Deep C Diving
Defence being the main role for the armoured forces, and security for the work we will do with civilian forces – federal and military police. We will develop a joint doctrine to work with them and from these joint scenarios we will design our equipment, such as detectors, to train people, send people to courses, and to invite people from the Navy to do specific courses in civilian institutions.” Commander Velloso admitted that there was no specific threat to Brazil from CBRN, but stated that they need to be prepared should one appear, especially around the various high-visibility events. All this leads us to the question: what is the end point and what does the finished capability look like? One of the ways of answering this, certainly for a force in the beginning stages like the Marines, is to ask the further question: what force are they trying to emulate? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is another Marine unit, the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF). The US Marine Corps CBIRF is not just a conventional CBRNE force however, their emphasis on medical assistance and disaster (specifically earthquake) response does set them apart from many others. So how close an emulation will its Brazilian counterpart be? Will we see the Marines more involved in disaster response? Commander Velloso thought not: “Not now. We only use CBIRF as a CBRN model. The concept of our system is one that is geared around integration with civilian defence and the need to be prepared to respond to civilian requirements.”
Captain Corrêa agreed: “This [civilian integration] is the point that I want to reach at the moment. Building on the developments we made last year for the Military Games, this year we will develop the Navy system. It could be integrated into the Air Armoured Forces at the MoD and at the national level with the national defence civilian security force. The Marines always work as a task force - we prepare for special operations like the USMC do. So we started to develop that concept, to improve, train and deliver an advanced Brazilian task force model. It is always mission-specific: if the mission is CBRN then we will have a command and security team looking for the main tasks, logistic teams and any other detachments that are needed for the main force. We will have an airwing bringing in chopper evacuation support in a radiological accident for example, as well as special-ops teams to aid evacuation and so on.”
So what is the next step for the Marines? Usually this is a fairly easy question, and many forces have this planned out ad infinitum, it being an iterative process. For the Marines however, there are many directions that they might take. Commander Velloso laughed when this question was mentioned as the next step was easy to define, and it is the same all around the world: “The next step is the money!” he said. “The main priorities are to set the capability nationally, to set the capability in the naval districts, and to plan for World Cup and the Federation Cup. We will have a reaction
force in each naval district and to be sure of that we will set up the capability this year. The labs, mobile and fixed, are also a priority, as is updating our security plans to proceed with the CBRN threats.”
Captain Corrêa agreed: “Our main concern is to consolidate everything that we did last year. Last year we did a great job in the Military Games. We designed the system for the Navy and integrated it into federal forces. We had not done this before. There is another big event this year, namely Rio+20 [UN Conference on Sustainable Development Ed.] and this event will also bring all the forces together: Army, Federal Police, IRD, Military Police and so on. We will consolidate to ensure a strong and credible system that we can put more money into - allowing us to buy more equipment and attract more people. CBRN is not an easy subject for people. We need to measure the rate of attraction, how many people volunteer to come into this system, and we need to design a new career path for these people, as well as put more money and investment into it for them.”
In addition to Rio+20, the responders also have the Confederation Cup to help shape the Marine Task Force and drive interoperability. The latter is something that Captain Corrêa is keen to stress: “We are going to move forward and become more knowledgeable and visible to the outside. It is a pleasure to work with any of the forces in Brazil, whether it is the Army, Air Force, Federal Police, or any other institution for that matter, and we will look to work with them within the country and get onto the wave of progress in Brazil. We have to be ready for the end of this year as it will be a very busy year! We are not yet ready, so we have to keep improving, and that includes our school for CBRN, which is new for the Marines, but old for the Navy. We have broad goals for the school. We want it to become a reference for the region, and to receive experience from other countries via liaison officers to exchange understanding.” So there’s something for everyone there! A certain bonanza for industry, a chance for liaison officers from various chemical schools (I am expecting a deluge of CBIRF requests for the liaison post!), and an improved capability for Brazil. As the team mentioned, they are new to CBRN, and they are not the only players in town with both the army and the federal police having capability. So it will be interesting to see how they eke out their position in the mix. They do have a lot of challenges ahead of them: but they have a fixed deadline thanks to the major events and a lot of political will pushing them, so failure is not an option. Marine CBRN units tend to be few and far between, with only the Spanish and US (to my knowledge) having anything above the most basic (though there are land based forces that have significant naval assets such as Singapore). Considering how much of Brazil relies on river transport there is a lot of sense underpinning their decision to step up capability. They do have a lot to complete by 2014, and there is a slight concern that they may well discover even more work that needs doing along the way, but money and political pressure can solve many problems.
CBRNe South America 2012, 13-14 March, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. More information on
www.icbrnevents.com 14 CBRNe WORLD February 2012
www.cbrneworld.com
CBRNeWORLD
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