Even on the last day of the year we watch the news and don't ask ourselves the only question we should.
Images of ongoing wars flow: they mean hundreds to thousands of victims daily! They seem so far away...
Il politically correct home imposes the ritual: “our armed forces are ready”.
Almost two years later, the "reassuring message" we receive is that the land forces can still guard the squares with "Safe Roads" or intervene with bulldozers and water pumps in case of disasters, while the sea forces can intimidate some pirates or save migrants, while the air ones continue to guarantee mostly medical flights or “scramble” for aircraft with radio failures or off course.
I don't want to doubt for a second that, beyond appearances or the usual Defense communication, inside the barracks or bases, at sea or in the skies, our soldiers train daily to fight, even with what the convent passes ...
Not even with an ongoing world war do we vaguely reach that 2% for Defense: a share of GDP which is not a luxury, but rather a "minimum wage" to be credible and full members in that club that NATO represents. An alliance behind which we hide and which, no matter what anyone says, the USA can largely do without militarily (not "politically").
The world is preparing for a further and inevitable military escalation. The others prepare because the cost of just the first direct day of war is 1000 times more expensive than any meager savings since Peacetime.
For two years now we have been facing, as the Pope says, a "piecemeal world war". However, conflicts are pieces of a puzzle: to understand the picture you just need to put them together and... decide which side you are on. There is no more room for Levantine ambiguity.
The basic question is: when we are the ones who are raped, bombed and killed... will we be able to react? Or will we belatedly understand that the "feminicides" in Italy and Europe were above all our fault?
