US Military Intervention in Nigeria: Analyzing Geopolitical Risks, Brazil's Controversial Raid, and New Arms Suppliers

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Video originally published on November 10, 2025.

The modern landscape of global conflict has fundamentally transformed, shaped by unprecedented information access and shifting public tolerance for warfare costs. From questions about the likelihood of another major war between global powers to the potential for US military intervention in Nigeria's ongoing insurgencies, contemporary geopolitical challenges demand nuanced analysis that accounts for both traditional military considerations and the new realities of how nations wage conflict in an interconnected world. This comprehensive examination explores critical questions facing the international community today, including Brazil's controversial police operation that left over 120 dead, the rise of new military-industrial powers filling gaps left by traditional suppliers, and what American involvement in Nigeria might actually look like in practice.

Key Takeaways

Modern information access has fundamentally changed how nations engage in warfare, making large-scale open wars between major powers less likely while increasing reliance on proxy conflicts, clandestine operations, and unmanned systems.

Brazil's October 2024 police raid against Comando Vermelho resulted in 121 deaths—the deadliest police operation in Brazilian history—sparking intense political debate despite nearly 88% support among favela residents in an AtlasIntel poll.

Turkey and South Korea are emerging as major military-industrial powers, offering advanced weaponry at competitive prices as traditional suppliers like the US and Russia face reliability, export control, and geopolitical challenges.

Any US military intervention in Nigeria would likely focus on limited operations using air power for ISR and airstrikes, military advisors to train Nigerian forces, and special forces for targeted operations rather than large-scale occupation.

Ukraine is positioned to become a significant defense exporter after its conflict with Russia ends, particularly in drone technology where it operates hundreds of individual production lines.

China is becoming the defense exporter expected of a rising superpower, cultivating relationships across Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with relatively low-cost advanced military equipment.

The Changing Calculus of Major War in the Information Age

The question of whether another major war could erupt between global powers touches on fundamental transformations in how modern warfare must exist within contemporary society. The costs of warfare—not merely financial, but in terms of pain and destruction imposed on participating nations and their populations—have never been harder for governments to balance than they are today.

Throughout history, powerful leaders could shift the most painful costs of warfare onto slave armies or leverage strict social class and caste systems to ensure that the vast majority of lives destroyed belonged to people with no real voice in their society. Members of feudal peasantries struggled to warn others about the true nature of ongoing conflicts using tools more effective than rumor mills. Ordinary people often lacked means to gain reliable, complete information about adversaries, true causes of wars, or the hidden extent of costs their leaders would bear for victory. They certainly lacked means to engage in society-wide resistance in real time, whether through public discourse against war efforts, coordinated conscription evasion, or processes to designate independent civil leaders who could argue against conflicts on ordinary people's behalf.

Even as recently as World War II—the largest and most devastating conflict in human history—news of mass death spread around the world long after that death had occurred, whether in Soviet Russia, China during the war against Japan, or the Holocaust orchestrated by Nazi Germany. For ordinary people to access detailed information in real-time about conflicts their own nations engage in represents a transformation in how world nations, especially powerful ones, must approach conflict engagement.

The American public's reaction to learning about the Vietnam War, and later during occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, demonstrates this shift clearly. Similarly, the Russian public reacted to a progression of conflicts from the Soviets' misadventures in Afghanistan to the Russian Federation's action in Chechnya. These wars dragged out inconclusively not because Washington or Moscow overestimated military disparities between themselves and adversaries. If either nation had waged true total war during those conflicts, the destruction would have been far more devastating and one-sided. But that didn't happen because American and Russian publics respectively reacted poorly to newly accessible information and applied pressure to their governments in ways that made clear which costs of war people would or wouldn't accept.

Today's results are even more striking. From the Arab Spring to global Gen-Z movements, from worldwide engagement in Ukraine and Gaza wars to exposure of powerful nations' conduct in global resource wars, information access has completely transformed how conflicts are fought. Whenever the most horrific acts of aggression occur—whether Russia trying to justify a Ukraine invasion or the RSF carrying out genocide in El-Fasher—it has become critically important for belligerent powers to control narratives, both by stopping truth from leaking out and by constructing versions of events that would convince people to support their cause.

Consequently, global warfare's nature has changed toward exactly this transition: away from large-scale open wars whenever they can be avoided. Instead, nations prefer proxy conflicts, clandestine engagements, and far heavier reliance on capabilities of either highly trained, specialized, risk-accepting combat troops like special operators and combat aircraft pilots, or unmanned systems ensuring military personnel won't be placed at risk. These conflicts increasingly take place in resource-exploited areas across the globe where people have far less voice to speak about violence perpetrated against them.

