IRDISP-RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR DISARMAMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE

ABSTRACT: Fine that there is the arms race, but what has Italy to do with it? Aren't the U.S. and the Soviet Union the promoters of such race? It is true that the two superpowers are the chief responsibles for the arms race. The chief ones but not the only ones. Italy has its share of responsibility as well. A smaller share, but not a negligible one. In absolute numbers, Italy's military expenditure in 1985 was the eighth of the world. As regards the number of men at arms, it is among the first fifteen countries. And the Italians are in the first six positions among the world exporters of armaments. The weight of the military sector on the whole of the Italian economy is still rather limited: The expenditure accounts for 2.7% of the gross domestic product; arms represent 2.7% of the wealth produced by the industry, and 2.3% of the exports. Moreover, the military threats to the security of Italy are less serious than those which many other international actors have to face - including many of our allies. Ther

efore, Italy is in a situation that offers many opportunities to contain the expenditure, experiment conversions to civilian uses of the military productions, and promote a realistic security policy aimed to achieve detente.

Unfortunately, these opportunities are dropped. In fact, there has been a tendency to expansion over the last decade which must be urgently stopped. As of the mid-seventies, Italy has become one of the major exporters of weapons systems, and its military expenditure exceeds the annual growth rates decided at the NATO level. That same period marks the rise of the supporters of a "new military role" for Italy in the Mediterranean. The "White Paper" presented by the Minister of Defense Spadolini in winter 84-85 summarizes and pinpoints these developments, obviously from the point of view of a person who supports them and hopes that they will continue. This book on the contrary highlights the doubts, the questions, the alternative proposals compared to what has been to this moment a monologue carried out by the establishment.

("ITALY AND THE ARMS RACE" - A counter-White Paper of defense - edited by Marco De Andreis and Paolo Miggiano - Preface by Roberto Cicciomessere - Franco Angeli Libri, 1987, Milan)

4. THE ITALIAN SECURITY POLICY

by Paolo Miggiano

1. Introduction

Over the last ten years, the Italian military policy has deeply changed. Military expenses, as we will show in another part of this paper, have significantly increased. As of 1979, these increased expenses have coincided with a series of military missions in the Mediterranean area. Moreover, throughout the eighties, Italy has assumed a decisive role, as far as the East-West military confrontation is concerned, for the realization of the program for the modernization of Nato's theatre nuclear forces.

The first paragraph of this chapter describes this process of growing military activity, and its contradictions and ambiguities. Special attention is given to the urgings of the Atlantic Alliance's chief partner - the U.S. - toward a greater military participation of the European allies and of Italy in particular.

The second paragraph concentrates on analysing the Defense "White Paper" (Wp) presented around the end of 1984. The Wp is an official report drafted by the Defense that analyses the experiences of the early eighties, and outlines a security policy for the coming years. While it contains old and new ambiguities and reticences, the Wp affords a credible response to various contradictions of the previous military policy. It is a dangerously unrealistic answer, which in our opinion has not been given sufficient attention. The third paragraph deals with the onset of the Arab-Islamic terrorist threat, particularly over the past two years. It assesses recent terrorist activity, its causes and its use on the part of certain states as a military instrument. It also analyses the Reagan Administration's decision to provide a military answer to the states that "commission" the terrorist activity, the results of this choice, as well as the dangers that this antiterrorist military strategy represents for regional and glob

al security.

The last paragraph outlines a security policy for Italy capable of meeting the realistic threats and of promoting détente both in East-West relations and in North-South relations.

2. The military activity of the last ten years

In the twenty-five years following the second world war, the Italian armed forces played a secondary military role. Their role in the event of an invasion from the East consisted in resisting a few days before the arrival of reinforcements from the United States and/or the beginning of a nuclear escalation. They had been given a preminent role instead in "domestic containment", as guarantors against a possible communist insurrection, be it it related or not to an attack by the Warsaw Pact. Such role had renewed an antipopular function of domestic deterrence which had been historically carried out by the post-unity army for long periods of time (1). Regardless of the actual occurrence of the communist insurrection, this role had been used by the government and by the right as a means of pressure and intimidation against labour struggles and democratic changes, and it had provided an excellent breeding ground for the armed forces' implication in the strategy of tension and in coupist plots (2).

Toward the end of the seventies, the convergence of a series of international and national factors had led to a change of this role. The Nixon-Ford Administration (1969-1976) showed more interest in a greater European commitment, which is a direct consequence of the outcome of the Vietnam war.

Backing the mission in Vietnam implied, for the United States, a growing use of economic and human resources. The need for personnel was met by reintroducing the draft and by transferring units from the European theatre. This increased commitment was matched by the United States' growing unwillingness to bear the economic and human costs of a war which was considered wrong, if not downright unjust. Many of the young people who were recalled deserted or left the country (half a million in 1973, at the end of the conflict); Congress placed increasing limits on expenses, on chemical weapons, and on the use of the armed forces outside the country. These domestic factors become the fundamental elements of the military policy of the Nixon-Ford Administration: a reduced direct military involvement, the rediscovery of diplomacy, a greater participation on the part of the allies. The new formula, "more defense with less danger for American lives and less expenses for the American tax-payer" necessarily called for a g

reater commitment on the part of friends and allies.

In 1970, Nato launched a program for the modernization of the European military forces (which failed, however, to increase the European military budgets in the predicted degree). The U.S. requested a greater financial commitment and in parallel enforced measures to back the development of national military industries. With such measures, recalls Melvin Laird, Defense Secretary from 1969 to 1973, the U.S.' allies and friends "would have been more capable of confronting the growing threat to their security on the level of local and regional conflicts" (3).

Such pressure towards an enhanced function of defense from external threats on the part of the European allies, including Italy, were accompanied by new trends that started to emerge among the Italian military. A new group of high officers assumed the command of the armed forces in the early seventies. They all rejected role as domestic super-police, and sought a more strictly military role, legitimated by the country, which is typical of industrial countries. The reorganization of the military apparatus on the basis of the new objectives was accompanied by the progressive elimination of the neo-fascist groups and a more respectful position toward Parliament, as well as an urge to overcome the separateness of civil society. Certain fundamental values of the new armed forces were borrowed from the industrial milieu, with which the military had intense contacts owing to the development and production of armaments: e.g. the birth of the "company defense, that produces the good of security". In order to carry ou

t a credible modern military role, the new military, turned "technocrats", suggested changes in the military means and in the operative doctrines as well as the acquisition of new weapons systems.

In 1975 a special law was passed allocating Lit. 1,000 billion for the modernization of the means of the Navy. Two years later, laws were passed for the modernization of the Army and of the Air Force, for a further 2,000 billion. While the general aim of the programs was a greater security with respect to external threats, the definition of these was not homogeneous. The programs for the reorganization of the Army and of the Air Force implicitly acknowledged that the threat to be confronted was a possible invasion on the part of the Warsaw Pact, and that it was to be tackled in cooperation with the other Nato countries. It is a military threat with respect to which the military must (as far as they are concerned) prepare the necessary defenses. Apart from any criticism of single aspects or weapons systems, this conception of security corresponds to a greater capacity to defend the national territory militarily. The conception of security behind the modernization of the Navy is different (4). The threats whic

h the Navy identifies in the Mediterranean are only partly military threats linked to the East-West confrontation. They are also economic threats to "vital national interests", such as the unrestrained flow of energy supplies, fishing activity, and the right to exploit the deep seas. These vital national interests could be jeopardized by "minor conflicts and local instability" that are not part of the East-West confrontation. With regard to these threats, the Navy demanded a role as stabilizer of the areas of "most direct interest", i.e. "the countries of North Africa and of the Middle East". It is a task which Nato (owing to its geographically circumscribed characteristics) cannot, and which Europe is not in the condition, to carry out (according to the Navy). It is a task, therefore, which the Italian Navy plans to carry out on its own, and which includes the use of "dissuasive" actions but also "preventive" ones, which justifies the construction of a carrier and of landing craft provided for by its modern

ization plan. In practice, the security promoted by the Navy corresponds to a nationalist force projection far beyond the boundaries, to solve non-military controversies as well, more than a better defense against military threats in the Mediterranean in cooperation with the allies.

The Navy's modernization plan is also an answer to the Euro-American crisis of 1973, during the Arab-Israel war of Yom Kippur. In that year, in order to supply Israel with armaments, the U.S. asked the European allies to use their bases. The Arab countries in turn threatened an oil embargo against the European countries if they accepted the American request. The European governments decided to deny the U.S. the use of their bases. According to the Italian government, it was a measure prompted by differences in our national interests compared to those of the United States: different economic interests, since both Italy and Europe - unlike the U.S. - buy most of the oil they need on the Arab markets. But there is also a different political assessment of the situation in the Middle East. As the then foreign minister Aldo Moro explained in 1974, it was a policy that recognized the Jewish State but at the same time demanded the withdrawal of the same from the territories occupied after 1967. According to the Navy

, the decision taken in 1973 was a forced one, a blackmail suffered because of the lack of military means to contrast it. Such means the Navy intended to acquire with the modernization plan. However, no one, on the level of the government or of the political class, seemed to worry too much about the potential gap between foreign and military policy, or about the differences in the framework of the three armed forces. Once the moment of crisis is over, each armed force continues its own way. Each armed force is busy developing weapons systems and doctrines for "its own" security. Foreign policy continues on the path of the political solution of the tensions in the Middle East, namely of the Palestinian issue. Military exports follow a logic of maximum profit and indiscriminate sales in the Third World. On the other hand, in the mid-70s, the political forces' attention is entirely concentrated on the country's domestic problems. In the left, the end of the period of interference of the armed forces in the dom

estic policy marks the beginning of a stage in which only "technical" issues or issues relative to "efficiency" seem to exist, devoid of any political depth. Interesting proposals, such as that of a different framework of defense, on the model of Switzerland or Yugoslavia (5), were tepidly backed by some forces and political personalities, but they were resolutely rejected by the major opposition party (6).

Toward the end of the seventies, new events placed Italy in the condition to play a more significant military role. Once again, the greatest stimulus comes from the U.S. government and the military policies adopted by the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

With the new Carter Administration (1977-1980), making the allies more responsible (which had almost been a compulsory choice for the previous administration) becomes a programmatic objective. In 1978-79, Nato adopts a new plan to enhance the capacity of nuclear and conventional dissuasion in Europe. The Long Term Defense Program provides for the installation of new theatre nuclear missiles (Cruise and Pershing 2) and a 3 per cent annual increase of the military budgets of Nato countries for a period of ten years (in 1985, Nato's defence planning committee prolonged the commitment until 1992).

However, the American request for a greater European involvement is vaster. A series of requests are driven by an increasing concern for the area of the Persian Gulf, following the changes occurred in Central and South-Western Asia at the end of the seventies. The collapse of the Shah's regime in Iran following the Islamic revolution brought with it the dissolution of the Hundred (a military alliance between Great Britain, United States, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey). The loss of the Iranian ally was coupled with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which Washington perceived as the first step of a project of global expansion that aimed, among other things, at assuming the control of the economically strategic area of the Persian Gulf. Such area was further threatened by the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq conflict.

In anticipation of a Soviet invasion in the Gulf area, the U.S. government prepared a series of operative measures. The headquarters of the command of the U.S. naval forces in Europe (Cincusnaveur) was shifted from London to Naples - already the seat of the command of the allied forces of Southern Europe (Cincsouth). The two forces, the American one and Nato, were placed under the command of a single American officer. The "Rapid Deployment Force" (Rdf) was established - a ready-use force for the area of the Persian Gulf under the direction of a central command (Uscentcom, "United States Central Command"), also created ad hoc. The Rdf consists of various units which, in the event of a crisis in the Persian Gulf, would be transferred and placed at the disposal of the central command. The United States demand of the European allies first of all to prepare themselves to replace the American units in Europe that have been assigned to the Rdf. As far as the Mediterranean area is concerned, it is a part of the 6th

fleet, which is shifted to the Indian Ocean. It is also the only airborne infantry battalion stationed in Italy ("1st Battalion, 509th Airborne Infantry Combat Team") transformed into an advanced element of the 82nd airborne division, the Rdf's pride. As of 1980, Nato commitment to replace the U.S. units becomes operative.

The United States also asks the allies to use their bases and the infrastructures necessary to deploy the Rdf. Nato's response to this request was affirmative, albeit with a condition: that the single countries pledge to supply the bases by assessing the situation case by case. Lastly, the U.S. tends to involve the entire Alliance or single countries in its "outer-area" operations, i.e. operations that take place outside the geographic area covered by the North Atlantic Treaty. According to Nato commander Alexander Haig in a hearing before the U.S. Congress in 1980, Nato has "arbitrary boundaries".

With the advent of the Reagan Administration in 1981, the nature and the objectives of the relationship with the allies change. The main characteristic of the new administration's military policy is unilateralism, both on the level of nuclear rearmament plans and of the conventional ones, both towards the adversaries and towards the allies, both in the definition of new strategies and in a greater preference of direct military intervention. Compared to the previous administration, there have been changes as regards the perception of the threat and the strategies and means necessary to confront it. By setting up the Rdf, Carter had built a major reactive force to confront a Russian invasion in South-West Asia. The Reagan Administration privileges instead minor threats, in particular the terrorist one. The responsibility of the terrorist threat is lain, sometime with reason and other times without any evidence, on all of the United States' adversaries: from Libya to Nicaragua, from Lebanon to the Soviet Union,

from Syria to North Korea. This gives rise both to a relatively homogeneous strategic framework and to a new legitimation for the use of force against minor threats. Moreover, any local conflict may become part of a global conflict with the Soviet Union, which is often (groundlessly) accused of being the centre of the international terrorist network.

The Mediterranean occupies an important place among the scenarios of local conflicts. In 1983, Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., former commander of the allied forces of Southern Europe and current chief of U.S. Joint Staff, declared that "an inventory of the sites of instability and potential crises in the Mediterranean leads to the conclusion that a serious threat to the peace of the Southern region, and possibly of Nato as a whole, is not limited to Europe, but includes points to the East and West of Nato's area of traditional interest and responsibility" (7). With the new unilateralism and strategy of the Reagan Administration, old and new elements of objective ambiguity originating from an ill-defined distinction between Nato commands and forces and U.S. commands and forces, create the condition more for a coercive involvement of the allies in American decisions than for a greater responsibility in their own defense.

In the mid-'80s, Italy started to assume a more significant role in the military policy than it had in the past, both on the nuclear level and on the conventional level. Throughout the whole of 1979, when the new "Cruise" and "Pershing 2" theatre nuclear missiles were about to be installed, Nato was living in a situation of stalemate. While Great Britain confirmed its support to the installation within the estimated deadlines, Belgium and the Netherlands proposed to delay it. The Federal Republic of Germany linked its acceptance of the missiles to the condition that it would not be the only continental European country to assume this position. Thus, Italy's support to the installation became decisive for the final approval in Brussels of the deployment of the Euromissiles. The Socialist Party contributed to backing this decision of the government. It provided its support in Parliament, and it is thanks to this choice that in March 1980, the Ministry of Defense was entrusted to a socialist - Lelio Lagorio - f

or the first time in the history of the Republic.

