to regain its relevance as a regional institution.”

Conclusions

As for the maneuvers themselves, they generally received positive reviews. “Obangame Express is about the motivation of our people to dig into some wicked problems together and unearth ways to make our waters safer,” said Lt. Gen. Kirk Smith, deputy commander, U.S. Africa Command.

Morgan, from Red Eagle Enterprises, explained to the author one important fact about Obangame Express 2022: “this year’s exercise ranged from the Gulf of Guinea down to Angola. That is a large area to cover and shows how the concerns about piracy are spreading.” Morgan also noted a side meeting that occurred during the maneuvers, the Senior Leadership Symposium. The meeting, held at the Senegalese Naval Headquarters in Dakar, “brought African Naval leaders together with counterparts from Europe, North America, and South America to exchange ideas regarding security concerns. Communications on this level will be vital to address any regional threat,” he explained. As for the future of Brazilian-African naval relations, Andrea Resende of PUC MINAS noted that “the South Atlantic, as the main strategic theater of Brazil, is a permanent feature in Brazil’s national defense and the Brazilian Navy still manages to strengthen ties with African Navies at every opportunity.”

Obangame Express 2022 was a general success, as its objective was achieved: to promote interoperability and strengthen relations between the participant navies and other services. Hopefully, the Gulf of Guinea, West African waters, and the African side of the South Atlantic will become more peaceful and secure in the immediate future. Moreover, these maneuvers are also helpful to increase a navy’s image, display its capabilities, and carry out effective power projection. This is the case of the Marinha do Brasil. Brazil-Africa relations are not a new topic, but it is noteworthy that, regardless of health pandemics or new civilian leaders with different foreign policy priorities, the Brazilian navy continues to regard African states as key allies. The Brazilian navy only deployed one ship to Obangame Express, OPV Amazonas, but the significance of the Brazilian flag flying high in West African waters among partners and allies has significant repercussions for South Atlantic naval and defense relations.

Wilder Alejandro Sánchez is an analyst who focuses on international security and geopolitics. The views expressed in this article belong to the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any institutions with which the author is associated. Follow him on Twitter: @W_Alex_Sanchez.

Featured Image: OPV Amazonas carried out maneuvers with the navies of Angola, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia as part of Obangame Express 2022. Photo Credit: Marinha do Brasil / Twitter Account, April 2, 2022.