The Battery, Not the Armor, Is the Fleet's Single Point of Failure
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The component that most exposes Brazil's military fleet is neither the armament nor the armor — it is onboard energy. The country holds substantial lithium reserves but has no cell manufacturing at scale, exporting low-value concentrate and reimporting the finished battery. For an armed force, this means the availability of a critical subsystem depends on a sovereign decision made in another country — in a market where China concentrates roughly three quarters of global cell manufacturing and has been imposing export controls on key inputs since 2023. The read for the national industrial base is direct: batteries are a wear item, with recurring replacement over decades, and sustaining the energy subsystem is today one of the clearest, and least contested, vectors for nationalization.
Author: DOMINONNI, PAULO
Language: English
Subfield: Aerospace Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204846912