Italy's decisive role in the decision to modernize Nato's intermediate nuclear forces did not, however, correspond either to a debate nor to an in-depth knowledge of the issues relative to nuclear strategy and arms control. While the latter was an expression almost ignored by the Italian culture (8), the motivations pertaining to military strategy advanced by the government and the defense to back the installation of the Euromissiles are incredibly simplistic (with respect to the relevance of the problem). The question is more or less that of recovering a condition of equality with the Warsaw Pact by installing a number of "Cruise" and "Pershing 2" missiles corresponding to that of the SS-20s deployed by the Soviet Union as of 1977. The scarce strategic debate that preceded this choice could lead us to think that it was taken for reasons other than military ones, i.e. to stress a political and ideological loyalty to the United States and possibly even as an "exchange" for a preferential treatment in politica

l or economic terms.

An indication of the low degree of "nuclear awareness" of the political authorities, i.e. of their poor knowledge of the "value of use" of nuclear weapons, is the question of the "dissolving clause". Minister Lagorio declared several times during his mandate that Italy considered the "dissolving clause" - whereby it cannot exclude a discontinuance of the missile deployment plan in relation to the outcome of the negotiations - to be valid. In the final statement with which Nato's Atlantic Council passed the installation of the Euromissiles instead, there is nothing suggesting the cancellation of the decision made, nor is there any mention of the "dissolving clause" or of option zero or of Italy's partial adhesion, linked to a "dissolving clause" on the national level. In spite of the fact that the "dissolving clause" is nothing but a hope, it is nonetheless presented by the political authorities and accepted by the media as an effective act of military policy. It is a formula whose success is inversely propor

tional to its consistence. In March 1984, Defense Minister Spadolini "solemnly" declared to Parliament that "the dissolving clause" is still perfectly valid" (9), so that Italy "cannot rule out, in relation to the outcome of the negotiations, not only the interruption of the missile deployment plan...but also the withdrawal of the missiles that have already been installed". On the other hand, even for the forces that oppose the Euromissiles, the strategic and security motivations are secondary compared to the political or ideological ones (e.g. the "American imperialism's desire to rearm"). The scarce or no attention given by the pacifists to the Tornado (which is criticized solely on grounds of its high economic costs) as a theatre nuclear aircraft, is typical of this attitude.

In both fields there were also positions that were more mindful of the security aspects. In November 1983, the Secretary of the Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer, asked the government to delay the installation of the missiles, while "the Soviets in the meanwhile should freeze the current situation and in fact proceed to dismantle part of the SS-20s" (10). Different positions emerge even in the Christian Democratic Party, along with hypotheses of nuclear nationalism. Thus, in 1982 the Christian Democratic Undersecretary Bartolo Ciccardini suggested that Italy provide itself with national nuclear weapons (11). In 1983 the deputy Manfredi Bosco, in charge of the DC's state and institutions department, stated that "it is necessary to achieve a scenario with only conventional forces (in smaller proportions than the current ones) and the forces of the nuclear deterrent based on submarines" (12). Certain extemporary (and immediately rectified) statements of the Prime Minister Bettino Craxi go in this same directio

n of an incomplete subordination to the choices of the Reagan Administration. In September 1983, during a visit in Paris and London, Craxi states that Italy "will not make the installation of the missiles into a matter of precise timing", and added that the Soviet request to assess the Anglo-French nuclear forces for the purposes of the negotiation is partly justified. In May 1984, during a visit in Portugal, Craxi suggests that the two superpowers suspend the installation of missiles on the European territory at the reprise of the Geneva negotiations. These statements reveal some traces of greater awareness on the part of Italy (compared to the Reagan Administration) towards the negotiations on nuclear arms control and reduction. Unfortunately, these traces of nuclear awareness are short-lived. In March 1984, the first group of "Cruise" missile becomes operative in Comiso. The second group becomes operative in early 1985.

As of 1980, the Italian military balance presents even greater growth rates than during the previous five years. Since Italy does not have to bear the costs of an autonomous nuclear armament, this growth should refer to the step-up of the conventional military capacity. Between 1979 and 1984, the three armed forces carried out six military missions abroad, five of which in the Mediterranean region. In this same period, most of the exercises concerned the capacity to rapidly shift units from the Centre-North to the South. Units of the Army, of the Air Force or of the Navy have been set up "ex novo" in the South or transferred from the North. New military test ranges have been opened or enlarged in the Nebrodi (Sicily) and in the Apulian tableland. In parallel with the operative planning, the political and military authorities have devoted growing attention to the threat from the South, and have backed the need for a new defense blueprint.

The question of the threat from the South is obviously linked to the Carter Administration's above mentioned pressure for a greater support on the part of the Nato allies to a possible intervention in the Persian Gulf. This pressure poses clear-cut choices for the allies. To what extent must they meet the request for a great "outer-area" commitment? Solely by replacing the gaps which the reduction of the American presence leaves in the Nato defense system? Or also by providing the bases for the use of the Rdf? Or by using their own military units together with the American ones in the operations? From another point of view, the threat from the South is linked to the Navy's pressure for military force projection to defend Italy's "vital economic interests". The premises of this pressure to urge a direct outer-area commitment are similar to the American ones, but with a nationalist characteristic, as we have seen. This pressure also poses problems. Where is the limit of the vital interests to be defended mili

tarily? In which framework will "outer-area" interventions take place? In the framework of the U.N. or outside of it? With which objectives? The answers to these questions outline the different combinations of the fluctuating Italian military policy, which is characterized by the double combination of realism and unrealistic ambition, subordination and independence with respect to the American ally. It is a military policy which touches on all possible frameworks defined by the above mentioned double combination. In other words, a policy which is alternately unrealistic and subordinated, unrealistic and independent, realistic and subordinated, realistic and independent; it is an erratic trend, which has been constantly decreasing over the past years, fluctuating between a subordinated unrealistic ambition and an independent one. To the above mentioned problems we must add a far more serious question: is Italy willing to accept an offensive military intervention for the resolution of economic and local instab

ility as legitimate? The decision of the last two defense ministers, not to clearly manifest this objective while gradually pursuing it, confers a confused, contorted and ambiguous tone to the Italian debate on security. The Lagorio management (March 1980 - August 1983) of the Ministry of Defense seems to be characterized, in the beginning at least, by realism and independence. Lagorio replies negatively to America's invitation in June 1980 to participate in a multinational force to keep the Straits of Ormuz (Persian Gulf) open. The "Guidelines of Military policy" (13) which the Minister presents that same month to Parliament, seem to make the choice programmatic. The threat from the South is identified with the increased Soviet air and naval power in the Mediterranean, which will need to be confronted also with a view to reduce the American presence. The agreement signed in 1980 with the Maltese government for the (military) defense of the neutrality of the island, seems to be based on this same realistic v

ision. Equally clear-cut is the rejection of the hypothesis of conferring "arbitrary boundaries" to Nato, extending the area of use de facto. It is true, Lagorio concedes, that "the interests of the single nations (which are part of the Alliance) and the interests of the Alliance as a whole are exposed beyond the territory covered by the military-defensive Treaty, but "the mechanisms of the military alliance" cannot not operate outside Nato's area of competence.

On closer investigation, the realism is only in the immediate choices, while certain elements of operative planning conflict with the realistic project of a partial replacement of the U.S. commitment in the Mediterranean. The Navy's operative planning envisages an extension of the area of use from the Central Mediterranean to the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as a credible naval capacity "in the entire basin of the Mediterranean". Two carrier "groups" are proposed, one in the Tyhrrenian and the other in the Ionian sea, capable of carrying out "long-range operations". The Mediterranean is a small sea, which the Navy's units can travel at will. The 6th US fleet has operated in the Mediterranean for years without dividing its far more significant forces. Why, then, plan longer-range operations and set up two groups of use? Simply because the projection towards the South, justified as a better defense of Nato against the Soviet forces, has other objectives, outside the Nato area. According to Lagorio, Italy mus

t fulfil a "twofold strategic role...both for the defense of the right wing of the Nato deployment and for the advanced defense of the Mediterranean region against possible threats from the South". The hidden message behind many parts of the "Guidelines" is that threats from the South outside the Nato area explain the enhancement of the "global operative capabilities" advocated by Lagorio. Phenomena of local destabilization outside the Nato area are also a serious threat, because "jeopardizing the existing equilibriums, even just the regional ones, can threaten global security". And mention is made again of the economic threats, much touted by the Navy, whose task is to "safeguard the national interests and protect the maritime communication lines that are essential to the survival of our country". Thus, the unrealistic ambitions reappear on the level of operative planning.

A certain number of ambiguous elements in Lagorio's military policy become clearer in a year's time. The Mediterranean region or area goes far beyond the Mediterranean sea. It is defined more clearly by the military. Diagram 3 represents an analysis of international strife, divided by regions, conducted during the 102nd superior course (1980-1981) of the School of interforce war (14). Three military regions (or theatres or areas) are on the Mediterranean. Region 1 corresponds to the European theatre and to the geographic borders of Nato. Regions 6 and 2 correspond to the area of Northern Africa (from Mauritania and Western Sahara to Egypt) and of the Middle East (from Egypt to Iran, including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf). These two areas are outside Nato's area of use but they correspond to the areas of operative use prospected by the Navy since 1974. Among other things, these two regions basically correspond also to the areas of operative use provided for by the American government for its European and

central command, as shown in diagram 4 (15).In 1981, Lagorio confirmed that the Mediterranean region includes these three areas. In explaining that for outer-area interventions Nato adopts a policy "which provides for each country an autonomous contribution to collective security", Lagorio specifies that the United States and Great Britain "extend their control to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf", while Italy assumes "a more incisive role in the Southern area of the Atlantic Alliance". i.e. "the Balkans, the Middle East and Northern Africa" (16).

Even the threat from the South is more clearly defined, and no longer placed in relation with the greater Soviet military force. The possible tensions with the South of the world, specifies Lagorio in a meeting of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Iiss) of London, are linked to the question of survival: "A survival for which access to resources is one of the most critical aspects at the moment for the Western world (...). Depriving ourselves of the resources, or inhibiting our access, can be a most effective means of reducing our capability to resist and even to exist. There arises, therefore, a new threat: no longer the front threat of the East-West confrontation...but that of an encirclement. This gives rise to a new, awesome means of indirect strategy" (17). Hence the Defense's decision to "give a better contribution to the general security of the areas closest to us", and to develop a "possibly friendly" dialogue with the South.

This approach radically changes the nature of a number of initiatives promoted by Lagorio, in particular that on the "task force" with a twofold military-civilian use. The proposal was born officially after the earthquake in Irpinia in November 1980, and proposes to set up a rapid deployment force (Fopi) capable of moving to any part of the country in 24 hours' time. A force equipped with a double capacity, that can be used both against earthquakes and against possible threats of an aggression in the South, armed both with shovels and with bazookas. For the purchase of means for civil protection, Parliament unanimously passed an extraordinary allocation of over 600 billion to the Defense. Not even the minister's first statements, according to which the Fopi would be formed by paratroopers and Navy infantrymen, fostered any suspicions in the political forces. Among the few expressions of criticism was that of the yearbook of the Institute of International Relations in Rome: "If the intention is setting up a b

attle-trained unit of assaulters, then its future use must be clearly explained. It would be unacceptable to try and present it as the solution of the problems of civil defense, while it is something that has little to do with the Italian defensive conceptions" (18).

On the other hand, the Italian defensive conceptions are also undergoing rapid changes. In January 1981, Lagorio informs the parliamentarians of the Chamber Defense Committee that "Defense has recently started a process of revision of certain ideas that have long prevailed in the field of strategic studies and forecasts. This approach takes into account the situation of the Mediterranean as well" (19). However, in the following two and a half years of his office, Lagorio adds nothing on the strategic revision under way, justifying himself with a supposed protraction of the researches on the matter (see below). The lack of general elaborations corresponds in 1982 to the launch of the military initiative. There had already been two missions in 1979. The first had been the "humanitarian" cruise of the cruisers Andrea Doria and Vittorio Veneto and of the tender Stromboli to save Vietnamese refugees in the Sea of China. With the second mission, Italy had sent its own helicopter group to beef up the United Nations

Interim Force in Lebanon, the peace-keeping force created by the U.N. to act as cushion between Israel and Lebanon. However, the missions of 1982 are different from the previous ones. In March the minesweepers Palma, Mogano and Bambù are sent to the Red Sea as part of the Multinational Force and Observers, charged with enforcing the Camp David agreements between Egypt and Israel. Their specific task is "contributing to the free navigation" of the Straits of Tiran. The Mfo is not, however, a UN force. It is formed by those countries that intend to support the peace between Israel and Egypt, i.e. only some Western countries. From a political point of view it is a significant choice; from a military standpoint it is a reduced intervention in a basically pacified area. It is a trifle compared to the Lebanese mission, which, as of August, features the participation of the Italian armed forces for a year and a half.

The objective of the first Italian intervention in Lebanon (Italcon 1, from he acronym that designated the first Italian contingent of the multinational force) is the exodus of the Palestinian guerrillas that have entrenched themselves in Beirut following Israel's invasion of Lebanon (June 1982, operation "Peace in Galilea"). It is the only political alternative to a war in the city, which would necessarily turn into a massacre. It is an initiative urged by the United States as well, and approved by all parts involved (Lebanese government and militia, Palestinians and Israelis). At first the United Nations Organization seems to back the initiative, but the vetoes that have emerged within it block it. The Italian government decides to keep faith to its commitment by reaching a bilateral agreement with the Lebanese government. To underline the peaceful nature of the operation, Italian armoured vehicles depart for Lebanon with the white and light blue colours of the UN. In September, when the mission is success

fully concluded, Italcon 1 returns to Italy. In the following days the Falangist militia, with the complicity of the Israeli army, penetrate the defenceless refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila and slaughter women, children and old.

The Lebanese government (and the Palestinians) once again asks for help. The Italian, French, British and American government respond affirmatively and set up a Multinational Force (Mnf) on the basis of various bilateral agreements. However, the aim and nature of this new intervention of Italcon 2 change, on paper at least. The question is not only protecting the Palestinian camps, but also increasing the Lebanese government's authority. According to the agreement between Italy and Lebanon, Italcon 2 will be used not only for purposes of self-defense, but also in the cases "required by its task of supporting the armed forces of the Lebanese government" (20). The composition of the contingent and the armaments also change. The drafted bersaglieri of the Governolo batallion, which had already formed Italcon 1, are sided by the paratroopers of the Folgore batallion and the marines of the San Marco batallion (incidentally, the same ones that were to form the Fopi for civil protection). Italcon 2 is equipped with

medium support fire (105mm guns and 120mm mortars) and of heavy one (of the Italian ships that ride at anchor in the port of Beirut). In view of the potential contradictory nature of its objectives (protecting the Palestinian camps while at the same time supporting the Lebanese government becomes difficult, if the latter has the objective of driving the Palestinians out of the same camps) and of the armaments adopted, the mission of Italcon 2 is somwehere between peacekeeping and peace enforcement. The difference between the two tasks is significant. In peace keeping, the external forces come between the parts in conflict with the consent of all parties involved (21). In peace enforcing, the external forces support one of the parts versus the other part(s) through the use of force. A typical example of peace enforcement is the American intervention in Korea in the fifties in support of the government of South Korea. In Lebanon, supporting only a government and armed forces that represent a minority of the c

ountry (22) would have meant passing from peace keeping to peace enforcement. It is a choice made by the American and French contingents, but not by the Italian one.

