TV, F-35 and terrorism

23/12/15

Dear manager, as a lover of your service I have read with interest the wish of a TV channel dedicated to defense and, in general, of the need to inform and inform oneself about a sector that is most obscure. To stay on the subject of the letter, I think that the web is structurally the most suitable place to deal with the subject of weapons, defense and geopolitical repercussions. The degree of detail and the pressing relevance deflate the television medium to inadequate, as has already happened in other sectors, and the costs do the rest.

I'll give you my example. Far from being a fan of military spending, indeed, without turning around to be a convinced pacifist, precisely with Online Defense I learned a lesson that is always valid in life: however you think it is always better to have adequate knowledge, to read, and to study, otherwise the subjects are treated a lot per kilo. We all live this experience in our professional field, that is the annoyance of hearing about those who do not have the tools of even technical and complex questions. The famous bar talk, which hides little intellectual curiosity and little desire to test themselves. 
Instead, there are some cases in which the feeling of the people is imbued with common sense and sometimes perhaps predicts future and unexpected scenarios, purely by chance or because correct information has finally done its duty. For example, in the letter the need to have F-35 with the facing of new security challenges, terrorism in the first place, was directly related.

Now, it may be that the whole picture still escapes me from the profane, even though I have understood very well how the existence of new weapon systems (effective and tested) can shift the balance and induce geopolitical pressures. It may be that the overall tactical and strategic endowment of a defense system is an object for workers only, even if the choice of objectives should belong to other spheres of life in a country, and it is difficult to understand the current NATO alignment in Eastern Europe and the Baltic.

What I just don't understand is the relationship between the F-35s and terrorism, with all the good will. The new TV in these days offers us important opportunities for historical analysis, I quote the series "The Americans" broadcast on Netflix. It tells the story of two illegal immigrants from the S directorate in Reagan's time, formidable information thieves on American soil for the cause of the then Soviet Union.

Comparing the costs of an F-35 with those of training valid information services personnel, applying it to a phenomenon such as terrorism, where the biggest danger comes from the neighbor, really the relationship between F-35 and terrorism comes in in the field of esotericism. At least in the eyes of a layman.

Matteo Olivieri

 

Dear Matteo, in the letter to which the F-35 refers it did not seem to me to be called into question as a "weapon system" but to explain the institutional difficulty in justifying military expenses before the known terrorist events. I fully agree that the training of intelligence service personnel is a priority for combating violence. However, since it is foreseen in a budget that is very different from that of the Defense, I believe that a link cannot be found between the two items of expenditure.

Beyond everything, at Lockheed Martin they like to underline how much the potential of a new generation aircraft (the 5a in the case of Lightning) are all to be discovered and now probably not even imaginable. Who knows that the plane, so much discussed today, one day may not become - also - a valid instrument for fighting terrorism.

Andrea Cucco