These days our attention is rightly focused on Libya and on the issue of immigration blockade. However, it would be a serious mistake to imagine confining the area of national interest to the Mediterranean alone, or rather to the central Mediterranean as some would like recently.
The globalization of the economy has accentuated the interdependence of geographically distant countries, but involved in the same producer-consumer chain, whose element of continuity is represented by the sea and by the global flow of goods / energy resources that cross it. Today 90% of goods and raw materials transit along the lines of maritime communication and the 75% of this flow flows through a few vulnerable obligatory passages (so-called choke points), consisting of international channels and straits.
In the Indian Ocean, where the majority of world goods, the 65% of the oil and the 35% of the gas, pass in terms of tonnage, ENI develops important and promising extractive activities, among which, of particular interest are the immense deposits of gas off the coast of Mozambique.
The accesses to the Indian Ocean and the relative lines of communications, are controlled by 7 of the 9 most important obligatory passages of the Planet (Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, Babel Mandeb, Cape of Good Hope, Strait of Malacca, Strait of Probe, Strait of Lombok)
As for Italy, Suez, Babel Mandeb and Hormuz naturally take on primary importance.
All the maritime traffic of the Gulf countries passes through Hormuz; it is undoubtedly the most important passage for hydrocarbons in the world (ca 20 Mil. barrels per day, equal to approximately 20% of the hydrocarbons transported by sea in the World). Unlike the other straits, it cannot be circumvented. Once the access by sea is closed, the Arabian-Persian Gulf would be isolated. Hormuz and indeed the entire Persian Gulf basin is easily mined, something that happened at the time of the Iran-Iraq conflict.
The Suez Canal is the eastern gateway to our sea, together with Babel Mandeb, it is undoubtedly the most important forced passage for Italy. The eventual closure of the canal would lead to a lengthening of the route to Europe by approximately 6.000 nautical miles. Not more than 300 meters wide, it is also easily minable, even by non-state entities (an event that has already happened in 1984), and is under the total control of a single nation, Egypt. Hence the strategic importance of Somalia, Yemen and Oman for the security of access to the Red Sea / Mediterranean for Italian interests.
The obligatory passages are subject to various threats such as piracy, maritime terrorism, large-scale claims and political instability in the riparian states. Their closure, a hypothesis often rejected as a mere military exercise, (in addition to having already occurred in the past) finds, if needed, a new credibility, due to the increasing danger of non-state actors and the growing diffusion of more powerful weapons and sophisticated, once the exclusive prerogative of a small number of nations.
In particular, the eventual closure of the eastern accesses to the Mediterranean would transform the configuration of world trade to the detriment of Italy which would be penalized by the movement of traffic from the routes to Suez to those that circumnavigate Africa, with the consequent point of embarkation and disembarkation of the goods in northern European ports rather than in the historic Italian Mediterranean ports. As happened after the discovery of America, the Mediterranean would be marginalized from every point of view until the opening of Suez. Our economy would suffer heavily.
The political volatility of the area is evident; it follows that most of the nations belonging to the G8 maintain almost constantly in the naval forces area, supported in some cases by permanent bases. The Iranian Navy is also active outside Hormuz, both in anti-piracy missions and in terms of maritime surveillance as well as in terms of Israeli containment. Among the European nations, France maintains a naval presence of greater profile, sending a naval Group centered on the aircraft carrier for 5 months each year Charles De Gaulle (photo opening) and from a nuclear submarine, to mention only the most significant assets.
Recently, Turkey has also entered the area, with important "soft power" operations against Somalia, building an international airport in Mogadishu and serving as an aid in the rebuilding of the Somali armed forces. Germany has initiated preliminary contacts to move independently in launching cooperation with Somalia and the countries of East Africa, as part of an initiative parallel to that proposed by the Italian Government in a framework European, with the "migration compact", aimed at stabilizing even with investments, as well as with initiatives aimed at security, the countries of origin of most African emigration.
China has for some years given birth to an intelligent "soft-power" exercise, directed in particular towards the countries of the coast of eastern and south-eastern Africa, but which in Beijing's plans will go as far as to involve the Mediterranean. Greece is already involved in the project of the new maritime silk road, to transform Piraeus into its goal of arrival, as a hub for subsequent distribution, by land and by sea, in competition with Trieste and Venice. It is evident that Italy cannot lose interest in the Indian Ocean. This is confirmed, if any were needed, by the missions carried out by the Navy (8 major long-term missions with significant use of vehicles, including aircraft carrier deployments and the use of embarked tactical aviation, without counting the naval presence of isolated units ) from the 1979 to today.
Like it or not, the Mediterranean is today, even more than in the past, a geo-strategic and especially geo-economic continuum with the Black Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian-Persian Gulf. That geo-political and geo-economic entity that since the 90 years has been identified with the broad Mediterranean term, to indicate the area of direct national interest, to overcome the guiding concept of the Italian Defense of the years 50 and 60, centered on the binomial "barrier of the Gorizia threshold and interdiction of the central Mediterranean".
In this sense, Italian foreign policy is moving, as demonstrated by the intensification of relations at the highest levels with the Gulf countries, the Indian Ocean and towards Asia. The opening towards Iran, the launch of the CD initiative. "Migration compact", are important pieces of the Italian initiative's recovery to take on greater relevance in the region.
It is therefore time to align the "vision" of Defense with that of national foreign policy. The current disconnection is in my opinion one of the problems that will necessarily have to be solved in order to acquire timeliness and resilience in our action, towards the countries with which we want to increase in political breadth, depth and depth political, commercial and security relations.
We must review military planning and proceed without further delay to the consequent reconfiguration of our military instrument and its use, also and above all for military operations in peacetime.
(photo: Marine nationale / US Navy / ENI)