Overshadowed by the more important mission in Lebanon, in 1982 there is a third unilateral Italian mission. In October, the destroyer Audace, the frigate Orsa and the tender Vesuvio (12th naval group) are sent to Mogadishu (Somalia). It is more than a friendly visit. "Italy", Lagorio ruthlessly explains before Parliament, "believed that it was in its interest and responsibility to intervene in East Africa for a greater balance among the conflicting parts" (23). The idea (which was fortunately dropped) of playing a role of military stabilization in the former Italian West Africa is a clear demonstration of nationalist ambition, which is not very different from the policy of independent realism assumed by Minister and by the Defense in Lebanon. It is a unrealistic policy both because of the range of military use it entrusts to the armed forces and because it is not backed by any serious motivation and preparation; it is as if the reasons of the Italian military presence in East Africa originated automatically

from the past imperialist tradition or...from the Italian victory in the world soccer championship. It is a unrealistic policy in its aims, but not a weak one as to its supporters, first and foremost the Navy, with its ambitions to acquire a role of regional intervention. It is a significant fact, which few have underlined, that the affirmations of greater autonomy of the United States correspond to the Navy's mission in Mogadishu. "The alliance" - Lagorio explains - "does not and cannot exhaust the Italian policy. Our country, as any other free and sovereign country, pursues its own policy which, while coinciding mostly with the Atlantic one, does not necessarily correspond with the latter in all its real actions. Above all, it is autonomous and independent as regards all the territories that are not covered by the North Atlantic Treaty" (24).

Oddly enough, the Italian incapacity to ensure a realistic military commitment within an alliance, which had manifested itself during World War II, seems to reemerge here. During the first six months of the conflict, with a view to obtaining a prestige comparable to the German one, Mussolini conducted a "parallel" war, which was not coordinated with the German one (25). Instead of taking serious heed of the English fleet in the Mediterranean, Mussolini attacked France and Greece, and moved to Northern Africa to conquer territories. Such initiatives resulted in a tragedy and led Italy to a more realistic war "subordinated" to the German strategy.

The progress of the Lebanese mission, followed by the media with an attitude of enthusiastic promotion more than of independent information, had a galvanizing effect on the military cadres. Among these, it is the proposals advanced by the "hawks" that emerge (26). The advocates of the nationalist and offensive force projection emerge also within the Army. A book published in Spring 1983, written by the former General of the Army Luigi Caligaris and the future editor of "Il Corriere della Sera", Piero Ostellino, outlines the needs and projects of these new military (27). The armed forces' fundamental requirement, Caligaris and Ostellino explain, are not in deviant functions such as civil protection, but in the function of intervention and stabilization in the Mediterranean region. "It is not enough" - the two explain - "to defend ourselves from the threats coming from the East and envisaged by the Atlantic Alliance, if we then leave space to minor threats in the Mediterranean areas where Nato cannot intervene

as such". In order to adequately carry out their role, the armed forces must rectify their objectives and their very spirit. Their task should be that of forming the "Mediterranean combatant" more than the "defense manager"; their framework should be modified with new instruments, on the model of the other Western countries. "The United States", the two authors underlines, "has understood this perfectly, and has launched its ambitious Rapid Deployment Force, which is not only equipped with the most advanced technology, but also relies on highly trained personnel. Medium powers such as Great Britain and France seem to have understood this even better, as they have never surrendered the capacity to intervene externally through their elite units". "Only in Italy", the two authors explain, "the Rapid Deployment Force...encounters so many difficulties in being launched owing to political and military inefficiency. Over a year and a half after announcing the intention to set it up, little has been done. In this c

ase too, priority has been given to the parallel force for civil protection". These are blunt judgments, compared to the ambiguity and reticence of the Defence Minister, and are far from isolated positions within the military leadership.

Even the Defense Chief of Staff, General Vittorio Santini, in his intervention at the Casd in June 1983, criticizes the inconsistency of the "functions of civil protection, albeit secondary" with which "that predominant pacifist culture is contented" (28). "On the contrary, it is necessary", says Santini, "to devise new means in addition to the existing one, as hypothesized by the Chief of Staff Committee in its highest technical responsibility in a study on the so-called defense blueprint". However, Lagorio never made this blueprint public. On approaching the end of his mandate, he preferred to hand the problem over to his successor.

When the Republican Giovanni Spadolini took office as Minister of Defence in 1983, the drive toward the offensive force projection are subdued and led toward a use less parallel and more subordinate to the military policy of the Reagan Administration. Three are the tasks which the "Military policy guidelines" of the new minister point out to the armed forces: defending the boundaries, defending Europe together with the allies, "contributing, in cooperation with the UN and with our allies, to the reinstatement of humanitarian and politically stable conditions in areas of particular relevance for the safety of the Mediterranean" (29). This external role is legitimated in reply to a threat from the South which, contrary to Lagorio's opinion, is not a military threat to Nato. It consists of "a minor conflict due to a controversy that concerns Italy alone, and which could manifest itself in offensive actions aiming to acquire scarcely extended areas albeit of prime strategic interest, or addressed against the nat

ional maritime traffic in the Mediterranean". "In this case", Spadolini concludes, "Italy could respond to the offence only with an autonomous and credible military means". Within Nato, the hypothesis of landings in Southern Italy has always been considered (and still is) an extremely unlikely threat, and in any case a secondary one in a war scenario between blocks. In a scenario of bilateral conflict between Italy and another country, it has been judged even less credible by as many as two chiefs of staff of the Army (30). But the advantage of the threat of landings from the South lies not in its validity, but in its usefulness for the purposes of a possible manipulation: it makes it possible to justify the introduction of an offensive and preventive approach in the name of the legitimate defense of the national territory. Thus, Spadolini's "guidelines" propose "measures to safeguard potential breeding grounds of crisis represented by certain Mediterranean countries".

As far as the "outer-area" Italian military commitment is concerned, Spadolini specifies, in indirect conflict with Lagorio, that the roles of regional stabilization "would be meaningless and unrealistic without an organic bond with the Western strategy". Spadolini does not criticize the objectively unrealistic part, also on the operative level, of the approach given by the previous minister to regional stabilization (commitment in East Africa), but only its disorganic nature with respect to an indefinite "Western strategy". The objective of the criticism is, therefore, the parallel, relatively autonomous and uncoordinated character with respect to the U.S. of the Italian military commitment in East Africa and in Lebanon promoted by Lagorio. This parallel commitment Spadolini wants to replace with a commitment more subordinated to the American ally, more realistic in that it is less ndpendent. However, reducing Italy's autonomy as well as its nationalist ambitions does not solve the problems; it simply hands

them over to a stronger, while not infallible, partner. Even the American (or French) government and armed forces can pursue unrealistic objectives and make wrong choices, as in Vietnam or Lebanon. In August 1983 the agreement signed among the various Lebanese forces comes undone. The Lebanese army attempts to regain the control of the Chouf mountains and clashes with the Druse militia, while in Beirut military units and Falangist militia conflict with the Shiite militia. It becomes increasingly clear that the Lebanese government and armed forces express only one component - the Christian Maronite one - of the Lebanese nation. At the same time, the Lebanese government's requests for a direct commitment in the civil war on the part of the multinational contingent, which is asked to deploy itself in the Chouf or to support the units that have remained in Beirut, grow. The various contingents answer these requests in different ways. The French and American contingents react to the shells fired by the Druse bat

teries against the Lebanese army (which fall close to the Mnf camps every now and then) by naval countershellings and by bombing carrier-based aircraft. Similar support is provided by Americans and French to Gemayel's army in his actions to disarm the other militia. Italcon 2 keeps a more neutral stance. The use of naval artillery, at the command of the land commander Franco Angioni, is used by the latter only as a threat to deviate enemy fire from Italcon 2 (31). Moreover, the Italians refuse to take part in the roundups and in the clashes (32). The Italian part basically applies a deliberate self-limitation of the use of force, which obtains good results. Back in Italy, however, a number of exponents of the new government presided by the socialist Bettino Craxi seriously weigh the possibility of following the Americans and the French in giving total support to the Gemayel government. Throughout September, Spadolini orders to define operative plans to send heavy field armaments to Italcon 2 and to equip it

with the heavy fire of one or two groups of fighter-bombers, whose transfer to Cyprus is planned (measures that thankfully are not taken, also because of the growing criticism of the opposition forces). The extensive use of force on the part of the French and American contingents, justified both as self-defense and as support to Gemayel's government, does not increase the former nor does it enhance the latter. In late October, two suicidal attacks with cars loaded with explosive claims hundreds of victims among the French and American military. In February 1984, after the other contingents have left Lebanon, Italcon 2 is also recalled. This marks the end of a mission which has cost Italy one victim and about seventy wounded, though the toll might have been heavier if the Italian intervention had unconditionally followed the American one both politically and operatively. Six months later, Italy is again part of another multinational force. In August, a series of anti-ship mines explode in the Suez Canal and i

n the Red Sea, driving the Egyptian government to ask for help for an operation of monitoring and mine-removal. Once again, the operation is conducted by a multinational force on the basis of bilateral agreements. The Italian government sends the minesweepers Castagno, Frassino and Loto, and the landing ship tender Cavezzale.

The political debate has in turns highlighted the various elements of all these operations in the Mediterranean area, but it seems to us that it has neglected one. All military missions abroad have had an inestimable value from the operative point of view for external use. One thing is operating at home, with a knowledge of the climate, the language, the places and with depots nearby. Another things is a several month-long cruise to the other side of the world, or maintaining and using over 2,000 men for 18 months over 2,000 kilometres from Italy. One thing is conducting exercises in a climate of peace which is artificially modified during the exercises, and another thing is an operative use in a country where the war is real. All these missions have enabled to acquire fundamental know-how and capacities, to test the means and cohesion of the units, to optimize the logistic support and parts of the doctrine of use, to experiment command and control communications systems, etc. From the operative point of vie

w, six years of experiment on the field have enabled to acquire and improve most of what is necessary for any effective military intervention in the Mediterranean region. Even the weak aspects of an external intervention, both on the military and political level, have been highlighted and at least partly solved. Among the weak political aspects there is the consolidated praxis of failing to submit the international treaties that characterize the missions abroad to the prior approval of Parliament. As far as the military missions abroad are concerned, in Italy we now have a much lesser parliamentary control than that of the United States, where, according to a special law (33), after two months of war outside the national boundaries Congress must decide on the continuation of hostilities, and a negative vote on the part of Congress automatically ends the military commitment. Among the political problems that have been only partly solved, there is that of the draftees' lesser willingness compared to profession

al soldiers to carry out external operation advocated by the government but not by civil society. Throughout the Lebanese mission, the authorities provided a first by switching from voluntary transfer to transfer on command (34). This is another praxis that has been consolidated with the mission in the Red Sea. As regards the political nature of the missions outside the Nato area, it should be underlined that while they have kept within the limits of peacekeeping, it is also true that the most significant operation, the Lebanese one, not only run the risk of becoming something else, but also brought about results and consequent operative plannings that go far beyond.

The core of the post-Lebanon debate lies in the concrete question of the Navy air force, which covers a more fundamental question relative to the weight and nature of the intervention South of the Nato area. As usual, it is the Navy which expresses offensive force projection in the most resolute and coherent way. Asked by a newspaper about the lesson to be drawn from the Lebanese experience, the Chief of Staff of the Navy Vittorio Marulli explains the lesson which the Navy has drawn from the experience of the...Falkland-Malvinas (35). That conflict, Marulli explains, highlighted "the role carried out by an ensemble of carrier-based aircraft on limited tonnage all-deck ships, readily available and directly usable by the naval commander". "The support of an aeronaval means in front of Beirut" - Marulli continues - "would certainly have guarantied a far greater credibility and security than the ones obtained with the sole carrier-based guns". This is a combination of facts devoid of any logic or historical basi

s, since the problem lies elsewhere: the Navy wants its aircraft on its carriers, at the orders of the naval commander. The carrier, with the new landing units that are already being produced, and the San Marco batallion reinforced by professional soldiers will enable "prolonged operations at a great distance from the national bases". With these "tangible presences...far beyond the narrow boundaries", the Italian Navy sets itself the far from modest goal of "containing the Soviet penetration into North Africa and in the near Middle East" (36).

The opinion of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Basilio Cottone, is extremely different. Cottone believes that the decision not to redeploy the groups of fighter-bombers in Cyprus was a wise one, and criticizes the political meaning of the choice of a carrier (37). One thing is carrying out peacekeeping tasks as done by the Italians in Lebanon, argues Cottone, and another thing is equipping oneself with "a rapid deployment force capable of expressing an offensive function...rather than a conciliating and convincing one". According to Cottone, the most consistent threat is still the aeroterrestrial threat in the North-East, whereas the aircraft of the Air Force deployed in the metropolitan bases are sufficient for the use of aircraft in the Mediterranean. Cottone opposes the outer-area missions advocated by the Navy in the name of "the military policy of the Atlantic Alliance and of its objectives, which are defensive" (38). The Chief of Staff of the Army Umberto Capuzzo is also skeptical regarding the hy

pothesis of setting up an actual rapid deployment force, which would require "such and so many means that would be extremely difficult to set up in the current difficult budgetary situation of the armed forces" (39).

Putting some order into this tangle of divergences of military doctrine, which is accompanied by a climate of strife between the Navy and the Air Force on the control of the aircraft operating on the sea and among the three armed forces on the budget resources, becomes imperative for the Defence.

3. The Defense "White Paper"

The result of a month-long work, with the cooperation, for the first time, of a group of external civilian scholars, the "White Paper" (Wp henceforth) of the Defense of 1986 (40) meant to solve the doctrinal divergences between the armed forces and define a single strategic prospect for the military means. The aim, explain Spadolini in the introduction, is a "defense blueprint coherent in the objectives, in devising the forces, in determining the administrative and command structures, in national integration, and obviously reflecting the formation and organization of the Defense's budget". The Wp's greatest merit is that of analysing the Italian security policy on the basis of the definition of the threats, which is the subject of an entire chapter. Only after identifying the threats can the means and operative doctrines that represent the military part of a security policy (which includes equally important economic, political and diplomatic parts) be defined. For the first time in an official publication of

the Defense, the source of the threat is identified not only in the other block, but also in the countries of the Third World: "The increase of the state of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union - the Wp explains - as well as the changing complexity of the Southern area, have led to a parallel increase of the "threat", diversified in terms of forms and means". Thus, along with the traditional direct military threat represented by a possible invasion in the North-East of the Warsaw Pact, the Wp identifies another threat, indirect and non-military, in the Mediterranean area. New threats are represented by certain countries of the Third World as well as by the Soviet air and naval forces.

