by Marco De Andreis, Mauro Marè, Paolo MiggianoIRDISP-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 spending 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 spending 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. Therefore,
Italy is in a situation that offers many opportunities to contain the spending, experiment conversions to civilian uses of the military productions, and promote a realistic security policy aimed to achieve détente.
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 spending 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)
5. MILITARY SPENDING IN ITALY
by Marco De Andreis, Alessandro Liberati, Mauro Marè, Paolo Miggiano
1. A guide to the interpretation of military spending in Italy
By playing with numbers, one can prove everything and its exact opposite. It is a pity that so little attention is devoted to this element of relativity which is implicit in the use of mathematics. Our attention focuses almost exclusively on the exactness of the operations: 2 + 2 = 4 and that's it.
The fact is, that's not it. To continue with this example, it remains to be proved that the sum at hand is the one that can solve the problem we are confronted with. In other words, it can be exact but scarcely significant. Also, it is important that the addenda be homogeneous entities. It is a well-known fact that adding two pears and two apples gives us four fruits, but certainly neither four pears nor four apples. Despite the fact that this example can appear to be banal, it is nonetheless useful as a guide to the following pages. These pages are dense with figures and numbers: to judge both we believe it is best for the reader to pay attention to the premises that inspired its application.
This leads us to the core of this "Counter-White Paper" of the Italian Defense. Our main ground of criticism towards the Ministry of Defense's accounts is not based on the fact that the calculations of the official documents are wrong; though this may occur, it is a rare and scarcely significant event (1). The far more important point is that we believe that the fundamental criteria behind the ministry's figures are almost constantly misleading.
The first of such misleading criteria is used every year by the government in presenting the bill of the defense budget to Parliament. Such bill is always compared to the corrected balance of the previous year. This is incorrect, for a very simple reason: the correction procedure systematically increases the allocations for defense. The aim of the incorrectness is obvious: by inflating the terms of comparison, the increase will appear smaller. But there is more: another typical trick used by the Defense to cover the increases - when they are more consistent - is the question of the "cutbacks". On presenting the budget for 1984 on October 29, 1983, to the Senate defense committee, Minister Spadolini referred to "cutbacks amounting to 1,300 billion" compared to the "estimate of expenditure presented by the Defense, amounting to 15,000 billion". The scene was performed more or less in the same way the following year, when the budget increased by about 10 percent in real terms compared to the previous year.
Unfortunately, the media almost unanimously insisted on this odd concept of cutback in their headlines, thus backing the usual false image of Defense as the "Cinderella" of public expenditure. The point here is that when we talk about "spending cuts" or "reductions", we normally refer to the parliamentary debate, i.e. the variations between the draft bill and the final bill. The rest is a matter for the government and its relations with the various state bureaucracies. If we used the same parameter used by Spadolini, we would have cause to believe that the budget of the ministry of Justice is reduced with respect to the magistrates' requests, that the budget of the ministry for culture is reduced compared to the superintendents' requests, and so on.
It is worth mentioning, at this point, the various stages of the formation of the Italian public expenditure. First of all, the government presents the "draft" budget and the finance act to Parliament. Both documents express the intentions of the government regarding the amount and the composition of the spending. Parliament almost always modifies the government's proposal, and the "budget bill" is passed. This can be considered to be stage 2. Subsequently several other variations take place, mostly of an administrative nature, which inflate the expense originally authorized with the budget bill. These variations are also formally submitted to parliamentary control. The two Houses pass the "corrected balance" during the fiscal year and the "general financial statement" once the fiscal year has closed. These are respectively stages 3 and 4. However, these last two take place amid the general indifference - especially compared to the clamour surrounding the discussion on the budget bill and on the finance act.
There is a tendency to interpret the variations during the fiscal year as a normal phenomenon, albeit this is one of the main causes of the lamented impossibility to contain the Italian public expenditure.
Therefore, when we talk about the "defense budget", it is wise to specify which of the four stages we are referring to. Hence it is best to operate by homogeneous entities when comparing one year to another, i.e. compare draft bill to draft bill, final bill to final bill, correction to correction, statement to statement. This is a rule which this paper respects.
In presenting the data on military spending we have chosen to privilege the draft bills and the statements. The draft bill (item allocation) because it is a sign of the government's future intentions; the statement because it expresses the actual spending in a given fiscal year, apart from any intention, opinion or controversy; for this purpose we have chosen the item cash.
The differences between the items allocation and cash is that the former expresses the amount of resources allocated to the ministry during a given fiscal year, while the latter is the maximum amount of lire which that Ministry can actually spend in the same year. In other words, the "allocation" authorizes the government to sign contracts, start orders, etc. The payments may then take place in any fiscal year starting from the one considered. "Cash" instead means the maximum of payments (actual outlays) that are possible in the fiscal year considered and only in that one. As we will see, it is a fundamental difference. For example, it is possible that the outlays (cash) increase during a certain year and compared to the previous year, less than the commitments (allocation) do. In this case, the third item of the balance, "surplus", i.e. the sums that have been allocated and which have not been spent during the fiscal year, increases. This simply means that the increase is postponed: the "bills" are there an
d will need to be covered sooner or later.
One last remark concerns the use that will be made of the terms defense budget and military spending. Though they are occasionally used as synonyms in the text, they mostly indicate two separate entities. "Defense budget" refers strictly to table 12 (Defense) of the national budget. "Military spending" refers to all the outlays which the state bears for its military security, both paid by the Ministry of Defense and by other Ministries. For the total of the Italian military expenditure we will use Nato data, whose definition of military spending includes: military research and development, military aid (listing them in the expenditure of the donor country and excluding them from the expenditure of the receiving country), the cost of pensions for retired personnel and the costs of paramilitary forces (Carabinieri, police, etc.) in the event in which they are trained for military operations. They exclude expenses for civil protection, war pensions and the payment of debts of war. Lastly, this criterion - which
is obviously applied uniformly by Nato to all member states - takes into account the actual outlays in the fiscal year considered. It is therefore based on the Cash item of our statement. The most relevant expense which is not listed in table 12 is, at any rate, the one for military pensions, which are listed in Italy in the chapters of the balance of the Treasury.
-----
Tab. 5 Comparison between military expenditures and budgets for 1973-85 (Nato definition of military spending and draft bill, item allocations)
A B C D E
years military defense consumer '73 base '73 base
spending budget prices military defense
spending spending
1973 2.392 2.294 10,4% 2.392 2.294
1974 2.852 2.373 19,4% 2.389 1.987
1975 3.104 2.451 17,2% 2.218 1.752
1976 3.608 2.957 16,5% 2.213 1.814
1977 4.533 3.561 18,1% 2.354 1.850
1978 5.301 4.314 12,4% 2.450 1.993
1979 6.468 5.119 15,7% 2.583 2.044
1980 8.203 5.780 21,1% 2.705 1.906
1981 9.868 7.511 18,7% 2.742 2.087
1982 12.294 10.149 16,3% 2.937 2.425
1983 14.400 11.890 15,0% 2.991 2.470
1984 16.443 13.800 10,6% 3.088 2.592
1985 18.059 16.500 9,2% 3.106 2.838
Notes: A, B = current billion liras
C = annual variations in the consumer price indexes for families of workers and employees
D, E = billions of constant liras, 1973
* = estimates
Sources: A = until 1979 "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Facts and Figures" (10th edit., 1983), pp. 320, 321; as of 1980 "Notizie Nato", December 1985, p. 212
B = Draft bill, estimated national budget, table 12, estimated defense budget (several years), estimated allocations
C = Istat, "Annuario statistico italiano"
-----
It is needless to add that Nato's criterion is more correct, because it takes into account the actual costs borne for military security. As a consequence, we chose it as an indicator for the comparisons with the gross domestic product (GDP) - comparisons which simply indicate the percent of national wealth allocated for defense - as well as for the comparisons between nations. In this respect too, the ministry of Defense makes a ruthless use of statistics, taking into account the incidence of the defense budget alone - the smaller one - on the GDP.
The only problem in using Nato's definition of military spending is that it is net of the costs for civil protection. In general this is fair, but in the case of Italy, it implies the deduction of hundreds of billions which should be allocated to civil protection and which the Ministry of Defense is actually using to purchase weapons (2).
2. The rise in military expenditure in the eighties
The 1985 "White Paper" of Defense, in its part on the economy, provides various data on Italy's defense expenditure. One of the defects of those data is the tendency to flatten substantial variations within these periods on the long periods (ten and/or thirty years). Another problem with the data provided by the ministry of Defense is that of assessing Italy's "defense spending" on the basis of the estimated defense budgets. Table 5 reveals the trend both of the actual military spending and of the Defense's estimated budgets from 1973 to 1985. As we can see, the actual defense expenditure has been and continues to be higher than the one described in the Defense's estimated budgets. Figure 6 gives a graphic outline of the trend in constant 1973 currency, of the military spending and of the defense's estimated budgets (columns D and E of table 5).
Compared to the Defense's estimated budgets, the military spending shows minor drops in 1973-1975. In the case of the 1980-81 biennium, while the estimated budgets show a decline and then a rise to the spending level of 1979, the military expenditure increases. It is significant that, as of 1976, the effective military spending increases constantly, showing periods of stabilization (minimum minor increases) in 1980 and 1984. If we try dividing the 1975-85 period into two five-year periods (1976-80 and 1981-85), and we analyse the annual average spending for each five-year period, the variation becomes even more significant. In terms of actual expenses, there has been over the last five years a 20,8 percent rise compared to the previous five-year period. In terms of estimated defense budgets, which express the intentions of the ministers of defense with regard to the budget increases, there has been a 29,2 percent increase in the last quinquennium compared to the 1976-80 quinquennium. Not only, therefore, has
the actual military spending in the various years been higher than the estimated budgets, but the role carried out by the last two lay ministers of defense in increasing the budgets as of 1981 is evident.
Let's concentrate our attention, therefore, on the 1980-86 period and let's analyse the various increases both of the budgets and of the defense spending. Table 7 contains the increases in current and constant liras of the defense's estimated budgets.
