New Government and Armed Forces: a reflection on the main needs of the Army

(To Mario Ruggiero)
26/06/18

With the establishment of the Government "Conte", the activity of the 65 ° Executive of the Italian Republic begins, together with the development of the works of the XVIII Legislature. In light of the difficult international geo-strategic framework, the desire that the new government structure examine with due attention the needs of the Armed Forces is certainly common to many citizens, in arms or not.

The defense finds wide references already in the field of constitutional paper, where it highlights the primary function that it must perform to ensure national sovereignty, an indispensable condition for the democratic life of the country to develop.

Unfortunately, even in the recent electoral campaign we have heard of soldiers who spend their time in barracks "playing cards", as they are not engaged in "operational" activities.

We are faced with yet another misunderstanding of the Defense function. The primary activity of the Armed Forces, in peacetime, without prejudice to the so-called current operations, can only be that of training to face, in case of necessity, the worst scenario, that is a conflict.

There is no functional assignment and / or specialization of the Army that does not require a periodic training cycle of at least one year. This training cycle can even take two or more years and lead to serious consequences in the event of failure to develop in its entirety.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to participate in Armed Forces activities, knows the training complexity required, for example, to a special forces operator, rather than CBRN, EOD / IEDD or support for command and control systems.

Even in apparently simpler functions reserved for personnel with less specialization (and often younger), the lack of periodic development of training cycles is particularly dangerous. It is believed to be able to operate correctly (savoir faire), but in reality one tends to overestimate one's overall capacity, including those of reaction in unexpected situations.

In other words, the conditions are created for suffering tragic losses and not being able to manage the so-called "collateral damage" correctly.

All this to say that it is of vital importance for the Armed Forces that the Defense Summit and the governmental team is able to convey these concepts both at the extended Political level and at a wider audience made up of the entire national community.

Obviously, in order to develop a correct training policy, it is necessary to develop and implement it, the technical means to be able to train in realistic conditions, and the resources both economic and in terms of space dedicated to training.

Overflowing on the will, since the problem is certainly to the attention of the major states and there are no reasons impeding the development in this area.

On the technical means, much has been done - at least for the Army - in the last ten years. The simulation and creation of scenarios in "virtual reality" has undergone an enormous impulse. Over the years polygons in the tunnel have also increased and today it is possible to create climatic, environmental and operational conditions that do not exist in Italy. Much, I said, it was done, but much remains to be done. It is necessary to bring many of these capacities at the level of the Large Elementary Unit (corresponding to the Brigade) and regiment in order to be able to insert these activities into routine activities and not confine them to important events in the life of the operating units.

The same emphasis must also be placed on finding the resources needed to support the training activities. By this I mean not only economic but also those related to physical spaces. If it is true that live activities can be reduced with the simulation, it is equally true that these can not be canceled. In this context, maintaining the availability of large polygons on the national territory must be considered a must. The demands of local communities must be heard and supported, within the limits that the superior interests of the state impose. To think of moving all the activities "in focus" into foreign polygons is simply unrealistic (not just for the costs) and risks imposing serious operational limitations on the Armed Forces and the Army in particular.

Why emphasize training so much? We find the answer in the analysis of past and recent experiences, national and otherwise. Everything can be summarized by the words of Vegezio: "In every battle not so much the large number and the inexperienced courage are used to procure victory, as much as technical refinement and exercise. In fact, we find that by no means other than the Roman people conquered the world except by the exercise of arms, with the discipline of the field and with military experience".

More than sixteen centuries have passed since Vegezio summarized these reflections in his treatise on the Art of War. The world, as we conceive it, has changed radically, but the principles that regulate the military instrument have remained unchanged.

For a correct practice of the "exercise of arms", aimed at making the best possible use of the existing instrument and expressing tactical excellence in the field of terrestrial forces, it is necessary to combine the identification and implementation of new capabilities or the evolution of existing ones.

