ABSTRACT: Western culture, in its different components, is presently unable to provide satisfactory answers to the crisis affecting the international system. The "defense model", which has prevailed up to this day, is a fundamental part of this culture, and it must be referred to in terms of building a concrete alternative, if we want to find a way out from the crisis. The essays published in the book "Italy and the arms race - a counter- White Book of Defense" edited by Marco de Andreis and Paolo Miggiano, IRDISP (Reseach Institute for Disarmament Development and Peace) researchers, are hereby presented and summarized.

(IRDISP - Italy and the arms race - Franco Angeli, Milan 1987)

The chronic incapacity of the national Armed Forces to produce that which is referred to as the common good of security, the dispersion, the distraction, and the unwise use of the consistent financial means destined for defense, the gradual assertion of a policy of rearmament, heavily conditioned by the interests of the "lords" and the "merchants" of war, and independent from any strategic vision, the impermeability of the Defense Administration to parliamentary control: this is what can be gathered from the chapters devoted to Italy contained in the "report" on the conditions of defense for 1986, laid down by the Irdisp.

We all perceive a sense of growing insecurity and impotence as regards old and new threats, an insecurity which seems to be increasing, not decreasing, precisely with the increase of the resources devoted to defense and with the perfectioning of the military instruments which should dissuade the enemy from engaging in a war. The process of modernization of the national military instrument and the very defensive doctrines adopted by the military and political leadership appear ever more alien and indifferent to the new requests of security which the complex mechanisms of the international system impose on the international community. The strategic options, and those relative to the size and the structure of the military apparatus seem more like the sub-product of industrial, commercial, occupational and lobbying interests, and of international political options accepted without criticism, independent variables as regards the need for security. It is unquestionable that the prevailing of these interests - be

they legitimate or illegitimate - and the resigned acceptance of the inadequacy of the military instrument concerning security problems, necessarily lead to the transfer of the decisional power from the constitutional organs to the economic, political and corporate oligarchies who detain these interests.

Moreover, if we look beyond the narrow national dimension, we see that in the international community two apparently conflicting pressures are operating, those relying on fear of a nuclear holocaust, and those relying on the reassuring power of an equal combination between exhibition of amazing and ever more destructive arms, and the promise of concluding decisive agreements and achieving disarmament.

The legitimate suspicion arises, that the wide-spread anxiety for the "day-after" is being exploited both by the people claiming that it is necessary, for the sake of survival, to deny the imperative of defense and the very existence of threats, both by people asserting that they want ro rid us from the nuclear nightmare, selling us the costly illusion of a total and perfect defense.

With the two essays on the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) and on U.S. strategic policies, the same theoretical limits and the same deviations in the defensive policies in our country appear to be amplified in the American empire.

The essay, apparently of a purely technical nature, on the subject of the division of the burden of defense among the NATO member countries, brings us to the core of the contradiction between demand for security and inadequacy of the present national and integrated defensive structures which the West has provided itself with.

If it is true that the European countries fully respect the fixed shares of the distribution of the expenditure within NATO, as is especially proved for Italy in the chapter devoted to the analysis of the defense budget, it is equally unquestionable that there exists a political agreement, not written but satisfactorily accepted everywhere, on the basis of which Europe delegates the U.S. empire to perform the tasks of common defense, and the USA reward European obedience to its role of power with the highest military expenses.

On this subject it must be acknowledged that the resolution of the European leaders of giving up on independently guaranteeing European security is much stronger than the ambition of 234 million Americans of ensuring the defense of 367 million Europeans. This is the reason for the occasional rebellions on the part of those American senators who ill tolerate European parasitism and have difficulties in understanding why the Europeans should not claim the expenses and the honours of a defensive autonomy, albeit in the context of the Atlantic alliance. This is also the reason for the United States' astonishment as regards to the outbursts of sovereignty on the part of the European "subject" - a willing subject - suddenly rebuking the "emperor", as in the case of the Sigonella accident, for violating elementary principles of international and internal law. And on top of this, the anger of having to suffer the affront of its aircrafts being forbidden to enter its airspace, decided by allies who are not willing

to risk their business and their tranquillity, not even when it means fighting against international terrorism.

But the true reason for the inadequacy of the defensive structures can be identified in the national and mainly military conception of security, and in the principle of national sovereignty which Western countries, as well as the whole of the countries represented by the United Nations, seem to cherish. The contradictions denounced in the "report" on the conditions of defence are rooted in the impossible co-existence between national defensive strategies and integrated structures and strategies.

If, in fact, it is impossible to understand the complex and dynamic logics of the "international system" starting from a state-centred formulation, if it is presently impossible to advocate the centrality of the defense of national boundaries in strategic theories, if asking for total protection of national sovereignty and at the same for effectiveness of the guarantees and international controls is an absurd pretension and an unsolvable contradiction, if it is impossible for a nation to autonomously guarantee the security of its citizens, why is it insisted upon on conceiving instruments and national strategies, even if partly integrated on the basis of agreements of mutual assistance?

It is not only a historical and cultural heritage of an epoch in which the distances between the continents represented an almost unpassable limit for the existing technologies. At the basis of this theoretical contradiction we once again find the short-sightedness of the national leaders and the interests of the national military-industrial companies. Only by opposing all logic of rationalization, of abatement of costs and efficiency, with the alibi of productive autonomy which would guarantee national independence, would the national defense industries, against the laws of the market and against the interests of the State, guarantee their existence and their profits.

In the contrary case, they would be brutally reorganized.