When major conflicts do break out, global fighting forces have become increasingly focused on winning by imposing clear, obvious costs on enemies, attempting to reach levels of pain and destruction that ordinary people will no longer allow their governments to accept. Large-scale open wars between major powers remain possible in the future, but the standard for engagement is higher. If that's going to happen, world governments need compelling reasons and their people must be convinced that war ultimately serves their interests despite costs. Without achieving that, governments would be wise to find alternative ways to wage war or accept the possibility they'll simply have to stomach the loss.

Brazil's Deadly Comando Vermelho Raid: Law Enforcement or Mass Killing?

On October 28, 2024, a police raid in Rio de Janeiro produced the single largest death toll of any police operation in Brazilian history. Over the course of military-style raids, 121 people lost their lives—four of whom were police officers, and at least ninety-nine of whom have since been verified as members of Comando Vermelho (Red Command), a notorious criminal syndicate.

This situation has drawn polar-opposite reactions across Brazilian society and globally. Multiple truths coexist: Comando Vermelho were and remain engaged in violent criminal enterprises posing genuine threats to society, while simultaneously, Brazilian law enforcement's conduct left considerable room for criticism.

Comando Vermelho is Brazil's oldest criminal syndicate still operating today. Founded during Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s, it has engaged in everything from ideologically-based guerrilla warfare against the government to drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and cartel wars across Brazil and beyond. Since approximately 2013, Comando Vermelho has grown in strength, especially in Rio, where members routinely engaged in street battles with local militias in favelas who claim to organize for community protection from crime. Over the last two years, Comando Vermelho became substantially more professional and expanded criminal enterprises according to state investigators, leading to this October operation under orders from Rio state governor Claudio Castro.

Despite clear law-enforcement justification for targeting Comando Vermelho, how the raid actually unfolded can be described either as catastrophe or, as Brazilian President Lula da Silva termed it, "a mass killing." At the operation's start on October 28, Rio military and civil police entered favelas with approximately one hundred arrest warrants—not death warrants, but arrest warrants, clearly implying the goal was to arrest people. Compared to those roughly one hundred warrants, the current count stands at 117 dead, not counting police officers. Due to impromptu warrants issued during the raid, a further 133 people were arrested.

This was not simply extermination by Brazilian law enforcement. They entered an area where Comando Vermelho was known to possess heavy weapons and where high-ranking leaders were expected to be present. When raids commenced, Comando Vermelho quickly constructed barricades and set fires, engaged police in intense street skirmishes, and even deployed bombs and drones. Brazilian police secured over a ton of drugs and captured multiple senior commanders. While Comando Vermelho's highest leader, Edgard Alves de Andrade, escaped the scene, he was present during the raid.

Despite the very high death toll on Comando Vermelho's side, what transpired in Rio de Janeiro was far from cold-blooded massacre—but also very far from what one might expect from professional law enforcement in that situation. The goal was capturing about one hundred people; significantly more than that number were killed in an operation Brazilian law enforcement chose to conduct this way despite being fully aware they'd face mass armed resistance. Making matters worse, favela locals recovered dozens upon dozens of bodies themselves. At last count, around eighteen of the dead have not yet been confirmed as combatants on either side, and with a battle of this size, civilian casualty counts are certainly not likely to be zero.

This is an especially difficult situation to reconcile because, in a vacuum, defenders of either side could probably recognize problems with what occurred, but confounding factors cannot be ignored. Brazilian police probably shouldn't have extrajudicially killed nearly 120 people—but their defenders argue those were criminals who posed overt threats to law enforcement lives. Conversely, while Comando Vermelho engaged in criminal operations, opponents of the police raid contend law enforcement far exceeded bounds and engaged in wholesale slaughter of people who had rights to live and to fair trials in courts of law.

Unsurprisingly, the killings have become an exceptionally contentious political issue, proudly supported by Rio governor Castro, mayor Eduardo Paes, and other members of Brazil's strong-on-law-enforcement right, while President Lula da Silva and other Brazilian left leaders have struggled with responses. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and many international rights groups lambasted Brazilian law enforcement. However, according to an AtlasIntel poll conducted the day after raids, nearly eighty-eight percent of polled residents in Brazil's favelas stated they endorsed what happened.

The Rise of New Military-Industrial Powers

The global arms market is experiencing a significant transformation as new players emerge outside established suppliers like the United States and Russia. Right now represents a very good time to be an arms producer. Nations across the globe are looking to refill and expand their arsenals, and the world's two traditionally dominant exporters are each becoming significantly less appealing partners for global clients.

America faces challenges due to strict export controls and diminishing trust in Washington's reliability. Russia confronts geopolitical harms of association and diminished ability to actually build advanced military hardware. Stepping into this void, five nations in particular deserve attention.

