Defense industry: the material basis of international relations

08/06/15

According to Richard A. Preston and Sidney Wise: There is no need to insist much that the war has been influenced by social and technical changes. Weapons are products of technology. The armies reflect the society from which they derive (see "Social history of war", Mondadori 1973).

From this it follows that the armed forces are the expression of a given social organization, the industrial revolution has produced "industrialized" armies and its own form of war as well as the slave and medieval societies have expressed theirs.

The degree of mobilization necessary for a high-intensity armed confrontation between powers, such as a world war, required a productive apparatus at the level of that level of commitment, those who did not possess it were urged to equip it in the fire of the war event. A significant example in this sense is represented by Italy, where industry, more precisely the big industry, can be considered a daughter of the First World War.

[...] the same event that involves economies with different degrees of development causes quite different reactions and effects. There are those who, like Germany, fought the war starting from their already accumulated industrial potential and who, like Italy, instead industrialized, starting from the war (see Vera Zamagni, "From the periphery to the center", the Mill 1990).

However, it would be an unforgivable concession to positions of technological determinism to conceive of military history as a sort of mechanical derivative of innovation in the technical-productive sphere. Inserted and analyzed in its relationship with the forms of social organization, the history of conflicts presents very nuanced outlines with respect to the history of humanity. The relationship between society, armed forces and military industry is complex and unfolds in a dialectical movement of mutual influences.

[...] military history has its roots in the economic, social and political structure of a State [...] Militia and war are not, however, an epiphenomenon of the economy, nor is their study a branch of sociology and politics; economy, politics and war are simultaneously manifestations of a single deeper process (see Piero Pieri, "Military History of the Risorgimento", Giulio Einaudi Editor 1962).

With the industrial revolution, the war is no longer just a clash between armies but also productive competition between companies, two areas that immediately showed a certain affinity given that the respective management techniques and the related organizational models have always highlighted many points of contact. The various organizational structures, business management and management have borrowed concepts and terminology (think of the multidivisional model), military doctrine and organizational forms of the armed forces.

In his speech at the conference organized by ESME Sudria (great French school for the training of engineers), entitled "Management and transformation in the army, a model for companies?" (Reported by "Les echos" of 13 / 11 / 2014), former French army commander Vincent Cottenceau, highlights the similarities between corporate management and command in the armed forces, arguing that the qualities required to guide the renewal of a collective body in the right direction are the same, whether it be a business or a regiment.

The manager must be courageous and exemplary. I refer to intellectual courage, to be able to make complex situations clear and support one's analysis in front of his superiors. Explaining one's point of view to a general when a situation of tension has arisen is equivalent to facing the meeting of a management committee in which the atmosphere has become heavy.

At the same time, the emergence of the big industry has marked the entrance of the company's sciences on the battlefield, introducing the company-based approach as one of the components of the concept of use of the war device.

Following actions where civilian targets such as schools, hospitals, etc., whose victims represent "collateral damage" in the military jargon are hit by mistake, the militants of the pacifist associations believe they end up irony by denouncing what they consider the stupidity of intelligent weapons. However, this sarcasm is based on an incorrect assumption given that the purpose of the use of guided munition is not to humanize the war but, to resume the terminology of the corporate economy, increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the use of military force .

During the Second World War it often happened that a target was hit that had been missed, or that one would continue to bombard an already destroyed one. With the laser or satellite guided weapons, the effectiveness of the bombardment force is increased, also improving the relationship between materials used and centered targets. Furthermore, the use of guided munitions has allowed a significant improvement in inter-force coordination in battle.

In the 1991 Gulf War the terrestrial offensive of the coalition tanks was unleashed on 24 February, almost six weeks after the start of air strikes (17 January, Operation Desert Storm). In March 2003 the invasion of Iraq (under the Iraqi Freedom operation) by ground troops took place a few hours after the start of aviation operations.

The precision that reduces the risks of friendly fire and the synchronization allowed by the development of telecommunications, make possible the intervention of aviation and the army not in sequence but almost simultaneously.