-----
Tab. 7 Estimated defense budgets for 1980-86 (draft bill, allocations)
A B C D
years defense consumer constant real increases
prices defense %
1980 5.780 - 5.780 -
1981 7.511 18,7% 6.328 9,5%
1982 10.149 16,3% 7.352 16,2%
1983 11.890 15,0% 7.490 1,9%
1984 13.800 10,6% 7.860 4,9%
1985 16.500 9,2% 8.606 9,5%
1986 17.812 5,9% 8.772 1,9%
Notes: A = billions of current liras
B = annual variations of the consumer price indexes for families of workers and employees
C = billions of constant liras, 1980 basis
Sources: A = Draft bill, estimated national budget, table 12, estimated budget for the Ministry of Defense (several years), estimated allocations
B = until 1985, Istat, "Annuario" statistico italiano"; for 1986, previsioni Cer (Centro Europa Ricerche), "Report n. 2", 1986
-----
As we said, the Defense's estimated budget is considerably different from the final balance. Table 8 lists the Defense's budget according to the statements. The data stop at 1984, because this is the last available statement.
-----
Tab. 8 Final defense balances for 1980-84 (statement, cash)
A B C D
years current consumer constant real increases
defense prices defense %
1980 6.729 - 6.729 -
1981 7.945 18,7% 6.693 -0,5%
1982 10.407 16,3% 7.539 12,6%
1983 12.195 15,0% 7.681 1,9%
1984 14.145 10,6% 8.056 4,9
Notes: A = billions of current liras
B = annual variations of the consumer price indexes for families of workers and employees
C = billions of constant liras, 1980 basis
Sources: A = General statement of the administration of the state (several years), sixth volume
B = Istat, "Annuario statistico italiano"
-----
As we can see, these figures exceed the estimated budget by hundreds if not billions of liras. The variations during the fiscal year of the defense budget therefore become actual political choices that go far beyond the simple management of the allocations passed by law. For example, in 1981 the estimated budget provided for an expenditure of Lit. 5,780 billion. The socialist Lelio Lagorio, appointed minister of defense after the estimated budget had been passed, managed to spend, in the same fiscal year, Lit. 6,729, or 16,4 percent more than Parliament had authorized.
We previously saw how the defense budgets are only part of the expenses covered by the state for defense. Table 9 lists the Italian military spending according to the "Nato definition" from 1980 to 1985.
-----
Tab. 9 Italian military expenditure 1980-85 (Nato definition of military expenditure)
A B C D
years current consumer constant real increases
expend. prices expend. %
1980 8.203 - 8.203 -
1981 9.868 18,7% 8.313 1,3%
1982 12.294 16,3% 8.905 7,1%
1983 14.400 15,0% 9.070 1,9%
1984 16.443 10,6% 9.365 3,2%
1985* 18.085 9,2% 9.418 0,6%
Notes A = billions of current lire
B = annual variations in the consumer price indexes for families of workers and employees
C = billions of constant lire, 1980 base
* = estimates
Sources: A = "Notizie Nato", December 1985, p. 212
B = Istat, "Annuario statistico italiano"
-----
Here too, the differences between the final balances of the ministry of Defense and the actual military spending are significant.
When talking about defense expenditures or military expenditures that have actually been borne by Italy, it seem correct to refer to the "Nato definition". The minister of Defense, however, thinks otherwise. The 1985 "White Paper" of Defense states that the incidence of "defense expenditures" on the "national revenue" after world war II has stabilized "around 2,5 percent until now, with a tendency to decline" (3). In another part, the Wp says that, in the past decade, "Defense spending...has represented 2 percent of the gross domestic product as an average value" (4). These are figures that are well below the reality, and the misunderstanding originates from the Defense's use of the estimated budget as a term of comparison with the gross domestic product. The actual trend of defense spending (Nato definition) on the GDP is contained in table 10.
-----
Tab. 10 Military expenditure and GDP 1976-85 (Nato definition of military expenditure)
A B C
years GDP military B/A
expend. %
1976 156.657 3.608 2,3%
1977 190.083 4.533 2,4%
1978 222.254 5.301 2,4%
1979 270.198 6.468 2,4%
1980 338.743 8.203 2,4%
1981 401.579 9.868 2,5%
1982 470.484 12.294 2,6%
1983 538.998 14.400 2,7%
1984 612.112 16.443 2,7%
1985* 680.500 18.059 2,7%
Notes: A = billions of current lire, gross of the market prices
B = billions of current lire
* = estimates
Sources: A = until 1984, Banca d'Italia, "Relazione annuale 1984", for 1985 estimates of the Cer, "Rapporto n. 5", 1985
B = until 1979 "The North Atlantic Treatry Organization. Facts and Figures" (10ª ediz., 1983), pp. 320, 321; after 1980 "Notizie Nato", December 1985, p. 212
-----
In the 1976-80 period, the average annual incidence of the expenditures for defense as percent of the gross domestic product has been 2,4%. In the following period, the table shows a significant rise of the Italian military spending which increases by three decimals in three years, stabilizing at 2,7 percent of the gross domestic product. This reveals an ascending tendency of the military spending in the last five year period, i.e. the exact contrary of what the Defense claims.
3. National spending for defense and welfare
The comparison between the national expenditures for defense and those for welfare are a widely accepted indicator to show the trends in the allocation of the resources between the military and the civilian sectors. Popular wisdom has always compared butter with cannons, hospitals with barracks, schools and tanks. Table 11 is a comparison of the public expenditures for national defense, education and health care from 1980 to 1985, as defined in the "General report on the country's economic situation" (years 1984 and 1985). Along with the expenditures in current currency, it highlights the percent of the single items on the total public expenditures.
-----
Tab. 11 Comparison between various national expenditures 1980-85 (Report on the country's economic situation)
A A/D B B/D C C/D D
budget national % education % health care % years defense
total
state
1980 5.823 4,1% 16.239 11,4% 18.877 13,2% 142.757
1981 6.873 3,8% 18.882 10,6% 23.072 12,9% 178.774
1982 8.786 4,2% 21.815 10,4% 24.716 11,8% 208.817
1983 10.616 4,1% 26.774 10,3% 32.178 12,4% 260.150
1984 13.183 4,4% 28.995 9.7% 36.176 12,2% 296.933
1985 14.729 4,1% 33.860 9,4% 46.942 13,1% 358.924
Notes: A = billions of current lire, figures taken from the estimated national budgets (passed bill)
Source: Ministry of Budget, "General report on the country's economic situation" vol. 2 (year 1984, p. 148 and year 1985, p. 152)
-----
The share of public expenditures for "national defense" shows a fundamental pattern of stability, despite fluctuations. The share of expenditures for health care drops until 1982 and then increases to reach the levels of 1980. The constant decline of the share of public expenditures for education as of 1980 is instead evident. Even though the "report" presented by the ministers of budget and treasury is the most credible document to assess the trend of the Italian economy, in our opinion is has some limits.
Our main criticism concerns the definition of the categories of spending. In all other Western countries, the category "national defense" includes all the expenditures that are directly aimed to defense, and corresponds to the Nato definition of defense spending (5). In Italy instead, the "national defense" according to the state documents is only a part of the Defense budget, and excludes all expenditures for Carabinieri as well as other expenditures covered by other ministries. In this chapter we will further explain the Italian meaning of "national defense". But here we want to use another criterion of comparison between "butter and cannons". Table 12 contains the estimated budgets of the Ministries of Defense, of Education and of Health from 1980 to 1986.
-----
Tab. 12 Budgets of the ministries of Defense, Education and Health 1980-86 (bill, allocations)
A A/D B B/D C C/D D
years defense % education % health % total budget budget budget
national
budget
1980 5.780 3,8 12.617 8,4 16.195 10,8 150.248
1981 7.510 4,4 16.916 9,9 20.292 11,8 171.490
1982 10.149 5,0 20.448 10,2 22.680 11,3 200.941
1983 11.889 5,1 22.280 9,5 29.605 12,7 233.819
1984 13.800 4,3 26.144 8,1 35.153 10,9 322.388
1985 16.500 4,7 31.103 8,8 44.048 12,5 351.867
1986 17.812 4,6 34.306 8,8 43.509 11,2 389.612
Notes: A, B, C, D = billions of current lire
Sources: Estimated national budgets, draft bills, allocations (several years);in the column relative to education, we referred to the total expenses for education and instruction; for health we listed the expenses for hygiene and health care
-----
From 1980 to 1986, the Defense budget has gained eight more decimal points on the total of the state budget, exactly twice the four decimal points gained both by the budget of the ministry of education and by the ministry of health. As you can see, the budget of the ministry of defense increases more than the budgets of the ministries of education and health.
4. Nato commitment to a 3% increase in military spending
The criterion used to assess the size of the military spending cannot, in our opinion, originate solely from ideological, moral or political choices. Both the quantity and the quality of the military expenditures must also meet the requirement of providing a specific good, i.e. guaranteing the security of the country. Nonetheless, the quantitative and qualitative definition of how much is enough to guarantee the security of Italy is a largely arbitrary question. The fourth chapter of this paper concentrates generally on analysing the security policy of the government and probes the problem. At any rate, for each country that is part of a military alliance (until it decides to be part of one), there is the need to fulfil the commitments that have been taken in common. The debate on sharing the economic burden of Nato among the allies has been discussed in the third chapter. Here we simply want to analyse how our country has applied the decision taken in the Atlantic Council meeting of May 1978 in Washington
to increase the defense spending of the countries of the Alliance by 3 percent in real terms. Table 13 is a comparison between the expenditures that would have been covered by fulfilling the Nato commitment and the ones that have actually been borne.