Little attention is devoted by the Wp to the threat from North-East and to the European central theatre. The Wp outlines a history of the Atlantic Alliance, which was established from the very beginning in order to avoid a nuclear rearmament and which is devoid of any offensive character. A superficial and questionable analysis, which often becomes a profession of faith, for example when it proclaims that "at the end of four decades of Atlantic Alliance, the public opinion's belief that the Atlantic Alliance has a purely defensive character is consolidated and inflexible, and so is the belief that the legitimacy of its programs is absolute, and that its commitment to arms control at the lowest possible level as a premise of a general and controlled disarmament, is proven". In the other European Nato countries, the analysis of the armed forces' new American military doctrines (Air Land Battle, Deep Strike, Air Force 2000) has led several military scholars and political leaders to criticize Nato commander Bern

ard Roger's doctrine of "Follow on Forces Attack" as offensive (41). Rogers himself intervened in this debate, thus considering it well-grounded (42). The Wp neglects the entire question, masking the lack of its own contribution to Nato elaborations with indefectible ideological beliefs. The Rogers doctrine is thus criticized because it supposedly costs too much in new technologies, because it might not be effective against the latest Soviet operative doctrines, and because it supposedly increases the technological superiority of the United States over Europe. However, the criticism outlines a weak resistance, because it does not reach the core of the problem: the markedly offensive character of the Follow on Force Attack, which id based on the immediate projection of the conflict hundreds of kilometres inside the enemy territory. Thus, Italy also participates in the research on new technologies in the context of a complete subordination to the American strategies. Moreover, no Italian security official ever

thinks of using the new technologies for a defensive strategy. On the contrary, as of 1984, the statements of Minister Spadolini and of some of his advisers in favour of force projection in the North-East increase (43). It is legitimate to doubt also of Nato's "proven" commitment for arms control at the lowest level. In explaining that dissuasion is based on the balance of forces, the Wp says that the latter, "in order to be effective, must be achieved at all levels and on all categories of armaments". It is a conception which, since it does not calculate the points of force of its military structure, aims to achieve equality on the adversary's points of force; this conception paves the way to rearmament at the highest levels in all categories of armaments. This same philosophy seems to justify Italy's choice to install the seven groups of nuclear Cruise missiles by 1987, for a total of 112 missiles, in Comiso. This choice is presented as a compulsory one, the only possible one after the deployment of the S

oviet SS-20s as of 1977. The government's the Defense's good will toward nuclear arms control and negotiations is supposedly "proven" by the usual dissolving clause. This is nonexistant, as well as any government and parliamentary control on the nuclear arms installed in Italy. As to their size, the Wp says nothing, as if the only nuclear weapons in Italy were Cruise missiles. Regarding their use, the Wp says that "the use of nuclear weapons is regulated, within the Atlantic Alliance, by long-established consultation procedures that guarantee the complete participation of the member States and attribute particular importance to those Allies on whose territory the weapons are deployed". This scarce information and these peremptory statements reveal the degree of "nuclear unawareness" of most of the leaders of the Italian military policy.

The nuclear weaspons present in Italy are far more than the Cruise missiles deployed in Comiso. According to an American analyst, William A. Arkin, in Italy there are about 550 nuclear warheads, excluding the carrier-based ones on the 6th American fleet (44): 32 are the already operative Cruise missiles (of a total of the planned 112) in Comiso; 250 are the carrier-based bombs on Italian and American aircraft; 50 are the warheads for the Lance missiles of the Italian army; 70 the ones for the Nike-Hercules missiles of the Italian Air Force; 22 atomic mines under the direct control of the U.S. Army; 40 203mm nuclear shells for the American artillery; 65 nuclear depth bombs for both American and Italian aircraft and helicopters; 50 nuclear warheads for the anti-submarine missiles of the American army.

The procedures of consultation on the use of nuclear weapons, which supposedly enable Italy to have a "special weight" on their use, are covered by secret. Given that Spadolini has not notified the adoption of new procedures, when he talks about "long-established procedures", it is legitimate to refer to what has emerged on the subject in the recent past. During the Lagorio management of Defense, there had been many discussions on the question of the "dual key", one for America and the other for the hosting country, necessary to launch a nuclear missile. However, the definition of "dual key" is both reassuring, because it reminds of ascertained and experimented cross control mechanisms, and misleading, in that it no longer corresponds to the reality of the everyday life it evokes. A door with two locks needs two keys to be opened. This is how the nuclear dual key worked in the past. During the '60s and '70s, the allies on whose territory there were nuclear arms detained the delivery system, while the nuclear

warheads were administered and controlled by the American military. For example, in order to launch one of the two Jupiter nuclear missiles installed between 1959 and 1962 in Apulia, it took the missiles (bought by the Americans and under Italian control) and the warheads (owned and managed by the Americans). If the Italian military had not supplied the delivery systems, it would have been impossible to launch the nuclear missiles.

However, today the situation has changed, since half the nuclear weapons present in Italy, including the new Cruise missiles, are all (delivery systems and warheads) owned by the American armed forces. The nonexistence of the technical dual key is confirmed by a statement of the special committee on nuclear weapons of the Atlantic Council in October 1983; "In spite of the fact that Lagorio and Heseltine think that the scattering of ground-launched Cruise missiles in times of crisis involves a mechanism of control that could be used by the deploying country, according to the Committee there is no technical reason preventing the launch of a Cruise missile from any base" (45). In order to control the use of nuclear arms with American delivery systems, Italy can count only on a process of consultation with the American allies, which, "provided there are suitable circumstances and sufficient time" would consider our government's position (46). In case of diverging decisions between the European and the U.S. gover

nment, the Europeans' only guarantee would lie in the use of force to enforce the national will.

The question of tactical (or battlefield) nuclear weapons is equally underestimated. Lance and Nike-Hercules missiles, atomic mines and shells are believed by many to be the most dangerous ones, because being deployed near the border, they could be used in the initial stages of the conflict to avert the risk of losing them. With respect to this, the Wp simply states that, near borders, Nato provides for the "preferential use of conventional weapons".

In the total lack of convincing technical explanations, we can only rely on the words of Giovanni Spadolini, which places us all in the uncomfortable position of Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar, who states, regarding Brutus: "Brutus has given his word. And Brutus is a man of honour". Spadolini's word is not always resolute or reassuring. When the Communist Party asked in Autumn 1984 to know whether submarines fitted with sea-launched cruise missiles were stationed in the base of La Maddalena, Spadolini declared before the Chamber that "the contents of the present agreement would not allow any submarines equipped with sea-launched cruise missiles to be stationed in that base" (47). Just like the present agreement supposedly "would not allow for" the presence of nuclear weapons in La Maddalena, the consultation procedures with Italy "would not allow for" the launching of nuclear weapons from our territory against our will.

The Wp gives ample space instead to the new threat from the South, which becomes the chief threat. The Wp not only underlines "the substantial shifting of the barycentre of the crises that involve Europe toward South, but especially towards the Mediterranean", and states that "the proportions and the weight of power between regional and subregional areas (Mediterranean/Persian Gulf/Africa) have also changed". The new threat from the South is of a different kind of the direct and military one from North-East. It is both direct (Soviet air and naval force) and indirect (economic and political controversies with unstable countries of the Third World). It is so vast that it modifies the entire Italian military perspective: the question for Italy is no longer that of defending the Southern "side" of Nato, but especially of being the outpost of "'Nato's Southern front'". The entire part of the Wp devoted to the international situation has the purpose of legitimating this new Italian role in the Mediterranean area.

In the period following World War II, according to the Wp there has been a process of "diffusion of power" which has deprived the former industrial powers of the monopoly of the use of force and has placed them in a condition of diminished superiority with respect to the countries of the Third World. Well-armed new actors (newly independent States and new alliances based on race, religion and territory) and semiactors (national liberation movements such as the Plo, Swapo and the Afghan resistance) have emerged in the Third World, capable of affecting the international situation. The use of force on the part of the industrial countries, which remains decisive according to the Wp, has not always proven effective in controlling the crises. In particular, it is the two superpowers that are forced "to reduce their capacity to control international crises". For them, "an effective and virtual military intervention" has become "increasingly expensive and unproductive, as proven by Vietnam and Afghanistan". The dyn

amics of the military alliances based on the two superpowers also reveal the same weakness in crisis management and, furthermore, their intervention can cause a degeneration of local conflicts into a general and even a nuclear conflict between East and West. This hints that this context could give rise to greater space for a military role of the medium powers, even outside of the alliance they are part of. A military role which is far from symbolic, since, according to the Wp, unlike in the past, the "virtual" use of force today does not intimidate just the small countries of the Third World. This analysis seems to theorize a British intervention in the Falklands-Malvines, which the Wp accurately avoids to mention. Thus, this odd analysis based on a single proof should guarantee that the medium powers, including Italy, would be in the condition to do, on a more or less regional level, what powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union have not managed to do on a global scale.

For Italy, the area of regional operative commitment is the Mediterranean. However, as we saw and as confirmed by the Wp, it is an "ensemble" formed by various areas, "from the Middle East one to the Nato one, from Northern Africa to the Balkans". In the Mediterranean area, the threats to Italy are numerous, and only partly concern the hypothesis of a conflict between blocks. In the traditional war scenario between blocks, the Nato forces of the Mediterranean are entrusted with the main task of keeping the maritime routes open for the arrival of sea-transported reinforcements in Southern Europe. Such reinforcements would sustain the main front, that of Central Europe.

The Wp couples this scenario with another one, according to which "The politico-military penetration of the Soviet Union in the Mediterranean", more or less combined with the "actions of certain local actors" supposedly has the objective of strangling Italy and Nato as a whole in terms of energy supplies and economy. Thus, the maritime areas for whose exploitation there are controversies, and the entire Italian economy, are threatened from the South through possible embargos on strategic material and "destabilizing actions in areas of strategic interest" (i.e. the Persian Gulf) as well as the islands which could be the theatre of sea attacks "of limited size but of high politico-strategic relevance". Lastly, the only real new element compared to the what the Navy has been saying for ten years, is the threat "against Italian citizens and companies abroad". Even though the Wp does not mention them, it is not hard to identify the Defense's new enemies: first and foremost Libya, but also Syria and occasionally A

lgeria (to remain in the Mediterranean sea). The fact that many of these threats have little or nothing to do with Nato's greater defensive capacity in the Mediterranean is evident. But with the Wp it is an official doctrine that it is necessary to guarantee not only "the integrity of the national territory, the inviolability of the boundaries, the defense of air spaces", but also Italy's economic "vital interests".

In order to effectively confront both the threat from North-East and the one from the South, the Wp envisages the reorganization of military planning for "interforce operative missions". Thus, to fulfil the twofold task of national and international security, the Wp defines as many as five interforce missions: the first to defend the North-East; the second to defend the South and the communications lines; the third to defend the air space; the fourth for the operative defense of the territory; the fifth being an "action of peace, security and civil protection".

It is hard to understand the reasons for these five missions when two single threats emerge from the entire context. Probably, both the corporative resistances of the armed force as well as, perhaps, Spadolini's desire to dilute the actual weight of the new commitment in the South into several missions (so as not to alarm Parliament) play a role in the proliferation of the missions. It is doubtless that the missions are numerous and will cost a lot of money, especially because Italy's role will not be limited to the Mediterranean and because, in the Mediterranean, the Wp underestimates the contribution of the other allied countries. It is true that one of the linchpins of the Italians security policy consists in the "European choice" (the others being the Constitution, Nato and Italy's "Mediterranean peculiarity"). However, the presence in the Mediterranean of Spanish, French, Greek and Turkish naval forces, as well as the contribution which other European allies could provide in situations of crisis, is alm

ost completely ignored. Spadolini's pro-Europe declarations find no application in the actual operative planning, and are used as a means to cover the Navy's nationalist ambitions.

For its tasks in the Mediterranean and in the Mediterranean area, the Navy will be equipped with "two carrier battle groups", revolving one to the East and the other to the West of the Channel of Sicily. They are the former carrier "utilization groups", which have not explicitly become aeronaval, i.e. they formed each by various units around a carrier. With two carriers guiding the two carrier battle groups, and with the enhancement of the attack units, the Italy's naval contribution will hardly improve in a scenario of war between blocks. One thing that will surely improve is the capacity of force projection in conflicts such as that of the Falklands or of the Gulf of Sidra. It should be remarked that the controversies that have arisen among the political forces on the constitutionality of the carrier, as the ones arisen between the Navy and the Air Force on the monopoly of the fixed-wing aircraft, have been solved, at least on the governmental level. A draft bill introduced by the government in August 1985

(48) establishes that the Navy can embark its own planes to defend its carrier. Among the possible solutions to the problem of Navy's air force, the one suggested by the governments seems to be the worst, too afraid of touching the Air Force's monopoly on fixed-wing aircraft and at the same too indulgent toward the Navy's ambitions to a regional "status" and power. It is a solution which is more respectful of the corporative interests of the two armed forces than of the actual military functionality (49).

The Air Force will also play a role in this new offensive force projection towards South. With the acquisition of the new Tornado aircraft, and the extension of their range of action through in-flight refueling, the wing of Tornados of Gioia del Colle (Ba) will be able to cover most of the vast Mediterranean region. For the Army too, force projection towards South involved significant changes: first of all the constitution of a Rapid Deployment Force on the model of the American Rdf and of the French Far ("Force d'action rapide"). Lagorio's Fopi project is completely changed. On the rapid deployment force, the Wp explains, "the relative studies...had initially supported a "bivalent" mobile force capable of meeting the above mentioned operative requirements and of contributing to the interventions of civil protection in case of public calamities (earthquakes, floods, etc.). Subsequently, also following the experience of the Italian contingent in Lebanon, it became clear that the aims were too different to pur

sue with the same means. As a consequence, two mobile rapid deployment forces were planned. The first one was basically destined to civil protection, the second one institutionally destined to carry out tasks of mobile defense of the national territory and if necessary of international security". But only one of these forces was later developed, because the organizational situation and operative promptness of the Fopi are being analysed in order to establish "the convenience of a command for the single requirement". There remains the Fir, with purely military, albeit twofold functions: to quickly fill in the gaps in the defense of the territory and for actions of international security. The twofold military function is nothing but a momentary coverage; as usual, the justification of the means for purposes of territorial defense is used simply to legitimate a questionable use of external projection (50).

"Particularly in the Mediterranean area", the Wp explains, "the use of rapid deployment military forces for the prevention and the control of conflicts" is provided for. Apart from the functions of armistice peacekeeping", the Fir should carry out actions "to guarantee human rights" and "to protect and evacuate Italian citizens abroad who are seriously and directly threatened". According to the Wp, these functions are strictly part of "the criteria laid down by the United Nations Charter". But they are functions that go beyond simple peacekeeping. The use of the initials of the United Nations to legitimate unilateral interventions of the Fir is incorrect. The United Nations has never created forces for the prevention of conflicts, nor does it need rapid deployment forces. Lastly, Spadolini himself explains that the UN's opinion is not binding for the Defense's missions abroad. "Recurring difficulties of the UN and of the superpowers themselves to control individual crises can place a Mediterranean state such

as Italy in the condition to assume precise responsibilities to prevent conflicts" (51).