The United States also presents itself as a reference model [with regard to the creation of a European aeroterrestre force] given the close collaboration established between aviation and land forces, to define a common doctrine and jointly develop the necessary means to obtain good complementarity (" The transport multimodal intrathéâtre: bilan et perspectives ", IRIS, August 2013).

Then there is an important issue of a more directly political nature to consider. In a conventional conflict, the objective is the destruction of the enemy's forces, while when one must fight in the framework of a peacekeeping mission, typical of a scenario of the now famous asymmetric wars, whose goal is the conquest of "hearts and minds" of the population can not be resorted to the indiscriminate use of the firepower that affects the population inside which tend to camouflage the insurgent forces.

Therefore, the use of guided munition, incidentally, can also lead to less involvement of the civilian population in the fighting, but the "intelligent" missiles and bombs were not designed for humanitarian reasons.

On numerous occasions analysts and specialists of the sector complain about the inattentiveness and reservedness usually reserved (especially in the Belpaese), to the defense industry, an attitude that for the most part is certainly explained in the ethical issues and in the moralism (often of façade) ), which inevitably contrasts the production of weapons. In part, however, it is also due to the diffusion, in the past decades, of a false conscience that has affected the industry as a whole.

The post-WWII investment cycle, which was the foundation of a phase of strong growth defined according to different national declinations (in Italy it will be called "economic miracle", for France Jean Fourastié will form the "thirty glorious" formula) , had laid the foundations for a substantial increase in productivity with consequent tightening of competition for the conquest of market shares by large industrial groups that had to necessarily compete more and more internationally.

So in the 70 years the most industrialized countries will be affected by a deep restructuring crisis (which obviously the sharp increase in the price of oil will make its contribution), which will trigger a process of adaptation of the plants that will be accompanied by restructuring plans that they will result in the expulsion of substantial labor quotas from the production process.

In this context, the ideologies of post-industrialization, of outsourcing, of the services society will flourish, just as in the homes of the most industrialized countries they entered: refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher, heating system and all sorts of audio playback device video, transforming our houses into a kind of industrial buildings on a reduced scale, so much so that if there is an interruption in the supply of electricity, they are serious problems.

Paradoxically as industry permeated more and more the everyday life of each of us, the common sense of the common sense of the common sense spread through the false consciousness of overcoming industrial society. To support the validity of this thesis was also the leverage on the ambiguity margins offered by the statistics, pointing out that the weight of the sectors of trade and transport (the tertiary by the way) was becoming more and more weighted by the GDP of the advanced countries, that is to the industry.

Yes, but the means of transport (be they trucks, vans, buses, not to mention aircraft and ships), are assembled in places that have little post-industrial, and the products we find on the shelves in large and small stores, somewhere they will have been manufactured, it is a matter of all evidence that mass consumption can not exist without mass production.

At the same time, the entire logistics assistance chain for a given product is listed under the heading "services" but when we bring the car from the mechanic or the computer to a service center, the spare parts used to replace the defective parts or in failure, they must have been manufactured.

The dissemination of Information and Communication Technology has made the contradiction even more acute because, for some strange reason, everything related to computer science is associated with immateriality, yet there is little to immaterial in the "expanses" of servers and equipment connectivity, which is measured in hectares and weighed in tons, of large data centers, institutional or private giants operating in the sector. Then we have to consider the tremendous amount of energy that these installations require, high consumption that is also aimed at limiting the substitution of solid state disks with magnetic disks.

Video game consoles, MP3 readers, smartphones and all other physical supports for ICT (true high tech marvels that have inspired the mythology of the "new economy"), come out of the assembly lines of the industrial plants of manufacturing companies called "Electronic manufacturing services" (EMS). Lastly, it does not hurt to remember that even the printing presses (although technologically advanced can be used) are printing factories, where the books of those who in those same texts write that the factories no longer exist or are disappearing .

To tell the truth, for some years now there has been a fairly widespread return to the industrial sector, so much so that lately there seems to be no political debate or economic conference in which the importance of manufacturing is not underlined, and even by the parties of Palazzo The image of a country in decline is contrasted with that of Italy as the second European manufacturing country. In France, the "Commissariat Général à l'Investissement" was created in the 2010 to safeguard and stimulate the national industry.