-----
Tab. 13 Comparison between Nato commitment and actual expense (Nato definition of military expenditure)
A B C D
years hypothe increase actual increase
tical in expense
expense %
1978 5.301 - 5.301 -
1979 5.460 + 3 5.590 + 5,4
1980 5.624 + 3 5.855 + 4,7
1981 5.793 + 3 5.934 + 1,3
1982 5.967 + 3 6.357 + 7,1
1983 6.146 + 3 6.475 + 1,8
1984 6.330 + 3 6.684 + 3,2
1985* 6 520 + 3 6.722 + 0,6
------ ------
Totals 47.141 48.918
Notes: A, C = billions of constant lire, 1978 base, deflators used are those of table 5
* = estimated data (for column C)
Sources C = "Notizie Nato", December 1985, p. 212
-----
Throughout the seven years after it made the commitment, Italy spent greater sums for defense than the ones provided for by the commitment itself. Thus, in 1985 the Italian government had spent as much as Lit. 1,777 billion (in 1978 lire) more than it had committed to spending in Nato. For 1986, the government could have cut the estimated defense budget by circa 5 billion (1986 lire) while continuing to honour the Nato commitments.
The question remains more or less the same if, as the defense officials normally do, we apply the 3 percent increase to the estimated budgets of the defense instead of to the actual military expenditures. Figure 14 is a graphic representation, in 1978 constant currency, of the trend of the defense's estimated budgets compared to the hypothetical 3% increase.
5. Qualitative changes in the Defense budget
The defense budget is traditionally divided into two major sectors: expenditures for "national defense" and expenditures for "public security". The former concern the expenditures for the three armed forces (Army, Navy and Air Force), the former the ones for the Carabinieri. This division is not satisfying, in our opinion. As we said, all other Western countries use the term "national defense" to mean a wider concept than defense budget. Moreover, apart from carrying out law enforcement tasks, the Carabinieri are also the "fourth armed force". In other words, they also carry out significant military tasks, i.e. not just the functions of military police, espionage and counter-espionage relative to the country's safety against external threats. Far more consistent military functions are carried out by the 11th armoured brigade of the Carabinieri, as well as by paratrooper divisions, alpines, helicopter pilots, etc. In practice, since the time of General De Lorenzo, the Carabinieri have units for almost all spe
cializations existing in the other armed forces. And they are far from secondary military functions. The Carabinieri paratrooper battalion Tuscania has been one of the linchpins of the second Italian contingent in Lebanon. The 1985 defense "White Paper" foresee a wide array of military functions for the Carabinieri (6). Therefore, despite the division of the defense budget between expenditures for "national defense" and expenditures for "public security", it seems misleading for the purposes of a general calculation of how much is spent on defense in Italy, but it is useful from an analytical point of view to understand the qualitative changes of the spending within a homogeneously military field (that of the three armed forces). Figure 15 shows the pie of the "national defense" as it is defined in the estimate budget for 1986. The various slices of the pie show the percent share on "national defense" of the Irdisp categories (7) of spending: personnel, administration and services, contributions for internat
ional agreements, infrastructures and fuel, weapons, civil services.
Table 16 shows how the percent weight of the various categories of spending changes n the total of the "national defense" from 1980 to 1986.
-----
Tab. 16 Composition of the "national defense" 1980-86 (in percentage, allocations bill)
years perso admini contri- infra- arms civil total
nnel stration butions structures services national
intern. and fuel defense
agreem.
1980 47,1 3,1 1,5 6,3 40,7 1,2 100
1981 49,9 2,8 1,5 7,1 36,9 1,7 100
1982 50,2 2,7 1,4 7,8 36,2 1,7 100
1983 47,5 2,7 1,8 8,1 38,0 1,8 100
1984 47,3 2,7 2,1 8,7 38,3 0,9 100
1985 46,2 2,6 2,4 8,5 39,5 0,7 100
1986 45,8 2,6 2,6 9,0 39,1 0,8 100
Notes: the Irdisp categories of expenditure are explained in note (7). By "national defense" we mean the Italian government's definition, not the universally accepted definition.
-----
In terms of the two major expenditure items (personnel and weapons) an opposite trend can be remarked, at least at the level of estimate budgets. Until 1982, the expenditures for personnel increase, while those for weapons drop. As of 1983, the latter increase and the former drop. The expenses for administration and services and for civil services carried out by the armed forces drop constantly. These variations indicate a drop in the bureaucratic expenditures and of the defense's commitment in civil missions, i.e. a greater commitment in strictly military functions. The expenditures for international agreements have instead constantly and significantly increased (+ 1,1 percent). and so have those for infrastructures and fuel (+ 2,7 percent). The first increase should be linked to the increase of Italian military operations abroad (Lebanon, Red Sea, etc.) throughout this decade, as well as to the greater expenditures to support the new Nato installations on the Italian territory (Comiso). The increase of the
expenditures for infrastructures and fuel seems to show an increase of the training activity of the military units rather than the construction of new barracks.
6. Expenditure for weapons: an account of the promotional laws of 1975-77
As we saw when comparing the expenditures for weapons on "national defense", the allocations for weapons represent a substantial share of the defense budget. The great increase of the expenditures for weapons of the defense is to be linked to the rearmament process started in the mid-seventies.
Between 1975 and 1977, Parliament passed three bills, called "promotional (or "special") bills" that provided for allocations amounting to circa 3,000 billion in ten years for the modernization of the means of the three armed forces. As we can see in figure 6, the launch of the promotional bills served the purpose not only of interrupting the tendency to a decrease in real expenses and in the defense's estimate budgets, but also to formulate a pattern of real and constant rise of the military expenditure. The special nature of these bills was motivated precisely by the need for an extraordinary intervention aimed, according to the authorities of the time, to restore a situation of backwardness of the means which would have made the armed force incapable of defending the country effectively. The special nature of the promotional bills is also evident if we consider that they provided for an allocation (albeit in ten years) corresponding to the entire estimated defense budget of 1976.
The decision, to submit rearmament projects to the vote of Parliament, was coupled with measures aimed to a greater governmental and parliamentary control on the application of the promotional laws. Chapter six of this volume carried out an in-depth analysis of the problem of parliamentary control on military procurements. We need only remember that for each of the three promotional laws relative to each armed force (8), governmental committees of control were appointed with the task of probing and preventively passing the signing of contracts between the Defense and the various suppliers of weapons systems. The proceedings of these committees have allegedly been handed also to the parliamentarians of Parliament's defense committees, to enable them to carry out an a posteriori control on the work of the government and of the Defense. Moreover, three reports on the progress of the implementation of the special laws have supposedly been attached each year as appendices of the Defense's estimated budget.
The drafting of promotional laws was in turn related to a wider process of restructuring of the armed forces, based on a "logic of quantitative reduction and of efficiency recovery", according to the "White Paper" of Defense (9). Lastly, the promotional laws were conceived as multi-year laws. In other words, they were to be implemented over a period of ten years from their passage. This was the period which the military planners had deemed sufficient to complete the cycle of research, production and acquisition of the new weapons.
Today, ten years after the promotional laws were launched, the outcome is highly unsatisfactory. The "White Paper" itself recalls that "the reduction of the operative components should have been offset by a qualitative improvement" of the training and of the weapons given to the units kept operative (10). Furthermore, the promotional laws for the purchase of new armaments "should have represented a shock therapy necessary to fill the most serious gaps". "The restructuring process" - the White Paper continues - "should have been completed over a period of ten years". The ministry of Defense itself basically admits that all that which should have taken place...has not. In fact, the time requirements for the promotional laws have been delayed, while the estimates of expense for the acquisition of new armaments have been exceeded. Regarding the delay, the "White Paper" recalls that already in 1981 the then minister of defense Lagorio announced the first delay. The ten-year plan (1977-86) thus became a fifteen-ye
ar plan (1977-91). In 1983 the Defense notified that the plan had become a seventeen-year plan, and estimated that it would have been completed by 1993.
However, this constant postponing has never ceased. Table 17 contains the periods of planned completion of the promotional laws, as defined in the Defense's estimated budget of the last three years.
-----
Tab. 17 Periods of implementation of the promotional laws (according to the Defense)
Promotional bill 1984 bill 1985 bill 1986
bill
Army 1977-1990 1977-1994 1975-1992
Navy 1975-1990 1977-1995 1977-1991
Air Force 1977-1990 1975-1992 1977-1992
Source: draft bill, estimated national budget, Table 12, estimated expenditure for the Ministry of Defense (various years)
-----
As we can see, the terms of the completion of the promotional laws are postponed year after year. Even now, at least as far as the Army is concerned, we are confronted with a quasi twenty-year plan. The plan of 1977, when it was passed, was a ten-year one, and it still is today, after ten years of investments.
Even the costs necessary to complete the various programs provided for by the promotional laws have risen. In a civilized country, exceeding the costs with respect to the estimates should be documented in the balance of the Defense. In Italy this is not so. The Defense's balances lack any economically sound documentation relative to the development of the costs of the various programs. The data contained in the estimate of the Ministry of Defense are the result of a dubious accounting operation. The share of expense covered in years previous to the one for which the budget had been presented have been summed up, without gathering them into a single unit. This is dishonest and senseless, since the multi-year costs of the weapons systems provided by the Ministry of Defense are the result of the sum of non-homogeneous figures. If such figures are not transformed into constant currency, there follows that the costs will be expressed in a "zombie" currency, in which, so to say, the currencies of past years are re
suscitated. Let's make a simple example of this method of calculation applied by the Defense. in 1980 the Defense decides to buy a stock of rifles in three yearly instalments of Lit. 10 billion each. In 1980 the Defense pays for the first instalment, in 1981 it pays for the second and in 1982 for the third. After paying the last instalment, according to the extravagant calculations of the Defense, it would have spent a total of Lit. 30 billion for rifles. In fact it has spent the following sums:
inst. year of payment infla payments
payment in current tion in 1982
billion % billions
1st 1980 10 21,1 14,4
2nd 1981 10 18,7 11,9
3rd 1982 10 - 10
In total, the Defense has spent Lit. 36,3 billion (1982 lire), i.e. about 21% more than it claims to have spent. Obviously, the longer the periods of implementation of the programs, the higher the final costs. Using the zombie currency gives lower costs for the programs relative to the weapons systems, therefore more acceptable for the public opinion and for Parliament. It's not that the military planners don't realize the scant degree of reliability of estimates based on the use of zombie currency. Nonetheless, they continue to propose these estimates, trying to explain to the confused reader that the cost per unit of each program is "a numerical entity that grows each year according to
inflation in an inversely proportional degree with respect to the percentage of implementation of the program" (11).
