Today begins today Carabiniere Ship Campaign. Target: Australia and Southeast Asia. A mission of over 4 months in which an Italian ship will travel a distance equal to the circumference of the planet, jutting into more than 10 ports between Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka (no fear, order is alphabetical!).
When the Campaign was presented at Palazzo Marina last Friday (see video) there were military leaders such as the Chief of Defense, Gen. Claudio Graziano, and Navy Chief of Staff, Am. Valter Girardelli, as well as industrial ones like amb. Giampiero Massolo, President of Fincantieri, ing. Mauro Moretti, Managing Director of Leonardo, Pasquale Di Bartolomeo, Managing Director of MBDA Italia and Lorenzo Benigni of Elt Elettronica, without forgetting the president of AIAD, the association representing the Italian companies operating in the field of Defense, Aerospace and Security, Guido Crosetto.
Defense defines the initiative as "develop some defense capability building activities useful to those countries whose naval forces need guidance and support both in training and in internal organization; conduct naval diplomacy activities or carry the Italian flag in the various countries affected to demonstrate concretely our level of competence not only technical-operational, but as in this case, also technological and industrial".
Let's try to translate and talk how we eat. The destination of the FREMM trip (European Multi-Mission Frigate) Carabiniere it is simple and clear: to present materially (not on paper!) to the Australians one of the three finalists running for a nine-frigate contract (program "SEA 5000") We talk about 22 billions of euros.
Once again, after being too often indicated by a certain public opinion and by a certain (rather transversal) policy as a useless and expendable source of expenditure, the armed forces become promoters of economic development and commercial successes that - we hope - will bring places of work. These are not steps that take place during a winter afternoon, they are the result of years of professional investment in defining and then creating cutting-edge means.
We point out that what was missed last Friday was a "political" presence, if not by delegation, adequate. The same thing that is almost always crucial to the success of any industrial agreement.
Whether or not the minister is present at today's departure from La Spezia, we are sure that the vast majority of Italians will be morally in port to greet their flag bearers. As we are sure that the ship's crew will give their best during a mission that will see him on the front line - from the commander to the last sailor - busy demonstrating to the Australian navy (but along the way there will be several others ... ) the validity of our “Ferrari”. A made in Italy that is combined with a matteian cultural heritage: Fincantieri has already opened the company Fincantieri Australia and soon will open its own headquarters in Canberra.
Orders are won by sharing know-how, resources and bringing welfare, not exploitation. If someone had understood certain dynamics also for the air dimension, the economic and employment return for Italy would have been (and perhaps could still be ...) much more generous for the next decades (v.video).
Unfortunately, in addition to Mattei, we are the home of Tafazzi.
(in the photo the defense csm, Claudio Graziano, together with the ship's commander Carabiniere, Francesco Pagnotta, followed by the CSM of the Navy, adm. Valter Girardelli)