The first two are the most important players to watch: Turkey in the Middle East and South Korea in the Indo-Pacific. Both Seoul and Ankara are going above and beyond to make themselves into new-age military-industrial powerhouse states, offering advanced hardware to that end.

Turkey has become an especially prominent producer of relatively low-cost advanced drones, along with a growing selection of missiles, armored vehicles, and aircraft, including Turkey's indigenous fifth-generation fighter jet, the Kaan. Turkey's drone technology has proven particularly appealing to nations seeking affordable yet capable unmanned systems, filling a market niche that traditional suppliers have struggled to address effectively.

South Korea, meanwhile, has produced award-winning designs spanning from heavy artillery and multiple-rocket launchers to main battle tanks, light and advanced fighter aircraft, surface-to-air systems, and even major warships—all built at affordable prices and NATO standards. South Korea's military-industrial complex has demonstrated remarkable capability in producing sophisticated systems that meet Western quality expectations while remaining competitively priced, making Seoul an increasingly attractive partner for nations seeking to modernize their forces.

China represents a nation not necessarily prioritizing its military-industrial complex over other initiatives but becoming the sort of defense exporter expected of a rising superpower. Advanced drones and aircraft, missile systems, surface warships, and armored vehicles are all growing more appealing for its export customers. In Asia, China exports sophisticated military technology to close partners like Pakistan and enthusiastic clients like Indonesia, while across the globe in places like sub-Saharan Africa, China has gone above and beyond to cultivate defense relationships that supply equipment to those nations at relatively low cost.

Ukraine represents a defense-export leader in waiting. Right now, the nation's defense-industrial capacity is almost entirely devoted to sustaining its war effort with Russia. Even though Ukrainian weaponry isn't currently on offer to global clients, it probably will be when Russia's invasion eventually ends with a truce or armistice. With its current capacity, Ukraine has become home to hundreds of individual production lines for drone technology that global partners will be very curious to acquire. After the war, expect world nations to place massive orders with Kyiv, especially from the NATO alliance, while also partnering with Ukrainian defense startups to combine Ukraine's experience and lessons learned from the war with their partners' ability to design and procure advanced hardware.

Finally, Brazil deserves recognition where, although the nation's indigenous military-industrial efforts are still ramping up, the nation is working to become a key military-industrial partner to several international defense leaders at once. Brazil is actively looking to host production lines to build foreign military hardware, and those efforts are only going to ramp up with more time. Brazil's approach focuses on becoming a manufacturing hub that can produce licensed versions of foreign designs, potentially offering cost advantages while building domestic expertise.

What US Military Intervention in Nigeria Would Actually Look Like

Nigeria faces overlapping civil conflicts involving Islamist insurgencies, and questions have emerged about potential US involvement. When it comes to the potential role of the United States, the answer would probably be a combination of several types of involvement at once.

First, as is usually the case when the US intervenes in global conflicts, Washington will probably make heavy use of its air power, both to aggregate intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data (ISR) and to carry out airstrikes in support of Nigerian operations on the ground. American air capabilities represent one of the most significant asymmetric advantages the US can bring to bear without committing large numbers of ground forces, allowing Washington to provide meaningful support while limiting direct exposure of American personnel to combat risks.

Second, the US is likely to send military advisors, essentially charged with assisting in training Nigerian soldiers who are supposed to do most of the dirty work themselves but who can gain meaningful advantages in combat from lessons the United States can provide. This advisor model has become a cornerstone of American military engagement in regions where Washington seeks to influence outcomes without conducting large-scale operations directly. Military advisors can help professionalize local forces, improve tactical capabilities, and enhance coordination—all while maintaining a relatively small American footprint.

Finally, the US may choose to engage in limited warfighting operations using its asymmetric special forces or other special-operations troops, as Washington does regularly—albeit very covertly—in combat zones across the globe. Special operations forces can conduct high-value targeting missions, gather intelligence, and execute precision strikes against insurgent leadership and infrastructure without requiring the massive logistical and political commitments associated with conventional force deployments.

A full-scale military occupation of the country, Iraq- or Afghanistan-style, is highly unlikely, especially under the current administration. The political, financial, and human costs of such operations have proven prohibitive, and American public tolerance for extended occupations has diminished significantly following experiences in those conflicts.

Nigeria has at least publicly indicated it's not necessarily opposed to American involvement. After US President Donald Trump signaled his willingness to engage in a military campaign there, Nigeria's leadership expressed that American assistance in the fight against Islamist insurgents would be welcome—with the key caveat being that America would have to respect Nigeria's sovereignty and its territorial integrity. This caveat is significant, as it suggests Nigerian leadership wants assistance but not domination, support but not occupation.