In order to obtain a credible estimate of the increase, in constant currency, of the costs of the programs of the promotional laws, it is necessary to overcome several other obstacles. The administration of defense is not only capable of doubling the time and creating a new, extraordinary currency that transcends inflation. Many other accounting sleights of hand and magic tricks characterize the budgets of the Defense.
From one budget to the other there are changes in the expenses to be covered for the future completion of the various programs and the ones covered in the past (12). Single programs manage to merge like the chromosomes of reproduction cells (13). The costs for the logistic support of certain programs disappear and reappear like the invisible man (14). All these miracles are however surpassed by the multiplication of the costs. Table 18 contains the costs sustained for the implementation of the various programs of the promotional laws, comparing the estimates in zombie currency provided by the Defense and the ones in 1986 constant currency developed by us. A few words need to be said to explain the criteria followed in developing this table. The source used was the estimated defense budgets (draft bill) of the last three years (1984-86). In the case of incongruities between the data of the three budgets, we have followed the criterion of considering the most recent estimate as the more reliable. Faced to inco
ngruities of the definition of the programs (duplicated or merged programs), we have chosen to give the most disaggregated version. In these cases, we have used shares of hypothetical expenditures, calculated on the percentage of expenditure relative to each program, for the years in which these had been defined in a non-aggregated way. Lastly, to reduce the calculations into 1986 constant currency, we have used the inflation indexes (9,0% for 1985 and 6,7% for 1986) which are slightly different from (the more updated) ones used in the previous tables. The estimates of the costs have been rounded off to tens of billions.
-----
Tab. 18 Cost of the programs of the promotional bills (in 1986 constant and zombie billions)
A B C = A-B (C/A)%
name of program constant zombie difference understimate
currency currency
Army: :
FH-70 1.160 932 228 20%
HAWK-HELIP 1.320 397 923 70%
MILAN 940 864 76 8%
WHEELED VEHICLES 340 198 142 42%
LEOPARD CBT 1.350 650 700 52%
LEOPARD AUS 530 355 175 33%
VCC-1 86 62 24 28%
Navy:
8 FRIGATES 2.900 1.870 1.030 36%
6 HYDROFOILS 370 175 195 53%
GARIBALDI CRUIS. 700 490 210 30%
10 MINESWEEPERS 690 600 90 13%
Air Force:
MRCA TORNADO 8.400 6.459 1.941 23%
MB-339 650 386 264 41%
SPADA-ASPIDE 2.070 1.949 121 6%
AIR DEF RADAR 197 192 5 3%
Note: The FH-70 is a field howitzer, the HAWK-ELIP is an air-to-air missile, MILAN is an anti-tank missile, LEOPARD is a tank, in two versions, battle (cbt) and auxiliary (aus), the VCC-1 is an armoured personnel carrier. GARIBALDI is an all-deck cruiser, passed by Parliament as a helicopter carrier and modified by the Navy without an authorization into a carrier for vertical/short take-off aircraft. The MRCA TORNADO is a fighter-bomber-interceptor, whose funding was passed by Parliament for its characteristics as interceptor aircraft. The most suitable role for this aircraft is instead long-range bombing, including nuclear bombing. The MB-339 is an aircraft funded by Parliament as a training aircraft, and which has now become a light interceptor-fighter. The SPADA-ASPIDE is a surface-to-air missile system for low/medium altitudes. The RADAR mentioned in the table is an air defense radar.
Sources: our calculations on the basis of draft bills, estimated national expenditure (fiscal years 1984, 1985, 1986), table 12, estimate for the Ministry of Defense.
----
Table 19 represents the same comparison, referred not to the three individual programs but to the three promotional bills of armed force. The highest overstepping of the costs of the programs of the Navy is also due to the fact that its promotional law was launched in 1975, two years before those of the Army and of the Air Force. It should be remarked that the expenditures for the promotional law of the Army have been growing enormously over the past years. Chapter 4011 of the defense budget, which lists the expenditures of the promotional bill of the Army, has risen, between 1984 and 1985, in real terms by 21,1 percent and by 15,1 percent in 1986. This owing to the fact that the programs of the promotional law of the Army have remained stable with respect to those of the other two armed forces. Today the costs are exploding, in general and program by program. Lastly, it should be remarked that these data relative to the overstepping of the time requirements and costs are still partial, because not all progr
ams have been completed. In particular, the increases in the costs of the programs of the Army are likely to exceed the already high increases of the Navy.
-----
Tab. 19 Cost of the promotional bills (in constant 1986 billions and in zombie billions)
A B C = A-B (C/A)%
armed force constant zombie difference underestimation
currency currency
Army 11.920 8.015 3.095 33%
Navy 11.970 5.350 6.620 55%
Air Force 11.320 8.887 2.433 21%
Total 35.210 22.252 12.958 37%
Sources: Our estimations, based on the data of the draft bill, the estimated national budget (fiscal years 1984, 1985, 1986), table 12, estimated budget for the Ministry of Defense.
-----
The only justification provided by the Ministry of Defense to explain the overstepping of the terms of the program and of the estimated expenditure for the acquisition of weapons is the so-called military inflation. According to the "White Paper", multi-year commitments, "in the framework of the orders for weapons and means, provide for an annual rise in the costs which is generally higher than the official rate of reference" (15). According to the "White Paper" this occurs for three reasons: "a) because high-technology manufactured products have price revision rate which is higher than the average inflation rate; b) because a component of the military supplies, relative to specialized products which cannot be economically reproduced by our industries, is purchased in foreign currency on the international market; c) because the renewal of weapons generally provides for a higher degree of sophistication of the weapons systems, which entails a parallel rise in the costs".
It is hard to make head or tail of such a controversial subject such as that of the price trend in the military sector.
Nonetheless, it is most appropriate to recall that the main conclusion of a study on the matter conducted by the Sipri, the international research institute on peace based in Stockholm (16), is that there is no empirical demonstration to support that inflation in the military sector - when it is "adequately" assessed - is higher than that of the civilian sector.
On the one hand, it is true that in many countries the input price indexes of the military sector increase more rapidly than the price indexes of the civilian sector for spending and output. But this most likely depends on the fact that the figures of the inputs of the military sector do not take into account - as they should - the rise in productivity of the military personnel. Thus, the use of the input price indexes tends to give excessively high results (17). On the other hand, it is also true that the prices of most weapons systems have risen far more rapidly than the prices of the products of civilian engineering; this has occurred because of the fact that the process of improvement of the product (or, in other words, the change of quality) is usually much more rapid in the military sector than in the civilian one. Nonetheless, when this factor of quality improvement is isolated and deduced (as it should be when building a price index), there ensues that the differences between the price indexes of the
civilian sector and of the military sector relative to the expenses tend to disappear (18).
Moreover, in this study we have chosen to deflate the expenditures of the defense budget, as done by the Sipri, by using a consumer price index for the families of workers and employees, as supplied by the Istat. Generally speaking, this procedure is less satisfactory than that of using other price indexes such as, for example, the implicit deflator of the GDP or the wholesale price index (19). However, using one index rather than another does not seem to make much difference, because the data provided by Sipri do not highlight a general tendency of the price index of the GDP (as the wholesale ones) to vary much from the consumer price index. On average, in the industrial countries, they have fluctuated throughout the sixties and seventies in a rather similar way (20). Lastly, there are also valid reasons behind the decision of using the consumer price index: first of all, it is the most easily available index; secondly it is the only index which is generally available for almost all countries.
In conclusion, this index represents a tolerable approximation of the "real" index of the prices of military expenditures (21).
However, other elements, as well as the military inflation, seem to cause the explosion of the production costs of the new weapons systems. First of all, there is a generalized lack of interest on the part of the military for less expensive planning and production procedures which have historically been developed by the industry. Modifications of the project are included in each stage of the development and also of the production, following the drive to add the latest technological innovations as well. The military's capacity to control the orders entrusted to the companies is weak, considering the generally lower technical level of military-controllers compared to civilian technicians. To these reasons we must add the military industries' great capacity to exert pressure, often managing to dodge quality controls and delivery deadlines which should be controlled by the officials charged with following the various projects on behalf of the Ministry of Defense. Once retired, such officials are often hired or a
ppointed members of the board of directors of the company at hand. This combination of interests between the military and the industrials, which gives rise to the so-called military-industrial complexes, is an international phenomenon that concerns all Western countries. However, whereas in the other countries radical measures are often taken to increase the control on military orders (22), Italy stand out for the lack of any legal norm or punitive measure. There is no law regulating or limiting the officials' flight towards the companies. The Defense lacks any intention to discourage any undue pressures from within (through the disciplinary system) and externally (blocking the orders to industries that carry out dishonest practices). The minister of defense Giovanni Spadolini seems to have recently become aware of the gravity of the problem. In September 1985, on the basis of an Irdpis research, the radical group chairman Francesco Rutelli denounced a number of cases of greater wastes in military orders. Th
e same day in which the radicals denounced these facts, Spadolini ordered "an immediate and strict administrative inspection to assess the truth of the facts pointed out and any responsibilities" (23). Unfortunately, in the many months that have elapsed since that statement, no information has been provided by the minister on the progress of the inspection, prompting the suspicion that no inspection was ever started.
7. Expenditure for armaments: the new promotional bill of 1984 and the new projects
The delays and the overstepping of the expenditures authorized by the promotional bills of 1975-77 has not prevented the Defense from presenting a new promotional bill. In summer 1984, Parliament passed a bill (n. 456/84) for the funding of research and development (R&D) of three weapons systems: the light AM-X fighter, the heavy anti-submarine helicopter EH-101, the battlefield transmission system CATRIN. The most important novelty of the new promotional law is that it concerns only the funding of the R&D of the three weapons systems and not their production. Table 20 shows the increase of the costs of the program of the new bill since it was passed in 1986.