With regard to the doctrinal passage of the Fopi to the Fir, it should be underlined that an initially veiled, but increasingly explicit, opposition of the military leaders to the commitment in civil protection has corresponded to the misuse of the funds of chapter 4071 for military purposes, as shown in the chapter on military expenses. In December 1985, the Fir held its first exercise. Anyone harbouring hopes that its chief task would have been a task of national defense was mistaken. In drawing the outcome of the exercise, the new Chief of staff of the Army, Luigi Poli, identified the main shortcoming in the lack of an adequate strategic transportation (52). G-222 and C-130 transport aircraft are fine to move rapidly within the national boundaries, but they are insufficient for the Mediterranean area. To intervene in the Middle East and in North Africa it takes bigger planes, with a greater autonomy. It's no coincidence that even the French military complain about the lack of strategic transportation airc

raft for the Far's intervention in Central Africa (53). The Fir's command is the first interforce Italian command, but the Wp's philosophy of interforce integration provides for the creation of similar commands for each of the five missions. Of this interforce integration it should be underlined that it is only secondarily motivated by the need to reduce the wastes due to the duplication of structures. Far more important is the greater effectiveness in fighting which the interforce integration and the creation of specialized commands has brought into modern armies. As the Wp recalls, Nato commands and interforce, and only one commander directs the use of aircraft, ships and tanks in a given theatre. Specialization according to theatres or missions is also one of the linchpins of the American military structure. In the United States, the chiefs of staff are particularly careful with the acquisition of the means and the general training of personnel. The specialized commands instead plan and direct the operati

ons in the single regional areas. For example, for the Gulf region, the central command. For star wars the weapons systems are not yet ready, but in the United States a Space Command has been set up for that war theatre. Moreover, the most recent operative doctrines for military operations give more and more importance to the synergetic force of the management on the part of a single theatre command of the means of the various armed forces. The Air Land Battle (aeroterrestrial battle) stresses the effectiveness of the integrated use of forces on the part of the land commander who makes full use of all air means to develop the energy of the land offensive.

In Italy, however, the corporative resistance of each armed force is a powerful factor that hinders a functional reorganization on the American model. To dodge these forms of resistance, the Wp provides for a draft bill to reorganize the supreme Defense leadership through a twofold centralization - operative and technical. It is a proposal that confers a clear preeminence to the Defense Chief of Staff of the armed force and to the future mission commanders. This centralization is coupled with a similar enhancement of the role of the Secretary-General of Defense as regards the choice of the new weapons systems. In August 1985, the government introduced its draft bill on the reorganization of the leadership of the Defense (54).

4. The terrorist threat

Throughout the eighties and particularly in recent times, Europe has become the theatre and the target of a growing number of terrorist actions of "Arab" origin. We will briefly mention the main ones.

In 1984 a policewoman is killed by rifle bullets fired from the Libyan embassy in London. The episode is linked to the intention of Gaddafi's regime to physically eliminate any dissidents and to the intention of the British government to safeguard Gaddafi's exiled opposers. In 1984 there is the already mentioned operation of mining of the Red Sea, which, in addition to the possibility of creating energy problems to Europe, is first of all a direct threat to Egypt, whose income depends by one third from the fees for the transit of the Suez Canal. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Egyptian government supported Iraq. Responsibility for the action was assumed by the Islamic "Jihad" organization, while Radio Teheran maintained that the mining was "a blow against arrogant powers".

In June 1985, a group of Shiite terrorists hijacks Twa flight 847 to Beirut, killing an American soldier and seizing 39 passengers. In exchange for the release of the hostages, the terrorists request the release of 700 Shiite guerrillas captured by the Israelis during the invasion of Lebanon. After seventeen days of secret negotiations, the exchange takes place and the hostages are released. The negotiations are carried out with the mediation of the Amal militia, the most moderate of the Shiite organizations. Suspicions on the masterminds of the hijacking converge on the Islamic fundamentalists, i.e. on the more radical Shiite militias such as the Islamic Holy War, Party of God, Islamic Amal; these militia are directly connected or financed by Iran and Syria.

In early October 1985, in reply to the killing of three Israelis in Larnaka (Cyprus), the Israeli air force bombs the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Tunis. Among the circa seventy victims, twelve are Tunisian citizens. On 7 October 1985, four Palestinian terrorists seize the Italian cruiser Achille Lauro and its 400 passengers. During five days, the ship cruises the Eastern Mediterranean without finding neither an authorization to call nor a reply to the request to release 50 Palestinian prisoners detained in the prisons of Israel. During these five days, the terrorists kill passenger Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jew, but keep the fact secret. Thanks to the mediation of the PLO and of the Egyptian and Italian governments, the hijackers accept to end the action in exchange for freedom. The ship is conducted to Cairo. On 11 October, American aircraft of the 6th fleet intercept an Egyptian Boeing 737 with on board the hijackers and Abu Abbas, the member of the Plo's executive

committee who had carried out the mediation, and force it to land at the Sicilian airport of Sigonella. The intention of the U.S. government, which has ordered the 6th Sea Air Land Team of its Navy to reach Sigonella, is to embark all passengers on another plane and take them to the United States. According to the U.S. government, Abul Abbas is the real mastermind of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, and more than just a mediator for the PLO. The evidence which is hurriedly provided by the Reagan Administration on Abbas do not convince the Italian government, which deems the extradition "manu militari" of the hijackers unacceptable. In Sigonella, in a circumstance that stops short of an armed conflict, Italian Carabinieri and members of the air force enforce the will of our government to the U.S. special units: the hijackers are imprisoned in a Sicilian prison, and Abul Abbas is transferred first to Rome and then to Yugoslavia.

In early December, Egypt Air flight 648 with about one hundred passengers on board, is hijacked on Malta. The hijackers' only request is for fuel, which the Maltese government refuses. The terrorists threaten to kill a passenger every ten minutes if their requests are not satisfied. Two women, one from Israel and another one from the U.S., are assassinated. An intervention of the Egyptian special troops releases 40 passengers, while the remaining 57 are killed both by the terrorists and by the Egyptian militiamen. The chief suspect for the hijacking is the group of Abu Nidal, a Palestinian sentenced to death by the PLO, head of the Al Fatah organization, a revolutionary command that rejects any hypothesis of solution of the Middle East issue based on the recognition of the Jewish State. Abu Nidal is also suspected of being the mastermind of the terrorists attacks of 27 December at the El Al desk at the airports of Rome and Vienna, whereby 15 were killed and dozens were wounded. The Reagan Administration reac

ts progressively to this terrorist escalation, whose preferential targets are Israeli and U.S. citizens. After the hijacking of the Twa plane in Beirut, the American Administration proposes to the allies a series of economic sanctions against Lebanon, such as the cancellation of flights to Beirut and a naval block. After the attacks in Rome and Vienna, the attention of the United States concentrates particularly on Libya. Washington asks the allies to follow it on the path of economic sanctions such as commercial embargo and withdrawal of technicians; the American government enforces these measures despite the Europeans' negative response. Libyan commercial and financial activities in the United States are also frozen.

Soon, however, the American economic and diplomatic initiatives give way to the military ones. In 1986, at the end of March, the 6th fleets starts exercises in the Gulf of Sidra. The Libyan government had long since declared that the Gulf of Sidra was part of its territory - a measure which is not acknowledged by the international maritime law but which is practised even by Italy regarding the Gulf of Taranto. Gaddafi had accompanied these measures with warmongering statements, calling the maritime boundary of Sidra a "death line", beyond which foreign ships would have become military objectives. The Americans respond to the first missiles launched by Libya against the planes of the 6th fleet by bombing the missile base. Two Libyan missile-launching vedettes that attempt to approach the U.S. ships are sunk by the planes. It is operation "Prairie Fire", with which the U.S. inaugurates its new strategy to combat terrorism militarily.

The terrorist reaction comes in the first days of April. A bomb explodes on a Twa plane with destination Athens, causing four victims. Responsibility for the attack is taken by an unknown Palestinian organization. Another bomb explodes in a night-club in Beirut packed with American military, causing two victims (an American soldier and a Turkish woman). Dozens are wounded. On 15 April, on the basis of alleged evidence on Libya's responsibility in the attacks (which are never shown to the press) the American retaliation is launched - operation El Dorado Canyon. 18 F-111 bombers, departed from their bases in England, and 14 A-6 bombers, departed from the Coral Sea and American carriers, bomb barracks and airports near Tripoli and Bengasi. Among the targets are the barracks of Bab el Aziza, Gaddafi's headquarters, whom Reagan had labeled a "mad dog". The Libyan leader escaped the bombing, but one of his daughters was among the 37 victims declared by the Lybian government. An American F-111 bomber was gunned, an

d the two pilots perished. A few hours after the raid, two Lybian missiles (Scuds or Otomats) (55) exploded two hundred metres from the island of Lampedusa, where there is a Loran-type radar base (Long Range) used by the U.S. Navy for the operation.

The emergence of the terrorist threat, and the American administration's decision to undertake a fundamentally military solution against terrorism raise a series of extremely important issues: what is the nature of this threat, and which is the most effective way to confront it.

The Arab-Islamic terrorism is an unquestionable reality. However, a consistent part of the public opinion, especially the leftist one, tends to see it as a spontaneous phenomenon, originated from the Palestinians' despair against a much stronger adversary, in military terms, such as Israel, which is furthermore supported by the American superpower. This analysis is only partly true. First of all, there is not only the "Palestinian" terrorism, but also the Shiite religious one, connected to an explicit reality and will to export the Islamic fundamentalist revolution of Iran. Secondly, various Arab countries have always tried to influence the Palestinian movement, organizing and financing Palestinian organizations closer to their own foreign policy strategy or directly under their control.

As Yasser Arafat's PLO progressively begins to accept, with many fluctuations, the hypothesis of a political solution to the Palestinian problem (recognition on the part of Israel of the Palestinians' right to their own State in exchange for the right to exist of the Jewish State), the dependence of the Palestinian organizations that refuse the political solution from the Arab states that support the same positions has increased. Syria and Libya are the states that most support the Palestinian organizations that refuse negotiations, while Egypt and Jordan are more involved in a solution mediated by the PLO.

The targets of this front become not only Americans and Israelis, but the PLO itself, Egypt, Jordan, as well as the European countries that support a political solution. Terrorist groups such as that of Abu Nidal are explicitly supported economically and logistically both by Syria and by Libya, except that Syria operates more discreetly. Gaddafi instead publicly proclaims Libya's support to all Palestinian organizations that refuse the mediation. An "Anti-imperialist" meeting held in Tripoli in mid-March 1985 is attended by the American Indians, the Moros separatists of the Philippines, exponents of the military wing of the Basque Eta and the group of Abu Nidal (56). Gaddafi's support is more than just lip-service. Some of the terrorists who have carried out attacks in the airports of Rome and Vienna traveled with Tunisian passports, which the Libyan government had taken from their legitimate owners expelled from Libya.

The fact that the Arab-Islamic terrorism is "also" a military means of certain governments does not imply that the best way to confront it is more or less "surgical" military interventions. The American military intervention has not managed to eliminate the "mad dog" Gaddafi, as it intended to. Nor has it weakened him. Libya has supported Gaddafi even more, and so have the Arab countries, even the more moderate ones. Among other things, it cannot be ruled out that the American raid might lead Gaddafi to provide the Soviet Union with those naval and air bases which it lacks in the Mediterranean. At any rate, tension in the Mediterranean has already increased, has become permanent and has directly involved Italy. The United States' relations with the European allies and the moderate Arab countries have degenerated. Ultimately, the prospect of a political solution to the Middle East conflict has become remote, while the prospect of new conflicts in the Mediterranean has become more likely. On the political scal

e, failure on the part of the U.S. and of the European countries to take advantage of Arafat's availability in past years has weakened his leadership and contributed to the Plo's turnabout in Spring 1985, with the dissolution of the Jordan-Plo covenant and the removal of a feasible prospect of political solution. On the military scale, while it is true that the U.S. action has forced Europe to take a series of diplomatic and economic measures against Libya (which should long since have been adopted), it is equally true that a dangerous and unrealistic tendency to follow the Reagan administration on the path of a non-declared war against Libya has emerged.

Giovanni Spadolini's declarations in favour of a preventive war (57) have been coupled by requests for a fast enhancement of the offensive means, such as the Fir and the carrier-based aircraft, these also being linked to a prospect of preventive use (58). The terrorist threat is thus transformed into a war among states which is liable to trigger ever-dangerous conflicts among blocks.

The terrorist threat could instead be handled through other means, especially non-military ones. An enhanced control on the Libyan activity in Italy would increase the capacity to prevent the attacks. Economic and diplomatic sanctions in a climate of military detente would contribute to revising Libya's policy with regard to terrorism or to a change of regime; relaunching the diplomatic action for a political solution to the Middle East conflict would take away space from the "Palestinian" terrorism. Lastly, on the military scale, the non-offensive defense means could be potentiated, also improving the capacity of early warning of military attacks from North Africa and coastal defense.

5. Security as defensive superiority

In the previous paragraphs we have seen how much Italy's military role has changed. We have seen a passage from a position of fundamental marginality of the military commitment to substantial military expenses, significant military interventions, ambitious operative planning and a decisive role in nuclear rearmament choices. We have also seen how the projection of the military means in the vast Mediterranean region has constantly grown, albeit motivated in the most different ways. With the Wp, the Defense has summarized the past experience and has defined a security policy for the future. We deem it fair to pose some questions. Which are the costs of the security policy proposed by the Wp? Is it an security policy with respect to the effective military threats to Italy? Is it a policy that increases national, regional and international security?

Let's take a look at some of the costs of force projection outlined by the Defense. The Wp provides for the construction of two carriers and relative aircraft. The quasi-final cost of the Garibaldi cruiser amounts to 700 billion (59). The global costs for the purchase and embarkment of 14 short take-off Harrier planes for the Garibaldi cruiser alone have been reckoned by Guido Zara to amount to over 1,000 billion (60). Therefore, in order to have two carriers with relative aircraft, it would take at least 2,700 billion. The problem with the carrier is that, by developing ever-precise and "intelligent" missiles, they need a huge number of means to defend themselves. For example, the fighting wing of the American fleet consists of three carriers, with about two hundred planes of five different types, over twenty spare warships and twenty auxiliary units. According to Edward N. Luttwack, an American analyst who works as adviser to the Pentagon, an aeronaval task force "with good chances to survive" in the Medit

erranean would cost Italy between 4 and 12,000 billion, excluding the planes (16). According to the former General Luigi Caligaris, the cost to set up the rapid deployment forces would amount to 2,500 billion (62). Even if these are simple estimates, we have already reached figures that exceed the entire Defense budget of a year, which greatly exceed the 3,000 billion of the three promotional laws of 1975-76 and the 1,000 billion of the last special law for AM-X, EH-101 and Catrin. Moreover, these estimates are underestimations, in our opinion. For example, how much would the new strategic transport aircraft that are necessary for the Fir cost? And how much would it cost to maintain the thousands of volunteers who are fundamental for external interventions shunned by the civil society? (63)?

Bearing all these expenses would be necessary in any case, if they guaranteed the country a better security with respect to the actual military threats.

Let's analyse the characteristics of the two threats to the security of Italy; the one from North-East and the one from the South, bu using the data of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Iiss) of London and of other scholars on the military forces involved (64).

