ABSTRACT
The general consensus seems to be that the officer corps conceives its new role to be that of guarantor of the new regime, rather than a direct participant. In assessing the prospects for success in modernizing the military institution, accomplishments as well as difficulties need to be taken into account. Faced with an external challenge and the departure of the Court for Brazil, military defense was sadly lacking and foreign occupation of Portuguese territory, easily accomplished. Matching discontent with the absence of attention to internal military needs by the civilian leadership is the feeling that politics rather than performance is what really counts in one's career advancement, in the positive as well as the negative sense. The rapidity with which a new civilian-dominated democratic regime emerged meant that political events superseded formal institutional arrangements. The chapter focuses civil-military relations. Once this topic has been brought to closure, attention will then shift to questions of civilian bureaucracy.
