Rio was the scene of hybrid warfare.

THE OPERATIONAL SPECTACLE: THE WAR THAT NEEDS TO BE SEEN

Under the guise of security, the State of Rio de Janeiro carried out a politically motivated destabilizing action. The target is not crime, but the federal government and the sovereignty of the country.

The events of Tuesday, October 28, 2025, mark the culmination of a carefully calibrated psychological operation to fabricate the sensation of a collapse in public security and, thereby, legitimize a geopolitical agenda that did not originate in Brazil. The term "narcoterrorism"—legally nonexistent in Brazilian law—serves as a symbolic key to import Washington's strategic vocabulary and shift the axis of the national narrative: what was organized crime suddenly transforms into a "hemispheric threat."

This discursive manipulation has precise objectives. Internally, it consolidates the far-right's power project, which needs fear as political fuel; externally, it reopens the door to the United States' security doctrine, which once again sees South America as a field of "hybrid risk" to be contained. The Rio government, by adopting this lexicon, acts as a vector for a psyop of international reach: it produces instability, weakens the federal government, and provides the foreign press with the ready-made argument that Brazil has lost control over its territory.

In the informational field, there is no improvisation. The synchronization between the military operation, the use of the term "narcoterrorism," and its immediate replication by international agencies forms a well-known script of contemporary hybrid warfare: create chaos, label it under the sign of the global enemy, and demand intervention under the pretext of order. What is happening today in Rio de Janeiro is less about security and more about sovereignty. It is the rehearsal of a new cognitive offensive against Brazil.

The internal political purpose: Chaos as a power strategy.

Manufacturing chaos is an old political technique—and, in Brazil in 2025, it has once again become an electoral asset. The Rio de Janeiro government, by turning public security into a spectacle, recreates the atmosphere of fear that fuels Bolsonaro's movement and provides the far-right with the fuel it needs to remain relevant. Every grenade thrown, every body displayed, every headline about "narcoterrorism" reinforces the narrative that only authoritarianism can restore order.

The calculation is cynical. With municipal elections looming and Bolsonaro's movement weakened nationally, the far-right is seeking a new axis of mobilization—and has found the ideal terrain in the "war on crime." By exaggerating insecurity, they create the perception that the federal government has lost control, forcing President Lula to react under the adversary's discursive agenda. It's the same method used in the United States during the "War on Drugs" and in Colombia under the pretext of "narcoterror": the politics of fear as an electoral weapon and an instrument of international subordination.

Internally, speech serves three functions:

1 - To shield the administrative incompetence of the state of Rio de Janeiro, diverting attention from the fiscal and social crises.

2 - To reorganize the Bolsonaro camp under a moral and belligerent banner, now disguised as "defense of the citizen".

3 - To provoke the federal government into resorting to force, disrupting the balance between public security and civil rights, and portraying Lula as "weak in the face of crime."

Chaos, therefore, is not a side effect—it is the product. The feeling of disorder is fertile ground for the far-right, and Rio de Janeiro, once again, has been chosen as a laboratory. Beneath the veneer of combating drug trafficking, what is being rehearsed is a political war over narratives: a dispute over the perception of who holds the moral authority to use violence.

A GATEWAY TO FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: THE RETURN OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

Behind the discourse of "narcoterrorism," what is being reactivated is an old project of hemispheric subordination: the Monroe Doctrine, recycled in the 21st century under the guise of "anti-terrorism cooperation." The term is not innocent. When a Brazilian authority calls criminal factions "narcoterrorists," it opens a legal and diplomatic loophole for the United States to intervene directly or indirectly under the argument of regional security.

It is no coincidence that Cláudio Castro's rhetoric resonated almost immediately in international media and security networks linked to Washington. The term "narcoterrorism" allows Brazil to be associated with the list of countries that require special surveillance—the prelude to sanctions, espionage, and forced cooperation. This is a linguistic operation that precedes the political operation: whoever controls the name, controls the territory.