-----
Tab. 20 Cost of the promotional bill 456/84 (in current 1985 and 1986 billions)
A B (B-A)/A
%
name of costs according costs according overexpense
program to bill to Defense
di R/S (1984) (1986)
AM-X 470 667 41,9%
EH-101 300 540 80,0%
CATRIN 226 750 231,9%
Notes: The data of column B relative to AM-X and CATRIN have been obtained by summing the commitments already taken by the Defense and the estimated expenditures for the completion of the programs. For the EH-101, the report contained in the estimated budget for 1986 does not clearly specify the estimated expenditures, but refers to its own hypotheses of inflation and cost explosion which we used to calculate the figure of the table.
Sources: Our calculations on the basis of the data taken from the draft bill, the estimated national budget (fiscal year 1982), table 12, estimated budget for the ministry of defense.
-----
The overstepping of the estimated expenditures, passed by Parliament only two years ago, shows quasi-exponential mechanisms of growth, and in any case more marked ones than the ones analysed for the previous promotional bills. This fact is even more serious if we consider other elements. The R&D of the light AM-X fighter had been financed in the hypothesis that the costs for the development of the new aircraft were to be borne only by Italy. After the bill was passed, an agreement was reached instead with the Brazilian government for a cooperation in the R&D of the new aircraft. Despite the international agreement, which should have meant a diminution in the Italian share of expenses, the latter increased. To finance the R&D of the EH-101 helicopter, the Defense allocated Lit. 300 billion and a further Lit. 127 billion (taken from the funds of bill n. 46 on technological innovation) entrusted to the ministry of industry. In spite of this, the estimated expenses for Defense have almost doubled. The most signi
ficant overstepping of the costs is the one relative to the CATRIN communications, command, control and information system (C3I). The choice of the Army and of the Defense of producing a program this size on a national basis had already caused the expenses to triple.
The major gap between the promotional fundings passed by Parliament and the actual costs of the programs can be explained not only with military inflation, the military's scarce planning capacity and the other mentioned causes. It also seems that the military and the ministers of defense are deliberately trying to dodge Parliament's role of control. The latter is submitted deliberately understimated funding requests in the stage of the passage of the bills, and later manipulated data on their implementation. New promotional bills are being proposed while the previous ones are still far from completed. The promotional bills, born as an instrument for special intervention in a critical condition of Defense, have become the rule. The previous shortcomings in the weapons systems add up to other ones which have arisen in the meanwhile. A new restructuring is overlapping the old and incomplete one of the seventies. It set itself new military objectives and calls for new weapons systems. Thus, we are faced to an e
ndless restructuring process, within which Defense dodges parliamentary controls as much as possible. The programs that are discussed, passed and controlled by Parliament (the ones of the promotional bills) are deliberately delayed, to use those funds to start new projects which have never been discussed in Parliament.
A complete list of these programs can be found in the "additional note" to the estimate defense budget which Spadolini handed to Parliament after 1985 (24). According to the "White Paper", the "additional note" would enable "to relate the accounting data of the estimated budget to a multi-year financial planning and this, in turn, to the current adjustment of the interforce missions" (25). Unfortunately, the much touted intentions do not correspond to the reality described by the "additional note" to the 1986 budget. This document is filled with a range of new weapons systems that are not listed in the budget, or present other formulations and figures. A number of examples can illustrate this point.
Among the Army's programs are the SKYGUARD and STINGER missile systems, which would involve a global burden of Lit. 2,500 billion according to the "additional note", and of Lit. 2,100 billion according to the estimated budget for 1986. Vice versa, the burden for 1986 amounts to Lit. 40 billion according to the "additional note" and of Lit. 114 billion according to the budget. The semi-moving SP-70 howitzer, the multiple rocket launcher MLRs, the revitalization of the semi-moving M-109 howitzers are listed along with the FH-70 howitzer in the "additional note", but the latter is listed in the budget. The amount is Lit. 2,200 billion, 40 of which in 1986; however, according to the budget, the burden for 1986 of the FH-70 alone is Lit. 65 billion. The "revitilization of the transport helicopters" (for which, after the due subtractions and additions, we can calculate circa Lit. 300 billion) is not listed in the budget. The "nationally-produced tanks" of the second and third generation, which would cost over Lit.
1,000 billion in the "additional note" are not mentioned in the budget.
There are incongruities also as far as the Navy is concerned. The modernization of the Audace-type destroyers and of the Lupo-type ships, as well as the "integration" of the SH-3D helicopters, would imply, according to the "additional note", a burden in 1986 corresponding to Lit. 253 billion; the completion of these programs would involve a cost of Lit. 3,000 billion. These are clandestine programs for the estimated budget. The same applies to the "three new-concept submarines", whose estimated costs is Lit. 1,200 billion. Moreover, the "additional note" does not contain the estimated costs relative to several weapons systems: the new carrier groups and logistic groups, the renewal of the line of the corvettes and of the fast units, the European EFA fighter, the replacing of the NIKE-HERCULES and HAWK missile systems, the EH-101 helicopters, replaced by the ATLANTIC aircraft, the airborne radar and the integration into the ACCS Nato radar system, the Cisterna aircraft, the costs relative to the Rapid deploym
ent force (FIR), as well as vertical take-off aircraft for the Garibaldi cruiser.
The financial planning scheme outlined in the "additional note" is inaccurate and vague. Despite the fact that one of the declared objectives of this document was that of providing further explanations on the costs of multi-year programs, the single reliable figures concern fiscal year 1986, during which about Lit. 3,8000 were allegedly spent on weapons systems and infrastructures. The estimate expenses for medium and long-term weapons are instead largely inaccurate. The "additional note" indicates the end of the decade (1990) as a medium-term period, while the long period is the endless one beyond 1990. However, the clarity of intentions is not reflected in the description of the various programs. Only the medium-term estimated expenses are provided of certain programs, while only long-term ones are provided of others. While it is understandable to provide the single estimated medium-term costs for the programs that will supposedly be completed by the decade, it is incorrect not to define the share of mediu
m-term expenses of programs that will be completed after 1990. Thus, from the sum of the data provided by the "additional note" for 1986, there ensues an estimation that underestimates the costs of the medium-term programs, reaching a total of Lit. 12 billion for the programs that should be completed by the end of the decade alone. While Lit. 23 billion should be spent in an indefinite period after 1990, which should however be added to those relative to the programs of which the defense has not deemed necessary to provide the estimates. A careless reader could consider the estimation of spending Lit. 12 billion in armaments between 1987 and 1990 reassuring, as it corresponds to the average annual expense of about Lit. 3,000 billion. In fact, the already mentioned Irdisp categories of disaggregation of the Defense budget, the arms expenditure of the three armed force in the estimated budget for 1986 reaches Lit. 5,800 billion, while the same category of expenses in the consolidated balance of 1984 had reache
d Lit. 3,500 billion (in 1984 lire). As you can see, these are orders of magnitude which are already significantly higher than those of the "additional note". Therefore, it seems to us that with this last document, the old praxis of the defense of manipulating the data to obtain the passage of promotional budgets and laws from a careless Parliament, continues.
-----
Tab. 21 Financial planning of the Defense for short-, medium- and long-term weapons purchases
name of mission weapons systems costs costs and costs
program/s of program 1986 at 1990 after
1990
1. MISSION IN NORTH-EAST
1.1. FOR FIRE
anti-tank weapons 260 1.300
- MILAN a/t msl
- A-129 a/t hel
- FOLGORE a/t msl
- self-defense rl
anti-air weapons for defens of units 40 2.500
- SKYGUARD-ASPIDE msl sst
- STINGER sml sst
- conventional spl veh.
artilleries 40 2.200
- FH-70 howitzer
- SP-70 spl
- MLRS rl
air support 430 3.500
- G-91 aircraft
- F-104 aircraft
- TORNADO aircraft
- AM-X aircraft
1.2. FOR MOVEMENT
various programs 147 2.311
- R/S VCC-80
- auxiliary tanks and means for
night combat
- rvt trs hel
1.3. FOR FIRE AND MOVEMENT
various programs 114 1.964
- 2nd gen. tanks
- rvt M-60 and LEOPARD tanks
- R/D 3rd gen. tank
1.4. NAVAL FORCES SUPPORT
various programs 90 900
- corvettes
- minesweepers
- light units
- mining means
1.5. COMMAND AND CONTROL
various programs 40 1.300
- CATRIN cmn sst
- other comn progr.
2. MISSION IN THE SOUTH
2.1. SEA CONTROL AND
TRAFFIC PROTECTION 253 3.000
- cmp GARIBALDI
- cmp frg cls MAESTRALE
- cmp minesweepers
- 2 mlc
- 6 more minesweepers
- rvt des cls AUDACE
- rvt frg cls LUPO
- hel for GARIBALDI
2.2. AIR CONTROL NEAR TERRITORY 133 1.000
- rvt half of the corvettes
- modernization radars
2.3. UNDERWATER OPERATIONS 800
- various weapons sst
- 3 submarines 1.200
2.4. AIR SUPPORT 350 1.600
- cmp AB-212 helicopters
- rvt ATLANTIC aircraft
- F-104
- TORNADO
- cmp R/D AM-X
- cmp R/D EH-101 hel *
- R/D EFA aircraft *
- V/STOL aircraft *
2.5. LAND COMPONENT
- that of the 4th mission
3. AIR DEFENSE MISSION
3.1. DEFENSE WITH AIRCRAFT 480 3.700
- rvt F-104-S*
- cmp TORNADO line*
- R/D and production AM-X
- R/D EFA
- tanker aircraft*
3.2. AREA DEFENSE WITH MISSILES 70
- rvt msl sst HAWK
- pur PATRIOT msl*
3.3. DIFESA DI PUNTO 200 1.400
- pur msl sst SPADA-ASPIDE
- cmp self-propelled veh.
