It is really true, as Winston Churchill said, that Italians make wars in the same spirit with which they are passionate about football and follow football as if it were a war! This is the case of the theme of the missions of peacekeeping o peaceenforcing, which cheers up and divides public opinion in our country. Given that this section was created with the intention of giving you the floor on questions of geopolitics or defense on which opinions can be many and different, with pleasure we have noticed that this time you have really engaged by proposing many and interesting analyzes, which we gladly publish .
It might be the case to return to this topic, perhaps before the summer, to study for example the missions in Lebanon and Niger, on which you have concentrated a lot.
Sergio he is a veteran of this column and wonders, rightly, if the missions serve to justify the floating budget of the Defense or if the fact that the said budget has not gone to the bottom allows us to do international missions in a dignified manner.
A peace mission should stabilize a finite conflict situation. The preventive recourse or, worse still, in the course of work, often results in an enormous expenditure of resources in the face of an exaggerated exposure of the operators in hot theaters of war and even tied to rules of suicidal engagement drawn up by distant politicians (for don't say unconscious).
From Lebanon 1982 to today, Italy has been a "tossed" in various scenarios more for a generic need for "peace in the world" and UN vision, than for national interests. Needless expenses to justify the defense budget? Opportunities to train field personnel and highly qualified armed forces? A demonstration that Italy exists and does its part? In my opinion, reality is in the middle. First Gulf, Somalia, Kosovo, then Afghanistan, Iraq, with the infamous Nassiriya, now the theater is instead moving from Asia to Africa for apparent reasons that I find shared: acting preventively at the root of the immigration problems that threaten Italy in the first place and Europe to follow. I do not consider national selfishness, curbing migratory flows and training field personnel in Libya and Niger, however I fear that our professionals will end up as policemen for other countries (France) really moved by mere national interests in a theater that is anything but resolved .
If we were really selfish we would be stationing off the coast of Cyprus doing arm wrestling with Turkey (to name just one) or we would really protect Eni in Libya (maybe having done so in 2014). My feeling is that we are moving towards a future where strong European countries will exploit human trafficking, war, immigration, to use children from less accustomed countries as targets or policemen while they are hoarding resources. But I'm serene. Our soldiers will always be able to disagree using union strikes, obtaining a tactical deployment on the red-hot roads of the Caput Mundi.
Michele he wonders why the international missions where our Armed Forces are employed are no longer coordinated with the Country System. Well, to tell the truth, nothing is coordinated and perhaps the Country System itself is somewhat disoriented!
First of all let's clarify one thing: the FFAA are the best foreign policy that our country manages to express, even Ambassador Fulci, who certainly was never a fiery militarist, made participation in the various missions around the world one of the pillars of its policy at the UN.
From the far Lebanon '82 to today we have created and developed an "Italian style" that, incredible to say, works ... Sometimes our departments seem more like the Italian orchestra than Renzo Arbore than a military department and, sometimes, when necessary, we have shown that even our orchestra can play!
I want to leave out the usual discourse on incapable politics, dramatically incapable, and subservient to the interests of others, even if it has solid foundations, but concentrate on the error that our country continues to commit. Let me explain: when there is a mission we send 10, 100, 1000 soldiers and amen to the area ... sometimes there is the visit of the CSM, minister, undersecretary but the country does not consider them, barely knows that they are on a mission and why. Try to think what would happen, in your opinion, if a school took the initiative to have its students write a letter to send to the soldiers on their mission to thank them for what they are doing or if someone would hang the flag as a gesture of support. ... this thing, very normal in other states, would trigger a real pandemonium from us.
We could talk about a revolution in business ... civilians !!!
The future of peace missions must first of all involve the whole country system, attention not enslavement to power, but in simple terms an awakening of the conscience of us citizens, of what is necessary to do and of the pride of doing it for our little great nation.
The reader Alessio it should be noted that the rules of engagement for our staff on mission are often made more to be politically correct than efficient.
I fully agree on the use of quotation marks to frame the words OF PEACE because, in my humble opinion, peace keeping missions, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in many respects also in Somalia at the beginning of the 90 years, are such only in the name, for reasons of political opportunity, of responsibility before the public opinion and to remain within the limits of parliamentary mandates, as they are real peace enforcement missions.
We try to keep everything hidden, but all we need to do is consult the Official Gazette and the institutional website of the Quirinale: with a keen eye all the decorations, and the relative motivations, that our soldiers have earned on the field cannot escape ... obviously these need to be added to those that are secreted ...
The most immediate consequence of this misunderstanding, wanted, is reflected in the Rules of Engagement: the teams on the ground find themselves operating in an unbalanced manner in the face of the real operating situation as well as the limits of the parliamentary mandate, with obvious problems of discretion in the case one or more behaviors of our task forces should end up under investigation.
I do not believe that the end of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan will mark the end of the international missions in which Italy will take part, but it would be desirable, for the future, the courage to call them by their name, expanding the ROEs in favor of military security on the field.
The ancient reader Luca it makes us reflect and have fun with irony.
"Missions abroad" ...…. Did our beloved Di Maio go on a mission abroad when he went to the yellow gillets? And did the much discussed Macron do the same when he appeared on RAI interviewed by an embarrassing Fazio? In theory no, as both citizens are "European" (we give a capital E when it will really be Europe). So what is a mission abroad? In theory a country is in "crisis" alone or with other countries and always in theory good and good countries come to help the population to get rid of the bad government or the dictator of the moment. This is in fact the theory.