In all this, it is necessary to keep in mind that given the weight achieved, and the role played by the financial markets in the world economy, there can not be a large economic group that does not derive a part of its profits from investing in financial assets. . The question of the dosages between the different components of the company management is of great importance in this regard, because to paraphrase the doctor-alchemist and astrologer Paracelsus (1493-1541): it is the dose that makes the poison.

A report by the US Census Bureau in June 2005 emphasized that the United States is no longer a manufacturing nation and is increasingly becoming a country of financiers, finance represents the 30% of all companies' profits against the 21% a decade ago . Subsequently it was noted, with worried tones, that these gains did not come only from financial institutions: more and more are the industrial or commercial enterprises that draw a large part of their profits from finance.

Confirming this among the factors that led Chrysler and General Motors to the brink of bankruptcy in the following years (with the consequent intervention by the Obama administration), the same government officials who dealt with the bailout and revitalization plan, reckoned the fact that the top management had turned into financial managers losing sight of the core industrial business.

An instructive example on what should be the basic requirement in terms of mentality for a "captain of industry" and for the economic policy of the government of a country that aspires to count something in international organizations, is traceable in one of the most important ( but not the best known) dynasties of the Italian business landscape.

Paolo and Gianfelice Rocca are nephews of Agostino Rocca, father - together with Oscar Sinigaglia - of Italian public steel and founder in the 1945 of the International Technical Company S.pA. (Techint). The same year will leave Milan to Buenos Aires, making Latin America the heart of the interests of his newborn company.

The group (which in 2013 had a turnover of 25,4 MLD dollars and 59.400 employees), operates in the iron and steel industry, mining, exploration and production of hydrocarbons and earthmoving and is a world leader in the production of pipes for "deep" water ", the deep waters, and the difficult wells of the oil fields where they deal with corrosion, extreme temperatures and high pressure.

Today the two brothers are at the head of what is considered one of the few true Italian manufacturing multinationals. Gianfelice Rocca was vice president of Confindustria with responsibility for education from 2004 to 2012 and in June 2013 he became president of Assolombarda. The words of the other brother (who died in a plane crash in 2001) who bore the name of the progenitor Agostino, are emblematic of what is the mindset that characterizes (at least until today) the family tradition. Our culture is that of engineers: we like factories, steel, concrete things. Do you know Primo Levi's "The star key"? We are those things there (see Giorgio Lonardi, “I Rocca, three generations to build an empire of steel”, Affari & Finanza, 1st October 2007).

A declaration of love for the manufacturing industry which, as we have seen, today seems to be shared by many (at least in words) but of course this revaluation of the industrial society does not concern, if not in a very marginal way, and precisely when it is not possible do not talk about it, the defense industry, which is left in the shadows preferably not to hurt the sensibilities already mentioned. For the same reasons, the same sector operators are, for the most part, happy to stay away from the spotlight and practice a line of conduct faithful to low-profile beliefs.

And yet, by taking a look at the reality of things from the observation point of the assembly lines of planes, tanks, missiles, helicopters and even radar and satellite devices, not to mention the construction sites where the naval force units are built (underwater and surface), it clearly emerges how much importance the concrete things that the Rocca like so much still have in the economy, in scientific progress, in technological innovation and in the social life of the XXI century.

Today it is clear to everyone how much the delay in institutional integration weighs and the deficit of political centralization of the European Union in facing the numerous (and in some cases very close) outbreaks of crisis, and it is known that the elaboration of a Strategic doctrine is a source of victory at least as much as the superiority of technology and resources.

The fact remains that in the construction of a Europe Power that is actually such, the arms industry is a fundamental component, because a state has sovereignty, security and political weight in the international scenario as it can have a powerful defense apparatus.

The war industry constitutes a real component of military policy [...] Without a sufficiently robust military industry, it would then even be unrealistic to propose any objective of national independence (Gen. Carlo Jean, "The spending policy of the Ministry of Defense" , Industry, April-June 1984).

This also applies if you really want to build the future European continental state.

Leonardo Chiti

(photo: US DoD / web / Fincantieri)