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Portugal Armed Forces
The armed forces in Portugal traced their origins back
to the
armies and military orders of medieval times. The orders
were
often autonomous from the state, and, because they were
formed
during the reconquest, may have predated it. Hence, the
armed
forces came to be thought of--and thought of
themselves--as a
separate unit in society, independent of any civil
authority and
perhaps above it. Even at the beginning of the 1990s, the
military still had to some extent this sense of aloofness
and of
ideals of a higher order.
The military was long the ultimate arbiter of
Portuguese
national politics. The armed forces were drawn into the
chaotic,
man-on-horseback politics of the nineteenth century.
Military
cum civilian factions "rotated"
(rotativismo) out
of national politics with frequent regularity. The armed
forces
helped usher in the Portuguese Republic in 1910 and ended
it in
1926. The military brought Salazar to power and served as
an
indispensable prop of his dictatorship.
It was the armed forces that overthrew Caetano in 1974
and
the MFA that launched the revolution. The MFA took pains
to
retain special powers by creating the Council of the
Revolution,
which guaranteed the armed forces the power to prohibit
legislation that they saw as harmful to the revolution's
democratic achievements. The military agreed, however,
that these
powers were to be of limited duration.
During the 1980s, the political and social roles of the
armed
forces diminished. The 1982 constitutional amendments
reduced the
military's political power by abolishing the Council of
the
Revolution, thereby ending the military's guardianship
over
Portuguese politics. The National Defense Law of 1982 put
the
military completely under civilian control. In addition,
the
armed forces were significantly reduced in size and
budget. On
the other hand, Portuguese officers became better
educated, more
technologically sophisticated, and more professionalized.
By the beginning of the 1990s, the Portuguese armed
forces
had a social role similar to that of armed forces in other
West
European countries. Only extreme events could possibly
pull
Portugal's soldiers back into politics, although like any
other
interest group they did lobby to protect their interests,
benefits, budget, and position in society.
Data as of January 1993
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