In reality, we all know: if there are interests, the "good ones" only move if there is an advantage, otherwise…. See war in Iraq: the poor and secular Saddam cheated after he had fought the Iranians strenuously, armed and on behalf of the "Good", cheated on the compensation he owed in oil quotas, the "Poor" made up for his Kuwaiti cousins (not Does it remind you of the scam against Italy after the First World War? And does Fiume not remember Kuwait so much? Certainly different times and ways, but just to refresh ...) Why then Italy participated in the wide international coalition ? To give support to public opinion to the various oil companies: it had to be made believe that the real reason was to free the poor Kuwaiti citizens: has something returned economically? Maybe yes, maybe not who knows? All have been similar situations since and before.
Thinking that you go on a humanitarian mission for truly humanitarian purposes is like believing that an alien arrives from space and gives you a suitcase full of money: possible but very unlikely. So how does a Coupon decide to do a "Humanitarian Mission"? Many Italians have more or less thought of "Humanizing" Libya. Who among you loyal has not thought about it? Since Eni has interests and seeing that the Libyans should be helped a little, we owe it something: everything would be right, a little for love and a little for gasoline. But instead of acting "What do I do?" Maybe we need the funds for this mission? What if we asked Unicredit for them? With a French president do you think he would provide them? (Reflection for the various companies still Italian, to the good connoisseur ...) We complain about the French influence in Libya, but who moves in Africa apart from Paris? China is increasingly humanitarian, the United States, Great Britain, even Germany, and what about us? And let's try it once !!! Libya is close, there are common interests, we have the means for this crisis. It would help us to assert ourselves, to believe in us and in our country to really help a nation to which we are linked. Let's stop complaining about the French and German geeks: to be promoted you have to study, to be a COUNTRY you have to act.
Mauro he wonders what the future would be without international missions.
The dismantling of the present and more conspicuous missions where our soldiers have been "combat" will probably make them lose a good part of the skills acquired in these years. Our priorities in the future I see more addressed on the other side of the Mediterranean where stability and protection of national interests will be needed. It will be difficult to keep the sector of the FS with the only demonstration exercises well motivated and these boys (the best part of our Italy) risk losing them because they are demotivated. are there data on the rate of abandonment in the fs and fos departments?
Claudio he is a visionary and courageous reader.
I believe that a great country (!?) Must take part in these missions, deriving all kinds of advantages like all participating nations do. As they are coming to an end, the number of special forces (using the experience acquired by staff already employed abroad), improving armaments, producing new submarines and launching satellites in collaboration with Israel should be increased from the resulting savings. Develop the intelligence activity. We need to be credible and fearful. The rest is irrelevant.
The reader Luca highlights the limits of our international action.
Given that I am not an expert, at most an attentive reader, I allow myself the following considerations: from a military point of view, missions abroad have generally been a success (with the exception of Nassiriya, where serious mistakes have been made tactics), have allowed our. Armed Forces to grow professionally, to test innovative means of our industry, which have become a great commercial success all over the world, to gain experience and to derive some political dividend. On this last point on a political and strategic level, however, I feel I can raise strong criticisms: a political / military strategy has been replaced with clear objectives at the beginning: Italy is always there. But for what purposes? If I remember correctly, our armed forces are present in over a dozen missions, and I think it is a record among Western nations. With a wear of men and materials not proportionate to the very disappointing results of international politics. We did not get anything from the reform of the UN Security Council, we were humiliated in Libya, Turkey mocked us in Cyprus, India humiliated us with the famous story of the marines. Better less missions, but more responsive to real and stringent national interests, especially in the Mediterranean area.
Marco has the clearest ideas ... about us on the mission in Niger.
From the beginning I did not understand, or better, the meaning of the mission in Lebanon. Used as a shield in the shelter of which Hezbollah did everything it wanted. And keep doing it. For the others I have no objections. Indeed I think that those in Africa, especially Libya and Niger, should be strengthened if possible.
Finally, let's leave the word to the reader Andrea which offers us a series of our international missions.
For Italy, there are different types of military missions abroad
- humanitarian, of which usually little or nothing is known. They don't care about mainstream newspapers (unless someone cracks us)
- pseudo humanitarians, which are interventions in countries that are strategic for us or in which we sometimes have rather opaque, albeit official, ties to economic cooperation. Often we are forced to intervene precisely to prevent other countries from seizing our assets, laboriously and costly acquired
- those to make a good impression at the UN, used by politicians to make, or groped to try to make a good impression (read seat in the council - but when ever ...). An absolute waste, even if, it must be said, the pay of Italian soldiers on missions abroad is one of the best in the world, and therefore there are always those who smile
- those commanded by our NATO "allies" (the heavy ones), which remind us, and they do it more often than one would think, that as old as I do, PATTI MUST BE RESPECTED for at least a few decades (we are not Germany ourselves) who see us as suppliers of men and means, to be sent wherever they are needed. Shut up and fly. Point
- those pro ENI, perhaps the only ones worth doing, as they are necessary to try to guarantee strategic energy supplies, and their lucrative business. They are and will be the most dangerous, because we will find ourselves (and we are already there) against our very own "allies", who have never had any of us, and will have, neither will respect nor pity.
Photo: US Army / US DoD / web
