Description
The paper examines new modes of militarization consolidated through the growing involvement of armed forces in disaster-related crises. Focusing on recent engagements of the Brazilian Navy in disaster prevention, monitoring, and response, it problematizes how claims to military expertise in humanitarian logistics have contributed to the (re)assembly of military authority in Brazil and the reproduction of militarism. By tracing the managerial logic underpinning newly developed doctrines, systems, and routines for military humanitarian operations, the paper shows how logistical discourses of necessity, speed, and efficiency stabilize not only a specific way of knowing crises - as technical and logistical problems - but also who is authorized to govern them as legitimate providers of (logistical) solutions. This reframing of military authority as managerial competence in crisis governance illuminates how militarization operates through languages of logistical coordination, inter-agency cooperation, humanitarian innovation, and technological infrastructure. It also points to a form of militarization that reinforces social reliance on the military for crisis resolution while depicting civilian actors as weak, disorganized, and inefficient. Advancing the notion of managerial militarization, the paper offers both a critical vocabulary for analyzing the subtle reproduction of military authority and a framework for envisioning the epistemic and political conditions of demilitarization.
