ABSTRACT: FOr the first time two countries have come into conflict, both of which belong to the "Western" world, with the rank of "medium powers", possessing strong armies and sophisticated weapons. But it is not only a matter of an armed conflict over the possession of islands lost in the ocean. The war of the Falklands has mobilised the attention of the military-industrial complex, verifying the strategy of limited warfare heretofore confined to countries of the Third and Fourth Worlds. The Falklands have been the proving grounds of new, sophisticated arms systems. The menacing memory of Spain has returned, where the military technology of World War II was tested. It is probably a definitive blow to the hopes of founding true international law in and through the U.N. European politics has revealed itself to be a vacuum, and in Europe Italy has excelled for Levantine mediocrity. After the Falklands we will see conventional rearming while the so-called peace movement will continue to vent itself with anti-Am

ericanism and the protest over nuclear armaments.

(NOTIZIE RADICALI No.6, May 28, 1982)

The Falklands are not just another bellicose episode of the many that have occurred during this long interval of non-peace and non-war. For the first time, in fact, two countries in some sense belonging to the Western camp, both ranking as medium powers, both with strong armies and sophisticated weapons have entered into direct conflict employing tens of thousands of men and technologically advanced weapons in order to occupy or liberate some islands with 1,800 inhabitants.

Behind the isolated adventures of the leader of the torture-chamber generals and the "iron maiden", behind the international solidarity that has been formed around both countries, behind the senseless and impotent diplomatic agitation, lies much more. It is not merely a question of two countries entering into armed conflict over some small islands lost in the midst of the ocean. Above all there is the mobilisation of the attention of the entire "military-industrial complex", not just the Argentine or the British ones. The Falklands means a gigantic step forward in the strategy of limited warfare, which until today has been limited to the Middle East or the under-developed countries of the Third and Fourth Worlds, and has found there an application in a theatre of war heretofore unimaginable.

The general staffs and the powerful lobbies of the war industry who have long been yearning for it, cultivating and propagating it, can only feel satisfied. After the Falklands nothing will be the same in the fields of military strategy and armament policies.

For the war industry the Falklands have been and continue to be an exceptional testing ground for new and more sophisticated weapons. In the days following the sinking of several British ships, Italian television publicised the anti-missile and torpedo products of Italian shipyards with a true and proper advertising campaign. The theme was: the Italian naval industry is in the vanguard of war technology. And it was implied that if the British navy had had our missile and anti-missile systems, if they had had our ships, they would not have found themselves in a crisis. Perhaps for this reason we violated the embargo on arms sales and delivered - by way of Peru - the highly sophisticated missiles that struck such heavy blows at the British fleet. Are we not, after all, the world's fifth largest exporter of arms systems?

The memory of the Spanish civil war returns to menace us which was the testing ground for the technology of World War II. Then too the democracies stood aside and watched, absorbed in their mercantile calculations and their political myopia: the problem did not regard them, it only regarded Spain.

Behind the Falklands affair there is also the probably definitive blow to any residual hopes of achieving true international law by way of the U.N. The two principal adversaries of this objective, which was the universal hope after the second world war, were and are the two super-powers who aspire to be the only arbiters in governing the world. Europe too - the site of divisions and international irresponsibility - has also made its contribution to this state of affairs. And in Europe, Italy has excelled for its Levantine mediocrity. When one gives up sanctions, one makes way for the transition to arms. Sanctions against Argentina should have been accompanied by the threat of sanctions against Great Britain. To withdraw them means losing every implement to press for negotiations on Argentina and, all the more so, on Great Britain. The only gage for orientation was the volume of our exports to Argentina and of Italian and Italo-Argentinian "business". On such Levantine calc

ulations as this was founded the new "national-popular" policy inaugurated by Bettino Craxi [Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party and then Prime Minister, trans.] with the consensus of the Christian Democrats and the Communists.

Once the Falklands affair is over, we will be subjected to new pressure for arming as a result of all these factors. Thus enormous amounts of resources will again be destroyed while the so-called peace movement will continue to vent itself as anti-Americanism and will direct all its protests against nuclear armaments alone.

1982 will be remembered as another year of extermination and death by the increase of famine; for the death of the hopes of Solidarnosc in Poland and of democracy in El Salvador; for the massacres in the Falklands and for those which will necessarily, inevitably follow, perpetrated by Israel in Lebanon, almost as if legitimated by the Falklands.

We will have to fight so that the next three years will not always more tragically resemble the years '37, '38, and '39.