In the scenario of an invasion of Europe on the part of the troops of the Warsaw Pact, it is generally assumed that the forces of the Pact deployed in Hungary as well as Russian forces of the military district of Kiev would tackle the Italian front. The Hungarian army disposes of class 2 armoured division (with personnel nearing 50 per cent of total) as well as five motor rifle divisions of which two in category 3 and three in category 3 (equipped only with the personnel necessary for inquadramento). These divisions dispose of 1,200 tanks of the fifties (T-54 and T-55) and of 30 modern T-72s. The Hungarian air force disposes of about 150 interceptors (120 Mig-21s and 25 Mig-23s). Two armoured divisions and two Soviet motor rifle divisions are also deployed in Hungary, both belonging to category 2 (with complete personnel). In Hungary the Soviet Union also disposes of 135 Mig-21s and 60 SU-17 and SU-24 ground attack aircraft. Moreover, six more armoured divisions (cat. 2), four motor rifle divisions (cat. 3)

and one artillery division could be shifted from the military district of Kiev and used for the offensive. In any case, in order to deploy the forces of categories 2 and 3, the Warsaw Pact would need to resort to a mobilization which would not be ignored, and would enable Nato to take similar measures. Before reaching Italy, these forces would have to pass through Austria and/or Yugoslavia, confronting the resistance of the two countries. For the forces that managed to overcome the defenses of Austria and Yugoslavia, the only route to penetrate Italy would be the 60 kilometres of the Gorizia threshold.

In any case, five alpine brigades would take care of defending the Alps. The Gorizia threshold would be protected by 13 armoured, mechanized and alpine brigades, the missile brigade and the other anti-aircraft units of the Army. In total, 130,000 men. These men would dispose of consistent armoured forces: apart from the old M-47s, 920 Leopard tanks and 300 M-60A1s. Among the 1,110 artillery pieces there are 150 modern FH-70s and 268 M-109s and M-110s. 60 new A-129 anti-tank helicopters are about to be delivered, together with a few thousand Milan anti-tank missiles. The Air Force disposes of about 300 fighters and bombers, including about 100 new Tornados (77 are already operative, the remaining are about to be delivered). Moreover, 187 AM-X ground-attack fighters will be delivered in a few years' time. The force of the Italian defense with respect to this threat is such that a study of the Centre for Superior Defense Studies (Casd) of 1983 hypothesizes to face the attack of the forces of the Warsaw Pact wit

h conventional weapons only, without resorting to tactical nuclear weapons (65). Furthermore, it is likely that the forces of the Warsaw Pact have also considered these elements of force both of Italy and of Austria and Yugoslavia. "It is true" - underlines Maurizio Cremasco, researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Rome - "an analysis of the exercises of the Warsaw Pact from 1970 to 1976 could confirm the hypothesis of a military planning of the Warsaw Pact that excludes the invasion of Italy" (66).

The most realistic assessment of the threat from North-East has contributed to increasing Italy's attention and military commitment in the Southern region. In the scenario of a conflict between blocks in the Mediterranean, the main threat to Italy's security lies in the Soviet aeronaval force. The 5th Soviet Mediterranean Squadron, concentrated chiefly in the Western Mediterranean, is formed by elements of the Black Sea fleet, plus a number of submarines of the Baltic fleet. The 5th fleet is normally formed by circa 45 units, including 10-12 fighting ships, 7-8 attack submarines and 2 submarines with cruise missiles (76). The Soviet Navy's air force disposes, moreover, of modern land-based but long-range bombers, such as the TU-22 Backfire. About a hundred TU-22s and the older TU-16 Badgers are at the disposal of the Black Sea fleet. In the Mediterranean there is also the 6th American fleet, which is normally formed by 30-35 units, including two carriers with over 150 planes, 14 fighting ships, four attack s

ubmarines, an amphibious group (a batallion of marines on three ships), 12 tenders (68). Apart from the 6th American fleet, there is in the Mediterranean the Italian Navy, with three cruisers, four torpedofighters, 16 frigates, eight corvettes, nine submarines, 14 minesweepers, two landing ships and several tenders. As of 1976, France has shifted about half of its fleet into the Mediterranean (Toulon), formed by two carriers, 14 fighting and spare ships, eleven submarines (two nuclear attack ones and nine conventionally propelled ones), five minesweepers and five landing ships. Recently France has been participating in Nato manoeuvres in the Mediterranean. Spain, which entered Nato in 1982, disposes of a consistent fleet: 35 units, including a carrier, 11 fighters, 11 frigates, four corvettes, 12 minesweepers. As of 1985, Spain participates in joint manoeuvres with other Nato countries in the Mediterranean, though it is still not clear how many units are destined to operate on a regular basis in this sea. Li

ke France and Spain, England has also been participating in Nato joint manoeuvres in the Mediterranean. Greece, another Nato country, disposes of 10 submarines, 14 fighters, 7 frigates, 17 minesweepers and about 20 landing units. Turkey, also a member of Nato, disposes of 16 submarines, 12 fighters, 6 frigates, 33 minesweepers and about 60 amphibious units. Even if part of the Greek and Turkish naval forces were involved against the Soviet Black Sea fleet, the two countries' contribution in the Mediterranean would in any case be relevant. In a scenario of war between blocks in the Mediterranean, it would be necessary to consider the contribution which countries such as Libya, Syria, Algeria could give to the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Such contribution would, however, be amply offset by the naval forces of Egypt and Israel. Even if we further the assessment of the air and missile forces present in the Mediterranean, whose detailed description would call for a separate chapter, the picture of the relations of

force in the Mediterranean remains unchanged: in this sea, the superiority of the Nato forces is evident. According to Maurizio Cremasco, "The military equilibrium in the Southern region still appears, in general and in certain specific sectors, in favour of Nato. In the Southern front, a surprise attack (or with a minimum notice) which, while scarsely credible as a hypothesis of beginning of the hostilities in Europe would be technically possible on the Central front, would be impossible...Moreover, without the full control of the Turkish straits and the possibility to use ports and airports along the African coast, Sovmedron itself does not appear capable of sustaining protracted war operations, especially considering the superiority of the Western aeronaval forces" (69). For the Soviet forces, the availability of the support bases on the African coast is uncertain. "Neither Libya nor Syria, and even less Algeria" - Cremasco explains - "could be considered a priori totally pro-Soviet countries (...). The

acceptance of the USSR's positions is subjected to obvious limits. The convergence on the political level is achieved mainly when there is a coincidence of interests and of expectations, and therefore on the basis of the pursuit of national objectives. The bonds established through military aid do not appear, per se, capable of providing certainly on the continuity on the political level...to totally influence the foreign policy choices of the receiving country". Therefore, a realistic hypothesis of defense from military threats in the Mediterranean, planned in cooperation with the allies, would not require to double the Defense's budget, due to construction of new means for force projection.

Obviously, if we change the premises, we reach different conclusions. If the threat to be confronted is extended to include non-military threats; if, instead of the defense in the Mediterranean we think of the projection in the areas of North Africa and the Middle East; if we assume a unrealistic nationalist approach whereby Italy would need to meet these commitments alone, it is inevitable that the economic costs of the military apparatus are destined to soar. And, perhaps, the economic ones would not be the heaviest ones to pay with such a policy. While the current expenses and configuration of the military means seem adequate, on the whole, to guarantee the security of Italy in a European context, we must ask ourselves whether the project defined by the Wp would increase regional and international security.

On the national scale, the resources allocated for the offensive projection of the military power in the Southern region will involve, even in the case of substantial increases of the military allocations, an equivalent subtraction of resources necessary for the maintenance of an adequate defense of the national territory. The mechanism is very simple, and has already been underlined ten years ago by the communist MP Enea Cerquetti: "On the whole, the potentiations achieved in the period between 68 and 74 have not removed the weak spots of the armed forces, already pointed out in the military advertisement itself in the sectors of anti-tank weapons, of anti-aircraft protection, of coastal defense, of ports, of maritime traffic. On the contrary, we will have a highly offensive line of tanks, we have a Military Air Force which is strongly biased towards bombing, and a Military Navy that increasingly enhances its capacity to protect military landing convoys more than other convoys" (70). Even today the Wp denou

nces the obsolescence of the anti-tank defense, the scarce resistance of the radar network against electronic interference, the lack of airborne radar to identify aircraft trying to reach the Italian territory by flying at water's level. Other shortcomings could be added to these, including the lack of a European satellite to monitor the situation in the Mediterranean (only France has one). Old and new defensive shortcomings have not been solved, while new offensive potentialities were being acquired with carriers, landing ships, strategic and nuclear bombing aircraft. However, the draining of resources for defense is more than just economic. The concentration of the attention in the South and on local conflicts diverts also intellectual resources from the threat in the North-East and alienates the Italian debate on security from that of the other European countries.

From the point of view of the degree of regional security, the force projection outlined by the Wp does not seem to us to guarantee a greater stability. If we consider as a region the Mediterranean, including the Middle East and North Africa, most of the area's instability is directly or indirectly caused by the lack of a political solution to the Palestinian problem. The weakening of this political solution and of the forces that back it, which has taken place over the past years, is caused by many factors: the weakness of the forces that advocate this solution in Israel; the weakness of Arafat's PLO, which has nonetheless tried to work toward this solution; the relative interest of many Arab countries in finding a possible and practicable solution to the Palestinian problem; the Reagan Administration's relinquishment of the commitment started by the previous Carter Administration toward a political solution; the hostility of the Soviet Union to a solution which, even if positive, had developed without its

contribution; the scarce European (and Italian) determination in supporting this political solution also at the presence of a new American administration with different views. The weakening of the political solution to the Palestinian solution has corresponded to an ever-increasing but less and less productive use of military power. With operation "Peace in Galilea", Israel thought it could help the Christian-Maronite minority to take power. A Lebanon controlled by the ally Gemayel should have guaranteed Israel's security in the North by repressing the Palestinians. None of this has been obtained.

On the contrary, the old Palestinian threat has added to that of the more or less fundamentalist Shiites with their techniques of suicidal attacks with bombs. Similar results have been obtained by the American and French contingents in Beirut with their use of military force. The Israeli air force's raid on the PLO headquarters in Tunis has been followed by the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the attacks against the El Al offices in Vienna and Rome. Reagan's raid on Libya has been followed by Gaddafi's missile attack on Lampedusa. And there is no rational reason to think that the escalation of military acts and of tension will decrease in the future. In fact, a regional conflict is already dangerously spreading, involving ever-new actors and theatres, dangerously approaching Europe and its nuclear weapons. Similar considerations on regional security can be made regarding the projection of military power in the Mediterranean area to solve economic and energy controversies. The interventions, including the

military ones, that have on the contrary obtained better results in the region have been those based on the self-limitation of force and the ones linked to a prospect of political solution of the conflicts. The Italian contingent's intervention in Beirut has been of this nature, as well as that of the UN contingent in South Lebanon, that of the Mfo in the Red Sea and the demining action in the Suez Canal. These are all actions which are either legitimated by the UN or based on the prior consent of all parts involved (as well as on the preventive relinquishment of the commitment in the absence of the consent of all parts involved).

International security has assumed a totally new meaning with the advent of the nuclear era. The development of the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons has been coupled with a parallel development of the initiatives and disciplines necessary to the control of this unprecedented destructive potential. Attempts have been made to limit the nuclear arsenals of the states that held them, and to prevent new states from acquiring nuclear weapons. While results of some substance have been obtained on the second objective, the levels of nuclear armaments of the five powers that officially posses them have reached levels such as to cause the planet to blow up several times. An absurd condition, that poses a serious threat: the end of the human species. Thus, along with an increasing nuclear awareness, there has been a parallel development of an awareness on the part of all countries and people to reach an equilibrium among nuclear powers as stable as possible, in order to avert the explosion of a nuclear conflict.

It is generally held that the European operative theatre is the one in which it is most probable that a nuclear war could break out. Detente on a European scale has thus become one of the chief objectives of those whom we could generically refer to as pacifists. This situation of relative European stability has recently been questioned. The dangers related to the new weapons and warfighting doctrine (i.e. doctrines that assume the need to improve the capacity to trigger, sustain and successfully conclude a nuclear war in order to make deterrence credible) would be greatly increased by a progressive militarization of North-South relations leading the tension towards the European theatre. Which is precisely what is happening now. Under this aspect too, the Wp's project for military development does not seem to enhance international security. The Wp devotes great attention to a superficial analysis, which dodges the debate opened by the other European allies in Nato, reticent on the nuclear weapons deployed in

Italy,. However, hiding the size of the nuclear apparatus present in Italy and ignoring the problems posed by the new weapons and operative doctrines (conventional, nuclear and integrated) does not mean solving them. In the military circles too, a primitive nuclear awareness is arising, expressed by the above document of the Casd which requests the withdrawal of at least part of the tactical nuclear weapons. But the problem is vaster. It is time to ask ourselves whether the Italian and European security is increased by the constant development of nuclear weapons or by the introduction of a new generation of chemical weapons (71). Likewise, on a global scale we need to ask ourselves what sense there is in increasing nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the planet various times. Even if it is said that nuclear weapons have guaranteed forty years of peace in Europe, the contrary cannot be proven, i.e. that this peace would not have been obtained without nuclear weapons. Above all, it is not evident that that

which worked well in the past can be successfully applied for the future. In fact, the technical features and the doctrines for the use of nuclear weapons seem to suggest the contrary. In a world dominated by pro-rearmament unilateralisms and by the capacity to overkill, acts of unilateral disarmament can, in our opinion, represent a contribution to collective security. The progressive reduction of the nuclear aresenals and the reinstatement of a situation of minimum nuclear dissuasion seem to be the most desirable hypothesis. Moreover, as we tried to prove, even a disarmed Italy, from the nuclear standpoint, would be able to defend itself and contribute to the defense of Europe.

In criticizing the security policy proposed by the Wp we have already implicitly pointed out certain elements of a different security proposal. Italy's unilateral disarmament should correspond to a realistic conventional military commitment, based on a greater cooperation with the European allies on all levels, from the operative one to that of the construction of new armaments. Renouncing force projection in the Mediterranean region should correspond to a more adequate defensive military capacity and to a security policy in which military means should not have a greater role.

A foreign policy based on being friends of all, under all circumstances and at all times, is not a foreign policy. However, an overmilitarized foreign policy does not lead to the solution of tensions. In a homogeneous and coherent security policy, greater space should be given to the instruments of diplomacy, those of economic pressure, the enhancement of old and new supranational institutions for the resolution of conflicts. The scarce historical interest and the latent skepticism of the governments and of the Italian public opinion toward the United Nations should be overturned. The possibility of instituting new fora for the resolution of conflicts in hot regional areas is urgent and ripe at this point. It is odd that the Wp states that the role played by the Contadora Group in Central America is a positive one, and does not pose itself the problem of developing a similar place of confrontation for the Mediterranean, which is precisely that which is needed.

Both the East-West relations and the North-South ones call for at least a redefinition of the European strategy and of the conditions of functioning of Nato. Compared to the processes of nuclear rearmament developed by the United States and the Soviet Union, several Nato countries such as Spain, Norway, Iceland and Denmark have refused and still refuse to deploy nuclear weapons. Distance should be taken with respect to the Reagan Administration's pressure for a military confrontation with the countries of the Third World (more or less linked with terrorism or with the global confrontation with the Soviet Union). The use of Nato bases in the Mediterranean for American unilateral operations that are not part of Nato's defensive aims is unacceptable. The systematic lack of consultations of the European governments on the part of the Reagan administration on the operations of the American units in Europe leaves no space. Either the operations of the Nato forces in the Mediterranean are subordinated also to the p

olitical authority of the European countries, or Italy's exit from Nato becomes imperative. The first hypothesis could be passed as a reform of Nato that outlines very clearly new political and operative mechanisms (command structures) that reaffirm at least partly a veto power for the hosting country on the use of Nato forces for purposes other than defensive ones. The first hypothesis could also be achieved much more simply with the advent of a new administration at the government of the United States. In any case, both to assess the possibility of a reform and to prepare the exit from Nato, it would be useful to prove Italy's intention not to accept unilateral acts of the United States, e.g. by deciding to quit the military alliance while remaining in the political alliance of Nato (as France did). Such non-definitive act would pose with sufficient force the problem of our divergence with our most important ally. Remaining in the field of words would only increase the Reagan administration's belief that i

t can drag the European allies towards commitments which they do not share.