Pending the arrival of a new technological means, however, it is necessary to avoid any behavior that involves the lack of training, and the use in the operational field of the abilities waiting for a cycle of ammodrating. This would mean the loss of capacity in the medium to long term. Technological development, then, is continuous. As soon as a new vehicle is introduced into service, it will be noted that technological development has taken further steps that can not be implemented except during the half-life update (not just for financial reasons). So entering the perverse cycle of waiting for the medium of the tip, from a technological point of view, to train and operate, leads us to the substantial non-employability of the Armed Forces, at least in medium and high intensity contexts. It seems appropriate to remember that our involvement in war operations does not depend only on our will. It is therefore very necessary, therefore, to always be ready to face the worst scenario with the available capacities, while working for their modernization and renewal.

The study of the "possible futures" and of the capacities to be used in such contexts therefore appears fundamental and must be accompanied by the technological evolution of these capacities and not only of the single platforms.

Our military history is full of situations in which we had access to state-of-the-art platforms, albeit to a small extent and supported by poor production capacities. We have been forced to fight in a state of evident inferiority due to the absence of a country system that allows us to exploit the supremacy or at least the technological equality. We found ourselves, that is, in a disimmetric environment due to systemic deficiencies. All this aggravated - historically speaking - by an unbalanced development of the national military component, with serious capacitive imbalances.

In the recent past, the Armed Forces and the Army, in particular, have made a very high commitment to overcome this gap that is cultural and, in part, also industrial. Requests to develop capacities in their entirety have been initiated in a coherent manner, even if they risk becoming ineffective due to the very strong undercapitalization to which the renewal of terrestrial forces has been subjected.

Employing more than 10 years to finance the development and establishment of a Medium Forces Brigade, means injecting a large dose of inefficiency into the project itself that becomes strongly deficient if we consider, in addition to the above, that the implementation of the project itself is lacking significant components for the Command and Control of digitized forces, fire support, support for mobility and a large part of brigade logistical support. All this because of alleged scarcity of resources that once again force us to modernize the Army in biblical times, certainly not consistent with the life cycle of technologically advanced systems, and in any case without achieving the skills we need.

It could be objected that the resources were not sufficient to guarantee organic development within the same technological spire, that is to say that the hypothesized technology would become largely obsolete. This is partly true, since it is the task of the Defense Ministry to ensure that the development of the military instrument takes place in an organic, balanced and consistent manner with current and future scenarios, intervening - if necessary - on the number of capacities to be modernized, but never eliminating component parts of the capacity itself.

In the time window indicated, funding measures were approved for the military instrument that gave priority to the renewal of individual components, leaving others - the army in particular - to the stake. In short, the FA, which carried out more operations and suffered more losses in terms of human lives, was largely under-capitalized in all its components, light, medium and heavy, despite the innovative effort undertaken.

Another significant sector, which explains the problem, is represented by the program aimed at updating the basic equipment of the soldier. The program has been subdivided over such a large number of years that it has lost its initial vocation, that is to give every single soldier an armament and modern communication and vision systems. This in order to ensure a minimum superiority in at least asymmetric contexts where the enemy knows the physical space to perfection and we can effectively combat it only by "seeing" better and better coordinating the forces on the field. "Spread" the program over a very long period, as has been done, means imposing the rotation of the systems in operation and thus depriving the soldier of the possibility of training daily with the systems he will have to employ in operations. Vegezio would not be happy with how we interpreted the principles of the art of war.