- cmp air base self-def. means
3.4. DISCOVERY MEANS 45 1.200
- potentiation shield
- radar
3.5. COMMAND AND CONTROL
- integration of Italy into
Nato ACCS sst*
4.TERRITORY DEFENSE MISSION
4.1. LAND FORCES 221 3.300
- maneuvre a/t defense forces
- support land fire
a/t defense
4.2. NAVAL FORCES 68 1.500
4.3. ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENSE OF BASES 900
5. SECURITY AND CIVIL PROTECTION MISSION 50
6. SUPPORT FUNCTIONS
6.1. AMMUNITION SUPPLIES 50
6.2. TOTAL INFRASTRUCTURES 711
TOTAL 3.972 11.705 23.600
Key:
a/a = anti-aircraft
ACCS = Air Control and Communications System
pur = acquisto
a/t = anti-tank
cls = class
cmn = communications
cmp = completion
des = destroyer/s
mlc = missile-launching cruiser
dfs = defense
hel = helicopter/s
frg = frigate/s
gnr = generation
rl = rocket launcher
msl = missile/s
prd = production
prg = program
R/D = research and development
rvt = rivitalization
spl = self-propelled vehicle/s
sst = sistem/s
VCC = armed personnel carrier vehicles
V/STOL = short/vertical take-off
* = weapons systems on the cost of which no estimate is provided
Source: Ministry of Defense, "Additional note of the estimated defense budget for 1986"
----
8. Projections of arms expenditure
The price tags hanging on the periodic requests for new weapons advanced by the ministry of Defense should therefore be read cum grano salis: they are always underestimated and bound in time to grow dramatically. To have an idea of the size of such underestimation, we can return to the promotional bills. When they were passed in 1975-77, the ten-year request of rearmament of the three armed forces amounted to Lit. 3,380 billion of the time - to simplify, let's say Lit. 3,380 billion in 1976 lire. Ten years later, in 1986 currency, the same programs have come to cost Lit. 35,210 billion (Cf. table 19). Deducting the increase due to inflation, we discover than the real increase has been 176 percent - on average, 10,7 percent a year, in the decade. In other words, even if there had been zero inflation in Italy from 1976 to date, the costs of the programs of the three promotional bills would have nonetheless tripled, from the mentioned 3,380 to slightly over 9,300 billion.
Therefore, if we try to assess the costs of the coming ten years of rearmament, we should expect a similar rate of real increase of the price of the weapons. The last two columns of table 21 - which summarizes the estimates contained in the "additional note" of the 1986 budget - summed up give about Lit. 35,000 billion lire. If the size of the ministry's "discount" is similar to that of ten years ago, it is legitimate to expect that those programs will cost in 1996 176% more, i.e. about Lit. 62,000 in current lire.
Nonetheless, the list of purchases presented in the "additional note" is, as we pointed out in the previous paragraph, extremely partial. Estimating it to be about two thirds of the total weapons spending, we can conclude that the coming decade of rearmament will cost our country 90-100 billion of 1986 lire. It is a figure that confirms the Irdisp's previous estimates (26) and which appears to be consistent with the trends of Italian military spending. According to Nato data, the latter amounts to about Lit. 20,000 billion a year, 40% of which, according to our calculation of the budget data, devoted to the purchase of weapons.
9. Estimated budget for 1986: which freeze and why
The ministry of Defense's estimated budget for 1986 (table 7) shows a real increase of 1,9 percent compared to the estimate of the previous year. Therefore, it is self-evident that an increase is not a freeze. At any rate, the real increase of the estimated budget is, along with that of 1983, the smallest increase in the defense's estimated budgets of the eighties. The minister of defense, Giovanni Spadolini, declared, on presenting the budget to the Chamber, that it was "a deliberate act of austerity" assumed in view of the other major problems that must be confronted with the state budget (27). In Parliament, Spadolini also declared that "it is a sacrifice for 1986 and only for this year". and that the defense had renounced "for such year a 3 percent increase in real terms" established in Nato framework.
These statements have been largely echoed by the media, which have launched two messages to the public opinion: one of concern for the failed respect of the Nato agreements, the other of esteem for a minister of defense who is so sensitive to the country's other problems. Neither message corresponds to the reality. As we saw, Italy has always spent more than it had pledged to spend with the Nato decision of 1978, accumulating a "surplus" with respect to the commitments of several thousand billion. In 1976 the Minister of Defense could therefore have presented a budget of only 11,700 billion (obviously in 1986 lire) while continuing to honour the Nato commitment of a 3 percent increase.
Secondly, always with reference to the "presumed" sacrifice of 1986, it is worth saying that it is precisely a presumed sacrifice, i.e. it refers to the estimate budget. Spadolini himself, in presenting the 1986 budget to the Chamber, recalled the criticism expressed by the radical member of parliament Francesco Rutelli, who "refers to the 1986 consolidated balance for a concrete assessment". Rutelli's doubts originate from experience. In 1980, the then chief of Defense staff Vittorio Santini had threatened to resign because of an estimate budget of Lit. 5,780 billion, which he judged to be too low. Then, with Lagorio as minister of defense, the consolidated balance of 1980 had grown by 16,4 percent, reaching Lit. 6,729 billion. Compared to the presumed sacrifices of Defense for 1986, it seems to us not only possible but even likely that Spadolini repeated what Lagorio had done in 1980. In particular, one condition, i.e. the accumulation of passive residues in the past years, makes us consider the comparison
with 1980 as probable. Figure 22 shows the trend of the Defense's estimate budgets passed by Parliament (1980-85) and of the passive residues (1980-84) of the last years. As you can see, until 1983 there is a diverging trend between the passed estimated budgets and the residues (money allocated but not spent). In 1984, on the other hand, the increase in the budget corresponded to a parallel rise in the residues, which reached Lit. 6,400 billion. In other words, the ministry of defense did not manage in 1984 to spend anything of the increase which it requested and obtained at the beginning of the fiscal year. Even if (on drafting this chapter) there are no data relative to the residues of 1986, we can hypothesize that the trend toward an increase in the residues has maintained in 1985 the high rate of increase of 1984.
In a similar situation, it is also likely that for 1986 the other ministers of the cabinet coalition refused to grant further increases to the defense which it would not have managed to spend during the fiscal year. Among other things, these considerations places the touted act of voluntary sacrifice of the minister of defense in a totally different light. It seems neither voluntary nor motivated by the need to confront the major civilian problems of the country.
It would be no great wonder, if we had access to the consolidated balance of 1986, if we discovered that, with respect to the circa Lit. 18 billion of estimate budget, 23 billion had been spent. The best way to summarize the debate on the supposed freeze in the defense's 1986 budget is suggested by the title of one of Shakespeare's plays: "Much ado about nothing".
More interesting is paying attention to another tendency which seems to manifest itself in the financial strategy of the defense in past years: the tendency to discharge a growing part of the military expenditures on the balances of other ministries. Even if it is a tendency which has long been practiced (e.g. with the mentioned transfer of payments of the military's pensions to the Treasury), a number of elements seem to point to the fact that there is a new intention to "decentralize" growing shares of military expenditure on other ministries. In the national budget for 1986, for example, 150 billion for the construction of new barracks for the carabinieri are listed in the budget of the ministry of public works instead of that of the ministry of defense. To this example we must add the funding for military R&D allocated by the ministry of industry and state participations which is much vaster than the above mentioned case of the funding of EH-101 helicopters. The other aspect of this same tendency is tha
t of using funds allocated to the defense for social purposes for military purposes. The case of the funds for civil protection allocated to the ministry of defense is emblematic of this tendency.
10. Final conclusions and international comparisons
On the basis of the analyses conducted so far, we think we have proved that Italy spends more for its defense than it did in the past decade and than the defense is willing to admit. While the U.S. allies' complaints until a couple of years ago on the scarce economic commitment of the Italians (and Europeans) for their defense had a real basis, now this criticism is groundless. The problem is another one. In these years we are passing from an adequate commitment for our defense to a substantial commitment to our capacity of force projection in the Mediterranean region and also towards the East. The costs of a military means for "a war and a half" (the full war being the one against the Warsaw Pact, the half war being a bilateral confrontation in the Mediterranean area), capable of pursuing both the objective of national defense and that of an external force projection, are extremely high, and call for a constant growth of the military spending equivalent or higher than that of the last five years. The adopti
on of a strictly defensive security policy, of a greater cooperation with the other European countries in the production of weapons, of a greater control on the allocations would instead lead to a stabilization and reduction of the military expenses.
There is a close link between the size of the expenditures for defense and the objectives of the security policy. In general, the more ambitious the security policy chosen, the greater the military expenditures of that country. Likewise, significant quantitative increases in the military spending of a country are a sign of qualitiative changes in its security policy. However, the ratio between the size of the defense expenditures and the security objectives is not automatic. It depends largely also on other factors, such as the possibility of dividing the costs for defense within an alliance, and especially, the actual size of the specific threat which each country must confront. Only the combined use of these three criteria of evaluation can give an answer to the question "which is the degree of military spending sufficient to guarantee the security of the country?"
This premise is necessary to formulate the comparison with the other countries in the most transparent way. There is a tendency on the part of the authorities of the Defense, to constantly repropose comparisons with the military expenditures of other countries only on the basis of figures, failing to explain each country's peculiar security problems and the security objectives of the respective governments. In particular, several civilian and military representatives of the Defense concentrate their attention on the military expenditures of France and Great Britain, stating that those are the shares of military spending which Italy should aim at. The most extravagant fact is that the Defense does not state that it is necessary to spend as much as those countries, because the intention is pursuing a security policy similar to theirs. On the contrary, the authorities of the defense refer to the need to follow the example of those two countries because they are "more developed" than ours, as if the percentage o
f military expenditures on the gross domestic product were the index of the economic development or of the degree of civilization of a country. This is not true. Countries such as the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan, which present the highest indexes of economic development of the post-war period, spend much less on their defense than the United States, France or Great Britain. Any assessment of military spending should therefore refer mainly to the reality of the threats and to the security objectives adopted.