Apart from any political and juridical measures, it is also necessary to start and develop new European defense strategies, which are to be not just forms of weak and uncertain resistance to the American ones, and that are to respond in a different way to the actual military threat of the Warsaw Pact. The technological superiority of the Western countries, and the greater flexibility and capacity of initiative of the Western armies (due to the freedom which is typical of the Western democratic systems) can be combined with a more solid defense blueprint, but one which cannot be interpreted by the adversary as a greater threat for its territory. A blueprint in which the defensive superiority of a country can dissuade the potential aggressor from attacking and at the same time that drives it to seek better defensive capacities itself. The quest for and the debate on "defensive defense" (or "non-offensive defense), which has already started in other West European countries (71), is the symptom of a European rev

ival also in the strategic thought, a revival which endeavours to combine a prospect of peace with a greater security.

NOTES

1. On the function of repression and domestic deterrence of the armed forces, see ROCHAT G., MASSOBRIO G., "Breve Storia dell'Esercito italiano dal 1861 al 1943", Giulio Einaudi, Torino, 1978.

2. On the attempted coup of 964, organized by General De Lorenzo, see TERRACINI U. et alii, "Sugli eventi del giugno-luglio 1964 e le deviazioni del SIFAR", Feltrinelli, Milano, 1971. The other attempts to carry out coups or to destabilize that took place at the end of the '60s and in the early '70s have been the object of penal proceedings and press inquiries. However, there are no historical reconstructions that connect the various plots, from the massacre of Piazza Fontana to the Borghese coup, from the Rosa dei Venti to the alarm in the barracks of 1974. Regarding the pretorian role of the armed forces in this period, see ROCHAT G., MASSOBRIO G., "op. cit.", p. 309 and CEVA L., "Le Forze armate", Utet, Torino, 1981, pp. 368-369.

3. Cf. LAIRD M. R., ``A Strong Start in a Difficult Decade, Defense Policy in the Nixon-Ford Years'', "International Security", Autumn 1985, pp. 5-26.

4. STATO MAGGIORE DELLA MARINA, ``Prospettive e orientamenti di massima della Marina Militare per il periodo 1974-1984'', "Rivista Marittima", April 1974. Ample excerpts of the document, known as ``libro bianco della Marina'', are contained in CERQUETTI E., "Le Forze armate italiane dal 1945 al 1915", Feltrinelli, Milano, 1975, pp. 353-358, which our quotations are taken from.

5. The articles of the advocates of territorial defense are mostly contained in ISTITUTO STUDI E RICERCHE SULLA DIFESA (Istrid) (edited by), "La difesa del territorio", Rome, 1980.

6. "Ibidem". In particular, see the pro territorial defense interventions of the socialist MP Falco Accame and of the MP of the Independent Left Eliseo Milani and the one that opposes it of Aldo D'Alessio, adviser for the problems of the armed forces to the Communist party.

7. Quoted in ARKIN W. M., ``A Global Role for Nato'', "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist", January 1986, pp. 4-5.

8. THe underestimation of nuclear arms control on the part of the Italian military and politicians matches the scarce academic attention on this subject. An exception to this trend can be found in the introduction to nuclear arms control by CASADIO F. A., ``La gestione dei sistemi strategici: il `controllo dei conflitti' e le ricerche sulla pace'', in JEAN C. (editor), "Il pensiero strategico", Franco Angeli, Milano, 1985, pp.133-188.

9. Cf. ISTITUTO AFFARI INTERNAZIONALI (Iai) (edited by), "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1983-1984", Franco Angeli, Milano, 1986, p. 164.

10. "Ibidem", p. 163.

11. CICCARDINI B., ``L'Italia deve avere una sua atomica o può fidarsi degli ombrelli altrui?'', "Il Tempo", 30 August 1982.

12. BOSCO M., ``Un confronto metodico sui problemi delle F.A.'', "Il Popolo", 13 March 1983.

13. LAGORIO L., "Indirizzi di politica militare", Ministry of Defence, Rome, June-July 1980. The quotations that follow are taken from this document.

14. LOVINO F., CARUSO G., ``Conflitti nel mondo'', "Rivista militare", January-February 1982, pp. 15-23.

15. The map is taken from ARKIN W. M., FIELDHOUSE R. W., "Nuclear Battlefields", Ballinger, Cambridge (Usa), 1985, pp. 4-5. The area of responsibility of the American Central Command has recently been enlarged to cover Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cf. HARRISON S. S., ``Measures to Defuse the Indian Ocean and the Gulf'', "International Herald Tribune", 3 April 1986.

16. LAGORIO L., "Appunti" 1918/1981, Le Monnier, Firenze, (1981), pp. 236.

17. "Ibidem, pp. 174-177.

18. ISTITUTO AFFARI INTERNAZIONALI (Iai) (edited by), "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1980-1981", Edizioni di Comunità, Milano, 1982, p. 182.

19. Cf. "Ibidem", pp. 180-181.

20. Cf. point 5 of the letter of agreement between the Italian adn the Lebanese government contained in IAI (edited by), "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1982-1983", Edizioni di Comunità, Milano, 1985, p. 77 note 24.

21. Peacekeeping operations are a relatively new institution in the field of military interventions, and respond to the attempt to endow the international community with means adequate to guarantee the rules of international law, limiting the use of force among states as much as possible. Most of the peacekeeping operations have been under the control of the United Nations Organization. As of the '60s, the UN has carried out 13 such operations, in which 664 men have died. It is worth mentioning the UN's official analysis on the concept and praxis of peacekeeping. "Shortly after the creation of the United Nations in 1945, it became evident that some of the means provided for by the Statute to keep international peace could not be applied because of the cold war atmosphere existing among the permanent members of the Security Council. Thus, instead of the common commitment of the stronger countries to enforce world peace, as provided for by the Statute, the United Nations started to create missions of military

observers and, subsequently, armed forces with light weaponry providde by medium and small powers. Despite the League of Nations had already used similar techniques (e.g. sending a 3,3000 men-strong multilateral force to monitor the correct execution of the plebiscite on the destiny of the Saar region), peacekeeping operations are an innovation of the United Nations. The UN personnel, sent in agreement with the parts involved, does not aim to enforce peace, but to contain explosive situations and give peace a chance. Basically, they are preventive actions, aimed to stop or check a conflict while carrying out attempts to lead the conflicting parts to the negotiations table...The definition of peacekeeping operations in the reports of the Secretary-Genrral is that of an operation that includes military personnel, but without enforcement powers, established by the United Nations to maintain or reinstate peace in areas of conflict. The operations fall into two categories: observer missions and peacekeeping miss

ions. Both fulfil the same principles. They have been created by the Security Council and, on an extraordinary basis, by the General Assembly, and are under the control of the Secretary-General. They must have the approval of the hosting governments and, as a rule, of the other parts involved as well. The necessary military personnel is provided by the member states on a voluntary basis. Military observers are not armed, and while the soldiers of peacekeeping missions are armed with light weapons, they are not authorized to use force, except for purposes of self-defence. The operations should not interfere with the hosting country's domestic affairs, and should under no circumstance be used to favour one of the conflicting parts...Peacekeeping operations have been generally used in regional conflicts. They fulfil a taks of impartial and objective third actor, which contributes to creating and maintaining the cessation of hostilities, and forms a cushion zone between the opposed parts". Cf. UNITED NATIONS, "T

he United Nations at Forty", United Nations Publication, New York, 1985, pp. 90-91.

22. The division of the state and government positions takes place in Lebanon on the basis of an agreement among the various religious communities, signed ten years or so ago. This state system, which is not based on elections that take into consideration the changes occurred in the electorate, cannot be considered democratic. At the level of governmental and state positions, the Christian-Maronite minority is over-represented. The Maronites are over-reprented also among the officers of the Lebanese armed forces, especially at the highest ranks.

23. Quoted in IAI (edited by), "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1982-1983, op. cit.", p. 94.

22. Speech by Minister LAGORIO in front of the Chamber Defense Committee, 13 October 1982, text of the Defense public information service.

25. It seems that the expression "parallel war" was invented by Mussolini himself, as remarked by Giorgio Rochat quoting the testimony of General Soddu mentioned in ROSSI F., "Mussolini e lo Stato Maggiore. Avvenimenti del 1940", Tipografia Regionale, Roma, 1951, p. 35. Regarding the analysis of the parallel war against Germany, see ROCHAT G., MASSOBRIO G., "op. cit.", pp. 270-275.

26. The distinction between "hawks" and "doves" is very frequent in Western countries. While simplistic, these definitions are useful from the point of view of knowledge. They identify different approaches to the security policy which reveal not only different analyses, but also different political and ideological conceptions of the world.

27. OSTELLINO P., CALIGARIS L., "I nuovi militari. Una radiografia delle Forze armate italiane", Mondadori, Milano, 1983. The quotations that follo are respectively at pages 38,

28. Quoted in IAI (edited by), "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1982-1983, op. cit.", pp. 82-83 for the first quotation; p. 92 for the second one.

29. SPADOLINI G., "Indirizzi di politica militare", presented by Giovanni Spadolini in November 1983, quoted in "Informazioni parlamentari difesa (Ipd)",, n. 19-20, 1983, pp. 29-36, whence the following quotations are taken.

30. Eugenio Rambaldi and Umberto Cappuzzo. In particular, cf. the interview granted by the latter to "Panorama Difesa", October-November 1982.

31. The different technical and political use of heavy weapons on the part of the Italian contingent is described in ANGIONI F., "Un soldato italiano in Libano", Rizzoli, Milano, 1984, pp. 101-102:

"The other contingents of the multinational force also disposed of a naval or aeronaval support. The control of these means or of these weapons was not, for the French and the Americans, assigned to the contingent commanders, but maintained by the superior command organs, located outside Lebanon. In our case, it had not been deemed necessary, on the political and military level, to make the use of naval fire depend on the commander of the contingent. A decision which proved extremely wise, as it enabled those who detained the control minute by minute of the situation on land to react to the offensives, making the guns intervene or threatening their use at the appropriate moment and with the necessary promptness. Behaving differently, reacting "according to the area" or not promptly enough, would have made us pass that fine line that divides self-defense from retaliation". Angioni also reports that in September 1983, the threat to use the Italian naval artillery was enough to shift the fire of the Drusian art

illeries. Cf. "ibidem", pp. 105-109.

32. Angioni recalls that "on one occasion the Lebanese Chief of Staff decided to back the police in a vast operation to "cleanse" the city from suspicious elements; the participation of the multinational force was requested on that occasion. Each contingent, in the context of its sector, was to surround the neighborhoods, participate in the searches and carry out arrests (...). During the meeting with the Lebanese officials...I tried to explain the inapropriateness of a participation of peace forces to operations of that kind (...). Our task was to back the Lebanese army in defending from external enemies, and not to participate in operations against the population (...). Not everyone agreed, but we stuck to our opinion". "Ibidem", pp. 60-61.

33. The "War Powers Act" passed by the American Congress during the Vietnam war.

34. On 16 September 1983, the Minister of Defense Spadolini declares in an interview with "La Repubblica" that "a clear word should be said about this matter: soldiers in Italy must obey the legitimate orders of their superiors". According to Franco Angioni, the decision to pass from voluntary departures to mandatory ones is taken at the proposal of Italcon 2, by the Chief of Staff of the Army, not by the government, which is simply informed of the new measure. Cf. ANGIONI F., "op. cit.", p. 80.

35. Interview with Vittorio Marulli on "Il Giornale", 16 April 1984.

36. MARULLI V., ``Compiti, responsabilità e impegni della Marina militare alla luce della situazione del Mediterraneo e delle aree adiacenti'', conference held at the Centre for Higher Military Studies (Casd) on 19 June 1984, "Quaderni del Casd 83/84, p. 14.

37. Interview with Basilio Cottone on "Il Giornale", 20 April 1984.

38. COTTONE B., ``L'Aeronautica militare nell'evoluzione dello Strumento nazionale. Situazione, problemi, prospettive'', conference held at the Casd on 12 June 1984, "Quaderni del Casd 83/84", p. 4.

39. Interview with Umberto Cappuzzo on "Il Giornale", 16 April 1984.

40. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "La Difesa. Libro bianco 1985", Ministtry of Defense, Rome, November 1984, 2 volumes. Volume 2 is a documentary appendix. The following quotations refer to that document, unless otherwise specified.

41. The "Air Land Battle" (Alb), the new operative doctrine of the U.S. Army, is explained in the field manual 100-5. Ample passages of this manual are contained in CENTRO SICILIANO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE GIUSEPPE IMPASTATO (edited by), "Airland Battle. La strategia di guerra Usa 1984-2019", Satyagraha editrice, Torino, 1985. The same volume contains the translation of the document "Air-Land Battle 2000"; a slightly modified version of the Alb signed both by the U.S. General Meyer and by the inspector of the armed forces of Federal Germany Glanz. In the document "Angriff als Verteidigung" (1984) the parliamentary group of the German Greens criticized the offensive approach of the new doctrine in its various versions. A translation of the document of the German Greens may be found in "Futura, bollettino di informazioni per la pace e il disarmo", supplement to "Arcipropone", cultural weekly magazine of the Florence Arci, n. 49, 1985. Regarding the similarities between Alb and Fofa, see PLESH D. T., ``Airland Battle

Nato's Military Posture'', "Adiu Report", March-April 1985, pp. 7-11. The need for a clearer definition of the Nato strategy with respect to that of the U.S. Army has lead Nato's defense plan committee in 1985 to define a conceptual Military Framework (Cmf). On the Cmf and its similarities with Alb, see DE WIJK R., ``Nato Plans for the 1990s'', "Adiu Report", September-October 1985, pp. 6-9.

42. Cf. the long-term directive of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Saceur), passed by Nato's defense plans committee on 9 November 1984, quoted in "Ipd", n. 6-7-8, 1985, pp. 19-22.