The word from inside the Pentagon suggests any larger operations are unlikely anyway. Nigeria was not a priority for the US military before Trump's recent comments, and all its carrier groups—the key element in larger-scale operations—are deployed or in maintenance elsewhere. According to recent reports, the US is likely to focus its efforts on Islamist insurgent groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State-West Africa Province, and could conceivably wipe out jihadist hideouts, convoys, or training camps on a limited basis.

Whether that would be enough to change the course of Nigeria's conflicts remains an open question. Judging by the nature of these and other asymmetric insurgencies, it doesn't seem likely that limited operations like those would turn the tide. Insurgencies typically require comprehensive approaches addressing not just military dimensions but also governance, economic development, and social grievances—areas where limited American military operations can provide only marginal influence at best.

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FAQ

Is there an actual possibility of large-scale open war between major powers like the UN and Russia?

Large-scale open wars between major powers remain possible but are less likely than in previous eras. Modern information access means citizens can learn about the true costs of war in real time, making it much harder for governments to sustain prolonged, costly conflicts without public support. As demonstrated by public reactions to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya, governments face enormous pressure when war costs become visible. Instead, nations increasingly prefer proxy conflicts, clandestine engagements, special operations forces, and unmanned systems. For a major open war to occur, governments would need compelling justification and genuine public buy-in that the war serves their interests despite the costs.

What happened during the Brazilian police raid against Comando Vermelho in October 2024?

On October 28, 2024, Rio de Janeiro military and civil police entered favelas with approximately 100 arrest warrants targeting Comando Vermelho, Brazil's oldest active criminal syndicate. The operation resulted in 121 deaths (117 non-police, 4 officers), making it the deadliest police operation in Brazilian history. At least 99 of the dead were verified Comando Vermelho members. The syndicate resisted with barricades, fires, street skirmishes, bombs, and drones. Police secured over a ton of drugs and captured multiple senior commanders, though top leader Edgard Alves de Andrade escaped. Around 18 of the dead have not been confirmed as combatants, and 133 additional people were arrested on impromptu warrants.

How did Brazilians react to the Comando Vermelho raid?

Reactions were deeply polarized. Rio governor Claudio Castro, mayor Eduardo Paes, and Brazil's law-enforcement-oriented right proudly supported the operation, while President Lula da Silva called it 'a mass killing' and the Brazilian left struggled with how to respond. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and international rights groups condemned Brazilian law enforcement. However, an AtlasIntel poll conducted the day after the raids found that nearly 88% of polled favela residents endorsed what happened.

Which new countries are emerging as major arms suppliers outside the US and Russia?

Five nations are emerging as significant arms suppliers. Turkey is producing low-cost advanced drones, missiles, armored vehicles, and its indigenous fifth-generation fighter jet (the Kaan). South Korea offers award-winning designs spanning heavy artillery, multiple-rocket launchers, main battle tanks, fighter aircraft, surface-to-air systems, and warships at affordable prices and NATO standards. China is exporting advanced drones, aircraft, missile systems, warships, and armored vehicles to partners across Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Ukraine is poised to become a major defense exporter after its war ends, particularly in drone technology. Brazil is working to become a manufacturing hub hosting production lines for foreign military hardware.

Why are the US and Russia becoming less appealing as arms suppliers?

The United States faces challenges due to strict export controls and diminishing trust in Washington's reliability as a partner. Russia faces the geopolitical harms of association with its actions (particularly the Ukraine invasion) and a diminished ability to actually build advanced military hardware, as its defense-industrial capacity is strained by its ongoing war effort.

What would US military intervention in Nigeria actually look like?

US involvement would likely combine three elements: heavy use of air power for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and airstrikes supporting Nigerian ground operations; military advisors to train Nigerian soldiers; and limited warfighting operations using special forces for high-value targeting and precision strikes. A full-scale Iraq- or Afghanistan-style occupation is highly unlikely. The US would likely focus on Islamist insurgent groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State-West Africa Province, potentially targeting jihadist hideouts, convoys, or training camps on a limited basis.

Has Nigeria indicated whether it would accept US military involvement?

Yes, after US President Donald Trump signaled willingness to engage in a military campaign there, Nigeria's leadership expressed that American assistance against Islamist insurgents would be welcome, with the key caveat that America must respect Nigeria's sovereignty and territorial integrity. This suggests Nigeria wants assistance but not domination, support but not occupation.

Would limited US military operations be enough to resolve Nigeria's conflicts?

Based on the nature of asymmetric insurgencies, limited operations like airstrikes and special forces raids are unlikely to turn the tide on their own. Insurgencies typically require comprehensive approaches addressing not just military dimensions but also governance, economic development, and social grievances—areas where limited American military operations can provide only marginal influence.

Sources

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Jackson Reed

Jackson Reed creates and presents analysis focused on military doctrine, strategic competition, and conflict dynamics.

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