Table 1 of the third chapter shows a comparison between the military expenditures (as percent of the gross domestic product) of the Nato countries. Considering the significant fluctuations between the estimates and the final data, we have chosen to use the ascertained data relative to 1984 for a comparison, instead of the estimates on 1985. We can therefore see that Italy (2,7 percent of military spending on the gross domestic product) ranks fifth from the last, followed by Spain (2,5)* [*this datum, wich is not listed in table 1, is taken from the ""SIPRI Yearbook 1985", p. 281.], Denmark (2,3), Canada (2,2) and Luxembourg (1,2). Apart from Norway (2,8) which spends about the same amount as Italy, we can identify a group of "medium spenders" formed by Belgium (3,2), Federal Germany (3,3), Holland (3,2), Portugal (3,3) which spend a share of gross domestic product ranging between 3,0 and 3,3. Next comes a group of "major spenders" for defense: France (4,1), Turkey (4,4), Great Britain (5,3), United States (5
,3), Greece (7,2).
The evaluations of the various exponents of the Defense that consider the Italian military spending to be modest are based on this premise. With respect to this, it must be said that the stabilization of the Italian military spending on 2,7 percent of the gross domestic product is due to the explosion of the passive residues of the defense budget as of 1984. If the Defense managed to spend throughout 1986 all the residues accumulated until 1984, the percent of Italian military expenditure on the gross domestic product would rise to 3,6 percent. Even reducing the size of the residues to the share of 1980 (about 2,000 billion) would give us 3,3 percent. In this case, Italy would become the head of the group of medium spenders.
However, this quantitative comparison is meaningless if we do not consider the various geostrategic peculiarities of the single countries and the specific threats which they must confront. Among the major spenders for defense in Nato are Greece and Turkey. Both countries are in direct contact with the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Moreover, relations between the two counties are tense, so much that they consider themselves mutually threatened. The influence of these two factors on the size of their military expenditures cannot be underestimated. As far as Turkey is concerned, it is important to say that it is a country governed by a military dictatorship, and that this has an obvious influence in keeping the expenses for defense high. Also for medium spenders, the threat has its influence on the size of the military expenditures. In particular, Federal Germany, but also Belgium, and Holland, are the countries that are more directly threatened by a possible invasion on the part of the Warsaw Pact. Federal Ger
many must face a possible attack which can develop along its 700 kilometres of boundary that separates it from the Soviet bloc. This border is almost entirely devoid of natural obstacles. Portugal, another medium spender, does not have to confront threats of this kind; however, it is a country that has come out of a long dictatorship in the last decade, which had boosted its military expenditure in order to guarantee its dominion on the colonies.
Since the captains' revolution of 1975, Portugal's military expenditures have been gradually declining (from 3,6 to 3,3 of the GDP). A different approach must be used for three other major spenders in Nato: United States, Great Britain and France. In the security objectives of this countries there is a prevalence of international security over national security. Partly out of history and part out of vocation, these countries feel called to carry out more or less global military roles, i.e. roles of international security but which are carried out mostly outside the UN framework. Assuming these global military roles expresses itself in the decision to equip with autonomous nuclear weapons and to dispose of ample capacity of force projection on the regional or international scale. The weight of these two security objectives on the size of military expenditures is considerable. About one third of France's military expenditure is used to maintain and develop the autonomous nuclear deterrent. Great Britain spends
a similar share for its nuclear weapons. The cost of certain nuclear weapons systems has become such that, a few years ago in Great Britain, the government had to choose between building a new series of submarines with nuclear missiles and maintaining the fleet. As far as the projection of conventional military force is concerned, both the United States, France and Great Britain disposes of bases and forces that are stationed in various parts of the world. Both the U.S. and Great Britain dispose of entirely professional armed forces, more expensive but more reliable for external interventions. The British military intervention in the Falkland-Malvinas is an evident demonstration of a global capacity, just as France's African vocation has expressed itself even recently in a series of military interventions, especially in Central Africa (Tchad). It is needless to talk about the United States' global vocation. Similar global or regional vocations are present also among the countries of the Warsaw Pact and in o
ther countries outside the bloc, but analysing their military expenditures would lead us too far. A common trend which has emerged recently characterizes the capacity of conventional force projection (with consequences also on the military budgets) of the powers with global or regional vocations. The ever greater difficulty in disposing "freely" of territories (and partly of the skies) of other countries has caused a decline in the possibility to station permanent troops abroad. As a consequence, the commitment to rapidly deploy troops stationed on the national territory in trouble spots has increased. Whether these interventions are carried out with naval means (carriers) or with air means (large transport aircraft or bombers), the costs of this capacity of offensive force projection are high, and weigh considerably on the military expenditure.
When analysing Italy's situation, it is best to make a distinction between objective and subjective data. The former include the secondary nature of the Italian military theatre compared to the hypothesis of an invasion of the Warsaw Pact forces. To a threat from the East less important than the one that the countries of Central Europe must face we need to add the privileged geostrategic situation of Italy: from the natural defense provided by the Alps at no cost to the limited part to be used for an invasion with tanks of the country (the 60 kilometres of the "Gorizia threshold") to the cushion area formed by the neutral and non-aligned countries (Austria and Yugoslavia) which separate us from a direct contact with the Soviet bloc. Even the threat from the South, while real, is limited and circumscribed by nature. Without entering into further details (which have been analyzed in the previous chapters) we can say that compared to the objective situation of the threats, there is no major reason to pass from
the group of medium spenders to that of major spenders for defense. Italy's adhesion to the non proliferation treaty exempts us from the huge costs for the production and development of nuclear weapons. Moreover, our Constitution does not provide for military roles of international security carried out outside the UN of geographically circumscribed defensive alliances. The desire to maintain the Italian military expenditure therefore seems to express the government's and the Defense's subjective intention of changing certain bases of the traditional security policy. This applies not so much to the recurring tendencies toward an autonomous nuclear role, advanced by minority groups among the politicians and the military. It applies especially to the assumption of an autonomous regional military role, i.e. for the Mediterranean vocation which has rooted itself in the military and political leaderships in this decade. Only by expressing one's security objectives can one succeed in defining what is necessary for
defense. Thus, the first question on "how much is necessary" takes us to the fundamental question "which is the security we want to obtain"?. In these terms, a government elected in a regime of democracy should present its requests for increases in the military budget by attaching clear security objectives and reliable and non-manipulated data. The path taken is instead another one. As the former General Luigi Caligaris says, "our defense has never been transparent". On the political level, the scant consent has lead to choose the pragmatically ambiguous path of the "done and not said" (28).
The method of analysis so far developed to politically assess the military expenses and economically the security objectives should be applied also for the comparisons with the European countries that are not part of the blocs. It is a dutiful analysis if we consider the hypothesis that our country can one day consider it appropriate to make new choices on foreign and security policy. Several neutral and non-aligned countries have spent in 1983 for their defense a percentage equal or lower than 2 percent of their GDP. It is the case of Austria, Finland, Ireland and Switzerland (29). Neutral Sweden has spent for its defense 3,2 of its gross domestic product, non-aligned Yugoslavia spent 3,9 percent. In this case too, the close or direct contact with the Soviet bloc boosts the military expenditure. Further increases in the military expenditure of these two countries are probably induced by the impossibility of dividing the costs for its defense within an alliance. In any case, Italy's choice of military neutra
lity could also call for military expenses higher than the current ones. The neutrality of the Swedes and of the Yugoslavs are but two of the possible choices of neutrality carried out. However, among the neutral and non-aligned states, the two aforementioned countries enjoy a universally acknowledged and "credible" capacity of military self-defense.
Moreover, the gap between the Italian military expenditure and that of Sweden, considering the current trend to increase the Italian military expenditure, may also disappear within a couple of years. Lastly, regarding any comparison with other countries, the economic costs of each security policy and choice must be considered in the light of the profits which the old and new choices enable. Profits relative to the greater or smaller possibilities of suffering an enemy aggression or of being involved in a conflict, to the greater or smaller possibility of carrying out a role of political stabilization on the regional scale for the peaceful settlement of controversies, to the most favourable economic and political relations with the various security policies enable with the various countries.
NOTES
1. For example, see the estimated defense budget for 1985, where 12 billion more than due have been listed in chapter 1381.
2. Between 1979 and 1980, the vastness of the disasters caused by the earthquake in Irpinia and the media impact of the tragedy of Vermicino had the effect of producing, possibly for the first time in Italy, the awareness of the need for a commitment against "natural catastrophes" adequate to the situation and to the possibilities of the country. The awareness of the gravity of the problem, of the need for urgent and drastic measures, of the total lack of specifically organized and trained structures, of the confusion generated by several structures competing among each other led the parliamentarians to choose the armed forces as the linchpin of a structure of civil defense. In March 1981, Parliament unanimously voted an allocation of Lit. 650 billion for the "constitution, equipment and training of mobile operative units of the Armed forces to contribute to civil protection and assistance to the populations struck by calamities in Italy and abroad". The management of these funds is entrusted to the military
. A new chapter is opened in the defense budget, n. 4071, where the expenses borne for civil protection are listed. With the circa Lit. 600 billion at is disposal for civil protection, the Defense has managed to produce a single explicitly finalized sophisticated system: an anti-fire module of the Aeritalia, fitted as of 1982 on the G-222s offered by the civil protection. With the rest of the money, the armed forces have solved several problems, which have nothing to do with civil protection. The following data are taken from the proceedings of the governmental committees of control on military orders. With the funds of chapt. 4071, the Air Force has purchased 16 IFF apparata to be fitted on 16 of the 21 helicopters for civil protection. The IFFs (Identification Friend or Foe) are, as the name suggests, sophisticated electronic apparata enabling to identify friendly craft and thus avoid downing them by mistake. Identical weapons systems are mounted on the Tornados and on the MB-339s. The cost of the helicopt
ers and of the relative IFF apparata amounts to circa Lit. 80 billion. With the same funds of chapt. 4071, the Air Force has paid for the costs of research, development and production of the first two models of the MRCS-403. It is an apparatus which is produced by the Selenia and which integrates a two-dimension radar with a 3-D one. It is a specially designed weapons system to improve anti-air defense at medium and low altitudes. One of the most widely touted military features of the MRCS-402s is its capacity to resist in electronically disturbed environments. The Defense had long felt the need for a radar capable of waging an electronic war. As the 1986 defense budget explains, that of the MRCS-403 was "a research and development project (AM 82) financed in the seventies by the Defense Administration". It is such a war-oriented radar that two more MRCS-403s have been ordered to the Selenia, this time listing the expense at the chapter for arms purchases. The cost of the first two MRCS-403s is Lit. 35 billi
on. The Navy has bought with chapt. 4071 two MASs (Motoscafi Appoggio Subacquei) which are means for intruder carrier groups of the Navy, not very suitable for being used against calamities that involve the community. The cost amounts to Lit. 5 billion. The two platforms for LPD units which the Navy wanted to buy and for which the Cantieri Navali Riuniti of Genua are working on cost Lit. 100 each. The LPD units, as the "Navy Yearbook 1983-84" explains, are "amphibious attack units". The artillery units to be fitted on the platforms of the LPD units ordered by the Navy to the Elsag company in March 1984 are two. One of the two LPD units, which certain journalists have inappropriately called "the linchpin of civil protection" is financed with chapter 4071. Navy and Army, always with the funds of chapter 4071, have also solved the problem of spare parts for their helicopters, which includes fighter and transport helicopters of various types, including the anti-submarine versions AB-212-As. The Army is no less a
mbitious. It has ordered six AB-412s to the Agusta company, with relative MX-156 rocket launchers which are already installed, contract paid at 96 percent with chapter 4071 and the remaining with the chapters for arms. Cost of the contract: Lit. 46 billion. The Army has also purchased FIAT-81 autoarticolati, which are normally used to transport tanks, and other units for a total of 36 billion. Both the radical party and Democrazia Proletaria have presented interrogations to the Judiciary urging it to ascertain the correctness of the doings of the military involved in these decisions.
3. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "La Difesa. Libro Bianco 1985", vol. 1, Roma, 1984, p. 65
4. "Ibidem", p. 65.
5. For example, Cf. the definition of "national defense" of the Defense Department and of the Office of Management and Budget of the U.S. Congress, mentioned by the Sipri (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), in "SIPRI Yearbook 1985", Taylor Francis, London and Philadelphia, 1985, p. 241, note to "National defense: a wider concept that the sole activities of the Department of Defense, which includes military activities financed outside the defense budget, such as the planning, experimentation and production of nuclear weapons (budget of the Department for Energy) and military constructions".
6. Cf. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "op. cit.", vol. 1, p. 54, where it says, "Among the land forces it is necessary to consider the Carabinieri. Fulfilling the operative tasks of the Carabinieri is currently entrusted to the 70th and 130th batallion of the Carabinieri, which...are part of the defensive deployment in the North-East scene. Defending the territory represents a fundamental aspect of the Carabinieri's military contribution. The Carabinieri participate with the existing forces in times of peace, with the units designed for major Army units and with the units to be formed in cases of emergency. Among the existing forces, the territorial organization, with the support of the air and naval components, seem irreplaceable for the indispensable action of observation and intelligence. Along with it, the batallions of the 11th brigade and the paratrooper batallion, particularly trained for anti-paratrooper actions, anti-airlanding and anti-guerrilla warfare. The forces to mobilize include the mobile units (10
0 percent Carabinieri) with ready intervention tasks in actions of counter-guerrilla warfare and mobile defense, as well as security units (25 percent Carabinieri) for the protection of vulnerable objectives".
7. The Irdisp has developed a database based on the chapters of the defense budget. Following is a list of the chapters that form the Irdisp categories of the subunit "national defense" of the budget.
Personnel: chapt. 1381, 1382, 1401, 1412, 1414, 1452, 1454, 1482, 1484, 1008, 1415, 1416, 1417, 1420, 1421, 1422, 1455, 1456, 1457, 1485, 1486, 1487, 1383, 1384, 1400, 1405, 1460, 1599, 1051, 1052, 1053, 1054, 1402, 1404, 1504, 1403, 1073, 1123, 1124, 1178, 3202, 3203, 3204, 3205, 3209, 1175, 1406, 1419, 1459, 1489, 2503, 2507, 3101, 2501, 2502, 2508, 3001, 3003, 2105, 2106, 2807, 1078, 1500, 1503, 1505, 7002, 1171, 1172, 1173, 3201, 3206, 3208, 2803, 2806, 7001, 8001, 8052, 1001, 1002, 1003, 1004, 1598, 1601, 1602, 1607, 1600, 1005, 1006, 1603, 1604, 1605, 1082, 1606, 1615, 1616, 1672, 1673, 1674, 1675, 1701, 3002, 3207.
Administration and services: chapt. 1070, 1071, 1074, 1081, 1086, 1087, 1088, 1089, 1090, 1091, 1092, 1096, 1097, 1104, 1107, 1130, 2512, 1072, 1075, 1077, 1079, 1084, 1085, 1095, 1106, 1121, 1122, 1174, 1083, 1103, 1169, 1176, 1179, 1844, 1094, 1100, 2505, 3004, 4004, 1099, 1506, 1180, 1181, 1241, 1242, 1243, 1244, 1245, 1098, 1105, 1170, 1671, 1842.
Contributions for international agreements: chapt. 1168, 4001, 1076, 1108.
Infrastructures and fuel: chapt. 1836, 1837, 1843, 1878, 2802, 2809, 4005, 2808, 2103, 2104, 2107, 2509, 2510, 2511.
Armi: cap. 1802, 2101, 2102, 4011, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1951, 4031, 1872, 1874, 1875, 1877, 2000, 2001, 2002, 4051, 2804, 2805, 1080, 4002, 7010, 7052, 4071.
Servizi civili: cap. 1109, 1177, 8152, 2003, 7231, 7233, 8101, 4006.
8. Bill 57 of 1975, "Construction and modernization of the naval means of the Military Navy"; bill n. 38 of 1977, "Modernization of the means of the Military Air Force"; bill 372 of 1977, "Modernization, armaments, material, equipment and means of the Army".
9. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "op. cit.", vol. 1, p. 67.
10. "Ibidem", p. 67.
11. AP, Senate of the Republic, 9th legislature, documents, "Draft bill, estimate budget of the State..., table 12, estimate of the Ministry of Defense for the fiscal year 1986", p. 285.
12. In the case of the program relative to the MILAN missile, the expenses borne between 1981 and 1983 listed in the draft bill for 1984 amount to 104,964 billion, and in the draft bill of 1985 become 199,7; in the case of the auxiliary tanks, the expenses borne between 1977 and 1983 listed in the draft bill for 1985 become 137,4 billion and in the draft bill of '86 become 174,192; in the case of the VCC1, the expenses covered from 1977 to 1983 listed in the draft bill for 1984 amount to 49,9 billion and in the draft bill of '85 become 20,7.
13. Point 8 of the Army's rearmament program, "Leopard fighting tanks", had been distinguished in the previous draft bills in the expense concerning the purchase of such weapon system and in the one concerning the advanvement and fire system (improvement of the Leopard tank), but in the estimate budget for 1986 such distinction has disappeared.
14. The costs for the logistic support and for the integrative systems of the weapons systems of the Navy change very easily. The costs for the logistic support of the landing units (LPD) remain invisible until 1984, then in the draft bill of 1985, they become 10 billion. The logistic support of the destroyers, which amounted to 90 billion in the draft bill of 1984 and to 100 billion in the draft bill of 1985, disappear in the draft bill of 1986. For minesweepers no draft bill specifies the costs of the logistic support, perhaps they will be listed the following year. For the other ships (hovercrafts, cruisers, corvettes), the costs for logistic support fluctuate year by year, lower and (more often) higher, as if they were caught in a storm.
15. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "op. cit.", vol. 1, p. 70.
16. Cf. "SIPRI Yearbook 1983", London, Taylor Francis, 1983, pp. 195-211.
17. "Ibidem", p. 200.
18. "Ibidem", p. 196.
19. Cf. GRAZIOLA G., ``Le politiche di spesa del Ministero della Difesa'', "L'industria", April-June 1984, p. 259, note 15.
20. "SIPRI Yearbook 1983", "op. cit.", p. 200.
21. Cf. GRAZIOLA G., "op. cit.", p. 259, note 15.
22. Cf. in particular the survey in four parts "Billions for Defense, US Military Spending" by the International Herald Tribune" on the problem of controlling U.S. military expneses in 1985 (B. Keller, 22 May; J. Gerth, 23 May.; S.V. Roberts, 24 May; C. Mohr, 25-26 May.). Cf. also S. Dentzer and others, "How the Pentagon Spends its Billions", "Newsweek", 11 Feb. 1985; J. Conant, "Scandal on the Supply Side", "Newsweek", 5 Aug. 1985. An interesting survey of the various means to control the military procurements enacted by several Western countries was made by R. Atkinson and F. Hiatt, "Weapons Buying: A Better Way?", "International Herald Tribune", 10 July 1985. The survey describes the drastic measures taken by the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and other countries to increase control in this sector.
23. Cf. ``Spadolini avvia una immediata e rigorosa indagine dopo la denuncia radicale di `sprechi' della Difesa'', "Corriere della Sera", 22 Sept. 1985.
24. SPADOLINI G., "Nota aggiuntiva allo stato di previsione per la Difesa" (anni 1985 e 1986), Ministero della difesa, Roma. The note was presented by Minister Spadolini to Parliament in October 1985, along with the estimate budget for 1986.
25. MINISTERO DELLA DIFESA, "op. cit.", vol. 1, p. 71.
26. Cf. CICCIOMESSERE R., "L'Italia armata. Rapporto sul Ministero della guerra", Gammalibri, Milano, 1982; DE ANDREIS M., "Le armi della Repubblica", Gammalibri, Milano, 1983.
27. Report written on the stimate budget of the Defense for 1986 presented by Giovanni Spadolini to the MPs of the Chamber defense committee.
28. "Corriere della Sera", 13 Dec. 1985.
29. Cf. "SIPRI Yearbook 1985", "op. cit.", p. 281.