43. On page 41 of the above mentioned "1985 Defense White Paper", it says, regarding the mission in the North-East, that "the defensive manoeuvre" (sic) provides as first taks to "locate, delay and weaken the movement of adversary forces before they invest the positions of defense", using for this purpose air forces and the fire of the longest-range weapons systems". Considering that the official doctrine of Nato and of the Italian army is that of advanced defense, aiming to contain the enemy offensive near the borders, the planned weakening attack of the enemy forces before direct contact with their own occurs could only take place in the territories of Austria and Yugoslavia. The decision to acquire a depth of manoeuvre in the enemy territory is one of the characteristics of Alb and Fofa, apart from the use of new technologies. In 1984 Minister Spadolini explained that "the new technologies...will improve...in-depth defense and the forces' mobility" in the North-East scenario. Cf. SPADOLINI G., "Nota aggiu

ntiva allo stato di previsione per la Difesa 1985", Ministry of Defense, Rome, October 1984, p. 3. In 1985, Spadolini furthers this subject, explaining that in order to achieve advanced defense in the North-East, it is necessary to "ban the fostering of the enemy offensive effort, by neutralizing, especially with in-depth fire, the subsequent sections and the reserves". A prime role is played in this operation by aircraft and helicopters as well as tanks, which must "weaken the enemy apparatus, cut the supply flows and prevent the manoeuvre of the reserves". Cf. SPADOLINI G., "Nota aggiuntiva allo stato di previsione per la Difesa 1986", Ministry of Defense, Rome, October 1985, pp. 4 e 5. Carlo Maria Santoro, professor at the University of Bologna and member of the select committee for the drafting of the White Paper, takes a much more explicit stance on offensive force projection in other countries' territories. Regarding the mission in the North-East, Santoro explicitly provides for an immediate, quasi-pre

ventive projection of the Italian force to block the Soviet advancement in Karlovac and Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) and on the Innsbruck-Graz axis (Austria). This new strategy, explicitly defined as an application of the Air Land Battle in the North-East, would be justified by a scarsely credible Soviet strategy to invade Austria and then attack Trentino, as well as by an even less credible hypothesis of non-resistance and/or cooperation of Austria and Yugoslavia to a Soviet invasion. Cf. SANTORO C. M., CALIGARIS L., "Obiettivo difesa", Il Mulino, Bologna, 1986, pp. 55-79.

44. Cf. ARKIN W. M., ``Evolving Military and Political Role of U.S. Military Forces and Nuclear Weapons in Italy'', paper presented at the forum on ``Armi nucleari e controllo degli armamenti in Europa'', Castiglioncello (Li), 21-25 October 1985, p. 4. The Union of Scientists for Disarmament which organized the forum, has published the papers in supplement V-XII/1985 of the magazine "Scientia". Also Cf., of the same author and Richard Fieldhouse, the chapter ``Le forze americane in Italia'', in ISTITUTO DI RICERCA PER IL DISARMO LO SVILUPPO E LA PACE (Irdisp) (edited by), "Quello che i russi già sanno e gli italiani non devono sapere" (2nd edition), Irdisp, Rome, March 1984, pp. 7-24. An estimate that is almost identical to that of Arkin is contained in DE ANDREIS M. ``The Nuclear Debate in Italy'', "Survival", May-June 1986, pp. 195-207.

45. Cf. "Ipd", n. 21, 1983, pp. 48-49.

46. Cf. COTTA RAMUSINO P., ``Intervento di Paolo Cotta Ramusino'', report presented at the above mentioned forum "Nuclear weapons and arms control in Europe", p. 7.

47. Declaration by Spadolini before the Senate of the Republic of 20 February 1985, in "Ipd", n. 1-2, 1985, pp. 46-47.

48. The text of the governmental draft bill on embarked air force issued on 6 August 1985 is in "Ipd", n. 15-16-17, 1985, p. 65. 49. The debate between the Navy and the Air Force on Navy air force or on embarked planes was developed among strong controversies in 1984-85. A summary of subjects may be found in the chapter on strategic and military policy of the Institute of International Relations in Rome, "L'Italia nella politica internazionale 1984-85", to be published by Franco Angeli. Roughly, the controversy between the two forces concerned two questions: the defense blueprint and the monopoly on fixed-winf aircraft. According to the Air Force, the Navy's desire to equip itself with its own air force, albeit embarked on carriers, corresponded to a policy of force projection. Since the Navy's policy was a wrong and unconstitutional one, the Air Force saw no reason to apply it and to damage its own monpoly on fixed-wing aircraft. The Navy required its own air force for different reasons, some of a general f

unctional order (for which the Western German Naby also has land-based aircraft), other of a specific functional order (protection of the carrier Garibaldi in operations far from the metropolitan air bases). If the decisive criterion of choice had been that of consolidating a structurally defensive blueprint, it would have been possible to break the traditional monopoly of the Italian air force on aircraft and create a Navy air force on the model of the German one. The criterion followed by Spadolini instead was that of a partial redistribution of the power on the planes among the sub-corporations of armed force. The Air Force's monopoly on the planes has been interrupted, but only with regard to the planes that will be embarked on the Garibaldi. The Navy will have complete control on the power of its carrier, but will depend on the air force's planes for maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine fighting.

50. Cf. SANTORO C. M., CALIGARIS L., "op. cit.", p. 98.

51. SPADOLINI G., "Nota aggiuntiva allo stato di previsione per la Difesa 1985, op. cit.", p. 3.

52. Cf. ROSSI S. A., ``Diecimila `Rambo' nelle sabbie mobili di ministeri e bilanci'', "Il Sole 24 Ore", 17 December 1985. On the framework and objectives of the rapid deployment force, cf. CALlGARIS L., CREMASCO M., ``Italian Rapid Deployment Force'', "Paper Iai"/02/85, Istituto affari internazionali Roma. The part by Caligaris carefully distinguishes between operations in the national, continental and overseas territory, as well as between operationd of different intensity. The distinctions are linked to the choice of the various military units to be assigned for each specific operation to the command of the rapid deployment force. Operations outside the national territory of medium and high intensity go far beyond peacekeeping and provode for Italy's unilateral intervention "to fulfil commitments taken by the country and/or to protect Italian citizens and interests abroad". The offensive conception that accompanies this approach of the rapid deployment force, and its link with the doctrine of Alb is evide

nt in the description of in-depth operations (up to 80 Km) in the territory of Yugoslavia, which should be carried out by units of the 5th Army Corps. It is natural to wonder whether Caligaris' opinions are shared by the military authorities, and if they are, if thse have cared to seek the opinion of the Yugoslav government.

53. Cf. CHIPMANN J., ``French Military Policy and African Security'', "Adelphi Papers" n. 201, International Institute for Stategic Studies (Iiss), London, Summer 1985, pp. 17-18. The "Transall" transport aircraft France disposes of can cover only 1,800 Km with a full load. Even if they can be refueled on-flight, these aircraft must in any case rely on intermediate stops to reach the operative theatre of Central Africa. Once discarded the hypothesis of purchasing the American "Starlifter" C-141 transport aircraft, the French government turned to the possibility of using passenger planes such as the Airbus. The French authorities, however, do not judge that this is the adequate solution, and in 1984 the then minister of Defense Hernu started talks with officials of the European and U.S. government for the joint development of a strategic transport aircraft for 2000.

54. Cf. "Ipd" n. 15-16-17, 1985, pp. 63-65.

55. Regarding the possibility that the missiles launched againnst the radar base of the U.S. coast Guard in Lampedusa are missiles launched by a Libyan motovdetta (which is fitted with Otomat missiles of the Italian Oto Melara) instead of Soviet ballistic Scud missiles, Cf. WATSON R. and others, ``Reagan's Riders'', "Newsweek", 28 April 1986.

56. Cf. NORDLAND R., WILKINSON R., ``Inside Terror, Inc.'', "Newsweek", 7 April 1985.

57. Interview granted by Spadolini to "La Repubblica" of 23 April 1986, where the Minister of Defense states that "there is no possible defense nor early warning against inertia-guided ballistic missiles. Exceot, obviously, the preventive attack on theur launch bases or retaliation after launch".

58. Cf. CALIGARIS L., ``Il Sud, naturalmente'', in "Fuoco sull'Italia", supplement to "Panorama" of 20 April 1986. The article examined the entire arsenal of offensive military means advocated by the hawks: carrier, rapid deployment force, etc. Also Cf. SILVESTRI S., ``E se la miglior difesa fosse l'attacco?'', "L'Europeo", 18 January 1986. In the article, the Mediterranean threat is clearly identified as Libya, against which it provides for the use, according to the need, both of the rapid deployment force and of the air force embarked on the Garibaldi. The wish for a preventive attack, explicit in the title of the article, was fulfilled three months later by the U.S. carriers.

59. The effective cost of the Garibaldi was calculated by bringing the costs borne during the various years for the tuttoponet cruiser in 1986 liras. Cf. the fifth chapter of this book.

60. Cf. ZARA G., ``Il bilancio della difesa non consente sprechi e inutili sovrapposizioni'', "L'Avanti", 27 March 1985.

61. Interview with Edward N. Luttwack on "Corriere della Sera", 14 July 1984.

62. Cf. CALIGARIS L., CREMASCO M., "op. cit.", p. 65.

63. The decision to increase the number of volunteers (or long-term draftees) is not, as generally believed in Italy, a technical choice, but a fundamentally political one. The technical problem linked to the technological complexity of the modern weapons systems, which require a longer period of training for the personnel, could be solved in other ways. Firstly, by exploiting the previously acquired know-how of the draftees; secondly, through a longer but paid period of service; thirdly, through measures to encourage recruitment for a few years of "poor but smart" young men, who could be offered the payment of university fees in exhange for 3-5 years of service. However, the choice of the volunteer, which makes the military profession a profession such as the commissioned officer or officer, aims to far different political results. The history of the conflicts of the last ten-fifteen years show how the draftees are basicallt unreliable for aggressive and occupation interventions in foreign territory. The Am

erican draftees in Vietnam, the Russian ones in Afghanistan, the Portuguese ones in the African colonies, the Israeli ones in Lebanon, just to make a few signficant examples, have poses so many problems to the political and military leaders as to lead them to withdraw the troops. On the contrary, the reliability of totally volunteer armies for aggressive and occupation operations has been confirmed, as shown by the efficiency with which the British army has been occupying Ireland for decades and the adventure in the Falklands. The very choice of the U.S. government, to pass from a draft army to a totally professional army in 1973 is based on this type of considerations, aiming to guarantee the political power with a military means for external interventions free from the infleunce of society (draftees represent the civil society in the armed forces). By recruiting volunteers, a process of auto-selection is enabled thanks to which people who have particular values, values that are differebt from thise of the

majoritty of the population, become part of the armed forces. This is extremely important from the political point of view, if we consider that the difference of values between society and professional military concerns subjects such as the use of force in international relations. The criticism expressed by Palmiro Togliatti, who saw the professional military as possible "pretorians of the establishment" (in a scarcely developed society) should be replaced by a new one that underlines the danger that armed forves of professional military only can become (in developed societies) a sort of "pretorians of the eztablishment's external power". On the reasons for the change in the American military model from the draft to voluntary enrolment and on the formation of a military corps with opinoins other than those of society, see BACHMAN J. G. and others, "The All Volunteer Force", University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1977. On the difference of conceptions between professional military and society in Italy, ther

e are significant data that have emerged from a survey carried out between 1983-84 by the University of Bologna on a representative sample of Army officers. Even though the research does not analyse the attitudes of the military with respect to foreign policy, two data prove the different political conception of the military and of their desire to influence the country's military policy. 43.7 per cent of the officers polled would prefer "a presidential democratic framework" instead of the current parliamentary one; 57.3% favours the idea of entrusting the Ministry of Defense to a military instead of a civilian. Cf. PRANDSTRALLER G. P., "La professione militare in Italia", Franco Angeli, Milano, 1985. The decision to increase the number of volunteers in the Italian armed forces is explicitly motivated by Caligaris with the unreliability of the draftees for those external interventions of the rapid deployment force that are not part of peacekeeping. "On the political level, the use of draftees...would cause se

rious problems if they were used in missions such as the ones provided for the rapid deployment force...in situations that often go beyond the traditional role of defense of the military boundary. The opposition of the soldiers' families, of the soldiers themselves and of certain political forces, which has been overcome during the Beirut crisis, could cause the failure of the operation". Cf. CALIGARIS L., CREMASCO M., "op. cit.", p. 46.

64. INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES (Iiss), "The Military Balance 1985-1986", Iiss, London, 1985. See also DE ANDREIS M., "op. cit.", pp. 21-26.

65. Cf. CENTRO ALTI STUDI DIFESA (Casd), "Il concetto strategico dell'Alleanza Atlantica per gli anni '90 alla luce della possibile evoluzione della dottrina della risposta flessibile", Ministry of Defense, Rome, June 1983.

66. CREMASCO M., ``Situazione internazionale nell'area mediterranea e problematica del modello di difesa `italiano ''', in ISTITUTO STUDI E RICERCHE SULLA DIFESA (Istrid) (edited by), "Gli indirizzi della difesa italiana, Rome, 1982, p. 113.

67. ARKIN W. M., "op. cit.", pp. 4-5. According to the "Military Balance 1985-1986" the Soviet 5th naval squadron is formed by 9-10 submarines, 6 warships, 2 amphibious ships, 1 minesweeper and 17-25 support ships.

68. "Ibidem", p. 6-7. According to the "Military Balance 1985-1986" la 6th U.S. fleet consists in 6 nuclear-propelled submarines (SSN), 2 carriers, 12 warships, 1 unit of Marines on three landing ships.

69. CREMASCO M., ``La politica militare italiana nel Mediterraneo'', in F. Tana (editor), "La lezione del Libano", Ipalmo-Franco Angeli, Milano, 1985, p. 96. The quotation that follows in at p. 97.

70. CERQUETTI E., "op. cit.", pp. 366-367.

71. After a period of stasis in chemical rearmament, in the past years the U.S. has increased expenditure for research and developmeht of new binary chemical weapons (thus called because they are formed by two chemical composites that combine, creating a war gas only when the shell is launhed. It is the "Big Eye", transported by aircraft, and the 155 mm. artillery and Multiple Launch Rocket System shell which certain Nato countries - including Italy - are building. The chemical composite of binary chemical weapons is a last-generation nerve gas. According to the American military, the privileged areas of use for the new chemical weapons are the ones assigned to the European and Central command of the U.S. armed forces. As a consequence, the Reagan Administration's pressure for a European commitment in the future deployment of the new chemical weapons in Europe has increased. In May 1986, Nato's defense planning committee (which gathers the ministers of defense of the countries of the Alliance) has "acknowled

ged" the U.S. government's decision to start the prodution of the new chemical weapons. It is an ambiguous, Pilate-like position, the result of a mediation between countries that are unwilling to host the new chemical weapons (Norway, Denmark, Holland and Greece) and countries that are more willing (including Italy). The use of nerve gas bombs would produce, in a densely populated area such as Europe, devastating effects, comparable to those of theatre nuclear weapons. On all aspects of the new chemical arms race, see ROBINSON J. P., ``Chemical and Biological Warfare: Developments in 1984'', in "SIPRI Yearbook 1985", Taylor and Francis, London and Philadelphia, 1985, pp. 159-190. By the same author, ``Chemical and Biological Warfare: Developments in 1985'', in "SIPRI Yearbook 1986", Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1986, pp. 159-179. On Italy's renewed military commitment in the chemical field, which is now limited to an improvement of the capacity of passive defense from chemical attacks, see D

E ANDREIS M., MIGGIANO P., ``Dossier armi chimiche'', "Irdisp Paper", Rome, 1985.

71. In West Germany, research on defensive defense is mainly conducted by a group of researchers from the Max Plank Institute in Stanrberg. Cf. MUELLER A., ``Structural Stability at the Central Front'', report presented at the above mentioned forum on "Nuclear weapons and arms control in Europe". Cf. AFHELDT H., "Verteidigung und Frieden. Politik mit militaerischen Mitteln", Hanser, Muenchen, 1976. By the same author, Cf. "Defensive Verteidigung", Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Hamburg, 1983. As of August 1985, the Centre of Peace and Conflict Research of the University of Copenhagen publishes the bulletin "Nod, Non-Offensive Defence", which documents the evolution of the deabte on this subject at the European level.