The technological evolution of the Armed Force is, therefore, vital, but it must not be an end in itself. The new capabilities, with the related new platforms, must be able to be implemented in a reduced number of years for each technological loop. Faced with the "financial constraints", the Italian Army has planned to renew the individual capacities for individual technological spiers. Thus, each packet of forces (light, medium or heavy) is subdivided by turns of the approximate size of a brigade plus general supports. However, every single coil needs to be produced and introduced into service in a number of years that does not exceed the 4-5, otherwise the goodness of the whole project is invalidated. It is therefore necessary a different concentration of resources (no matter on which department they are hinged) and an effort also of the national industry that must operate coherently with this project, abandoning the concept of the production of one platform at a time, on automotive style. It is clear that in the automotive sector the development of a platform and its variants must follow the logic linked to the assembly line. In the field of land forces, however, it is necessary to create capacities that require the simultaneous availability of several types of the same platform.

The acquisition of new capacities can not take place, clearly, in the absence of a robust maintenance capacity and infrastructural adaptation. In this sense every project must necessarily be completed with the aspects of sustainability over time and in the field, taking into account also the subsequent costs of decommissioning of the systems and platforms. These problems are extremely sensitive because in the first sector, logistic, the maintenance capacity must take into account the balance between what can be done in the industrial field and what must necessarily remain in FA, as it is linked to the so-called adherence that must be performed even in austere environments. despite the contrasting action of the opposing forces. A "outsourcing" push will result, sooner or later, in a logistical "debacle", when the FAs will be called to intervene in the most demanding scenarios.

Infrastructure also plays an important role in the constitution of new capacities. A barracks of a digitized unit need a total redesign, like an airport that has to accommodate a fifth generation aircraft, including the cyber defense issues inherent in new technologies.

Another area in which, I believe, should be given a new impetus is that of personnel who is always referred to as the fulcrum of the Defense system. The evolution of the operational scenarios and of the basic technological level requires a review of the recruitment and training system for all categories, both military and non.

Just think of the cybernetic operations sector, mentioned in many interventions / interviews. Recruiting, training and training cybernetic operators of the tactical and operative level with the process adopted so far for the Armed Forces means to vote for the establishment of capacity. This is not a mere normative problem which, perhaps, is the least important aspect at the moment. This is a change in mentality that must aim to establish recruiting chains that are consistent with the professional skills that one intends to develop in the military field. Consequently, to this must be defined basic skills, in cultural, physical, motivational terms that are strictly adhering to the capacitive objective to be achieved.

Thinking of a recruitment, a basic training and a common initial employment (see VFP1) and then proceeding to successive internal selections no longer represents, probably, the best methodology to pursue. A profound evolution in this sense could also give an answer to the problem of the progressive aging of the Armed Forces. The respective supply chain would clearly indicate from the moment of incorporation what are the chances of progression and what are the chances of being able to remain in the Army at the end of a period of firm media, with a clear indication of incentives for relocation that the Pese undertakes to field. This would avoid the emergence of false hopes in terms of transit in permanent service of the entire initial basin of incorporation.

In conclusion, these are just some of the issues that I believe are extremely important for the Army.

All this will find a real "feasibility" and "sustainability" only if the National Military Instrument will be developed in a coherent manner, taking into account the peculiarities of the individual Armed Forces but as components of a single complex interforce with capabilities also performed at the Operational level. Strategic-Military. It is necessary to prevent the financing of a single component from taking over the coherence of the overall instrument for reasons external to the institutional aims of the Defense. While understanding that situations similar to the dotted ones may occur, the Dicastery will have to find the strength to redirect existing resources towards balancing capacity. Otherwise, we return - conceptually speaking - to the period in which there was a Ministry for each FA. This would be anti-historical and would give rise to a unique scenario not only within NATO / EU but also with reference to the other main countries.

The Defense Planning cycle is extremely complex in all the major countries of the world, also because it presupposes identifying and sustaining the skills that will be needed between 15-20 years. This in the face of immediate needs, in various sectors of national life, which seem impractical and / or of greater interest for the common citizen.

Unfortunately, however, only those who prepare themselves adequately to face future scenarios will have some chance of success. It is necessary to explain adequately to the Nation the strategic choices are made, having the courage to defend them, in the best interests of the country.

Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.

(photo: Defense / web / Air Force)