Editing Portuguese Armed Forces (section)

==The National Republican Guard==
{{Main|National Republican Guard (Portugal)}}
[[File:Render da Guarda no Palacio de Belem 28.JPG|thumb|right|300px|Changing of the GNR guard of the Presidential Palace]]
The Nacional Republican Guard (GNR, ''Guarda Nacional Republicana'') is a special corps of troops that has the special feature of being a military force that is not part of the Armed Forces.

It is a [[gendarmerie]] type security force, made up of around 26 000 military personnel, that is part of the internal security system. It is responsible for the [[preventive police|preventive policing]] of most of the rural areas of the country, the [[Highway patrol|patrolling]] of the [[Roads in Portugal|major highways]], the customs enforcement and the coastal control. It also performs some special missions like the providing of ceremonial military State [[Guard of honour|honor guards]], the security of the [[Palácio de Belém|Presidential]], [[Palácio de São Bento|Parliament]] and [[Palácio das Necessidades|Foreign Ministry]] palaces, the environment and nature protection and the rescue and forest firefighting. In time of peace, the GNR is subordinated to the [[Ministry of Internal Administration (Portugal)|minister of Internal Administration]], except in the scope of uniforms, military doctrine, equipment and armament within which is subordinated to the minister of National Defense.

Although not being part of the Armed Forces, the GNR can be placed under the operational command of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in the cases foreseen in the statutes governing the National Defense, the Armed Forces, the state of siege and the [[state of emergency]]. In the scope of its military missions, the GNR is specially adapted for the fulfillment of [[military operations other than war]]. Forces of the GNR have been deployed in international missions in high conflict countries that did not fit with the use of a civilian police force, but where it was not considered politically appropriate to deploy units of the Armed Forces. These international deployments may be done in the scope of the multinational specialized units (MSU) of the [[European Gendarmerie Force]], as it happened with the GNR deployment in Iraq.