View of a NATO cyber defense drill Locked Shields session. Photo: Siim Lõvi/ERR.
By Misión Verdad – Jun 12, 2025
Brazil was the only Latin American country among the 41 nations of the western hemisphere that took part in the Locked Shields military exercise, the largest cyber defense exercise organized by NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE). This places Brazil in the middle of a platform dominated by imperialist doctrines and protocols designed for the Atlantic powers.
Lula da Silva’s government proclaims a multipolar vision and claims to distance itself from the West’s strategic priorities, but in practice it adopts NATO manuals and methods. By integrating its cyber defense protocols and following the same training schemes, Brazil reinforces a technological dependence that is opposed with its ideological discourse and reduces its capacity for autonomous response to growing digital threats.
Various faces of subordination
In Latin America there are several countries that, openly or covertly, revolve in the strategic orbit of NATO and the United States. Some are already official partners, others are actively seeking such recognition, and still others are moving towards de facto integration through military agreements, energy cooperation, or joint exercises.
Colombia: Not only is it the only Latin American country to hold “key non-NATO ally” status, but it was also the first partner country to sign an ITPP (Individually Tailored Partnership Program) in 2021. This agreement, unique at the time, institutionalized cooperation that today encompasses critical areas such as cybersecurity, counter-terrorism, anti-corruption and maritime security, which directly aligns Colombia with the strategic interests of NATO.
Argentina: Under the government of Javier Milei the country has clearly turned servile to the West, as shown by its unconditional support to Ukraine, subordination to the IMF, and an automatic adherence to the US. In line with this stance, on April 18, 2024, Buenos Aires formally applied to NATO for the status of “global partner,” a decision that seeks to explicitly integrate Argentina into the Western military architecture.
Chile: It maintains a peculiar relationship with NATO as a “non-NATO Level 1 Sponsored Country,” a status that gives it limited access to the alliance. This subordination to the West is confirmed by actions such as Chile’s participation in Rimpac 2024, a US-led exercise last year, with NATO members and Israel.
Guyana: Although it has not formally expressed intentions to associate with NATO, Guyana has become a strategic enclave for the energy interests of the United States and its allies. The discovery of vast oil reserves in undelimited waters that are in dispute with Venezuela transformed the country into a protectorate where ExxonMobil extracts the resources and the Guyanese army receives training from Washington.
Ecuador: In early 2024, President Daniel Noboa received a delegation of the US Southern Command, headed by then Southcom chief General Laura Richardson, to establish a joint roadmap for defense, cybersecurity, and the fight against drug trafficking. The relationship was strengthened in February 2025, when Noboa authorized the entry of foreign special forces, mainly from the United States, to collaborate in internal security operations. Under cover of the security emergency, Ecuador is increasingly being inserted in the military apparatus of the United States.
Since these and other countries in the region are openly more dependent on Washington’s alignments, it is Brazil which, through concrete actions, legitimizes NATO’s presence in the continent from a position of apparent autonomy.
Brazil in the NATO net
Brazil’s participation in exercises such as Locked Shields is part of an institutional inertia that prolongs agreements inherited from former President Jair Bolsonaro. According to Raphael Machado, a Brazilian geopolitical analyst, the current Lula government has neither “the political will nor the interest” to reverse this line of subordination.
The country does not have a national cyber defense strategy that encompasses the entire state apparatus. The Cyber Defense Command (ComCiber), initially conceived to fulfill this role, was limited to the internal protection of the Army’s computer system. This structural fragility calls into question the value of participating in exercises in which the rules, threats, and objectives are determined by external actors. Machado notes, “What tangible benefits could Brazil derive from these exercises? Very few.”
The progressive adoption of NATO standards does not simply imply technical interoperability. It means, above all, incorporating operational logics, threat criteria, and response protocols aligned with the strategic objectives of the Western bloc. In Machado’s words, this process would make Brazil adopt foreign doctrines and train its own forces under external models, which “would create a level of dependency in our forces, which are weakly aligned with Brazil’s strategic interests.”
The contradiction is heightened when one considers that the main sources of cyber attacks against Latin America, according to the F5Labs report cited by Machado, are the United States and Lithuania, the latter being the headquarters of CCDCOE, precisely the organizer of the Locked Shields exercise.
In addition, Brazil has built much of its state information technology infrastructure based on US Big Tech technologies, with operating systems such as Windows known to contain “backdoors” that allow access by agencies such as the NSA. The supposed integration to strengthen digital security ends up being, in reality, a structural opening to foreign surveillance. “By connecting our cybersecurity to NATO strategies and systems, we actually reduce our cybersecurity,” Machado notes.
This pattern of dependence is not limited to the military sphere. The Brazilian Federal Police uses the Israeli software Cellebrite Premium, which turns this institution into “an influential tool for the CIA and the Mossad in Brazil.” Israeli espionage has already been documented in the country, including the assassination of a Brazilian nuclear scientist.
Participation in drills such as Cyber Defense Marvel 4 (March 2024) and Cyber Guardian 6.0 (October 2024), both led by NATO countries, only reaffirms Brazil’s strategic shift towards an architecture of technological subordination.
From multilateralism to service to the Atlantic alliance
Instead of taking advantage of the multipolar scenario to build truly autonomous and strategically balanced alliances, Lula’s government opts for a passive insertion in structures designed to suit Washington’s convenience. Under the pretext of cooperation, Brazil renounces digital sovereignty, exposes its systems to potential foreign surveillance mechanisms, and trains its forces under doctrines that do not respond to its own geopolitical reality.
While the official discourse insists on sovereignty and multipolar balance, the Brazilian government’s practice favors the consolidation of NATO influence in the continent. In this way, Brazil is dangerously approaching the role of NATO’s regional platform, under the ambiguous appearance of a neutral mediator.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