And if the alibi of autonomy were not sufficiently convincing, the occupational blackmail would have to be considered: 465 new jobs at Gioia Tauro should justify the autonomous production of the Milan anti-tank missile, with an increase in costs by 60% as compared to the direct purchase from overseas, which amounts to approximately 350 billion lire of the 940 billion of the entire program. 752 millions is the cost which the Italian tax-payer pays for each new job, in addition to the market price of the weapon system.

Here we have the explanation of that sleight-of-hand which has turned the 3,380 billion lire authorized by Parliament in 1976 for the program of modernization of the three armed forces into the 35,210 billion lire of 1986. Even calculating the first value at the 1986 rate (12,766), there still remains an average yearly increase of 36%. We therefore have a program for the purchasing of military instruments which is almost solely determined by industrial and political-lobbying interests, which leads to a series of random and non-coordinated purchases, and to very serious "gaps" in the defensive system: if 500 billion are thrown away for a useless and superfluous aircraft-carrier, it is obvious that the anti-aircraft systems from short, intermediate and long range turn out to be inadequate if not nil altogether.

If to all this the pretension of our generals and politicians to confront no less than 5 interforce missions is added, from the defence of the "Gorizia threshold" to that of the Southern "flank", from the air defense to the operative defense of the territory, right up to the actions of peace, security and civilian protection here in Italy and abroad, then we can understand why our military apparatus is unable, apart from any other evaluation on the limits of a purely military defense, to ensure the common good of security.

But even armies with a higher degree of "efficiency" as compared to ours, in any case reveal all the limits of a national formulation. It is the case with the French armed forces and their "force de frappe", which has the ambition of autonomously ensuring the defense of France and its territories as well as its interests overseas at "tout azimut". But, for example, without the American "Early Warning System" alarm system, the French defences against the missile forces of the Warsaw Pact would result completely useless. But even apart from these considerations, it is difficult to identify the moment in which France should consider its national defensive interests as compromised. Would a limited attack, conducted with conventional and chemical arms against West Germany, which succeeded in breaking the conventional allied defences, represent a lethal threat for France, such as to force it to intervene? The answer is only in theory yes, but the possibility that such offensive actions would induce France to use n

uclear arms is less certain. The danger of a retaliation on its territory, and the improbable event of the German government agreeing to use tactical nuclear arms on its own territory, would probably discourage this sort of military reaction.

Once again, we would find ourselves confronted with the incapacity of the most sophisticated Maginot line to counteract warfare actions. This is why France as well, irrespective of the ambitions for autonomy, all for internal use, is forced to take active part within the Atlantic Alliance, in that peculiar form of defensive integration which unites Europeans and North Americans.

Even if the "gaps" and the incognita of the U.S. strategic nuclear umbrella are no less preoccupying than those of the most modest French nuclear system, it is unquestionable that the U.S. defensive and security policy, apart from other types of evaluations, cannot be limited to the military instrument. The United States in other words run on their own, and also on behalf of Europe, a complex and broad action of political, economic and strategic confrontation with the Soviet empire.

In other words, there is no alternative between national defense and supra-national defence. Only the second option is possible. This of course does not necessarily or compulsorily lead to accepting the present Nato policy.

"Imperial unity under the protection of the U.S. - quoting Altiero Spinelli - is undoubtedly also very humiliating for our peoples, but it is superior to nationalism because it contains a response to the problems of European democracy, whereas the return to the cult of national sovereignty is not an answer. The unity achieved by the Europeans is in reality the only, true alternative to imperial unity. The rest is the froth of history, it is not history.".

A path, a difficult path is opening up for anyone who wants to conceive, on a new and supra-national basis, a European defense in the context of the process of the political union of Europe.

It must be acknowledged that Western culture, in its different components, and the political families representing it in the democratic institutions, are incapable of providing satisfactory answers to the crisis which is presently affecting the international system. It is a crisis which threatens the individual, conceived as a subject of freedom and of social and economic progress, and his life, in the industrialized North as well as in the under-developed South, in a complex mechanism of inter-dependencies.

The West instead insists on dividing the elements of this international crisis mainly along the two axes of the East-West and North-South strife, and in the second place among the continental and national sub-groups, and to analyze only certain elements of the balance in power, first of all the military and economic ones of the two super-powers.

The fact that a war has already been going on in the South of the world for many years is ignored, deceiving the citizens on the inseparability of the boundary dividing the wealthy and peaceful North from the hungry South, devastated by wars. On the other hand there is the underestimation of the historical superiority, in the short run, of the totalitarian regimes as compared to the democratic-parliamentary ones.

On the one hand it is believed that the strife and the anger of the Third World will never be able to seriously involve the industrialized West, without taking into account the human, political and economic price that the West will have to ensure to attempt to curb the fanaticism and the nationalism which are growing and thriving on our mistakes as regards to the South of the world, to live alongside with the extermination due to famine and under-development of millions of people.

On the other hand there is the mental reservation on the democratic-parliamentary model, and that is, the firm belief that political democracy would be possible only in a certain context of society and culture. All the most reasonable Western democrats believe that the largest totalitarian regime, the Soviet Union, just like the Arab totalitarian regimes, must be realistically legitimated, as a necessary premise in order to talk about peace and security.

The spectre of Munich is reproposed to us in the tragic illusion of stopping the new Nazisms.

The awareness is still lacking that the totalitarian regimes as such represent a threat for security.

It is still not clear to all that totalitarian regimes can deliberate irrespective of any limit determined by parliamentary and democratic debate, irrespective of any control or reaction determined by a free and massive information, therefore in a quicker and more dangerous way. They can also decide, the moment in which they perceive their circumstantial military and strategic superiority, linked to factors of internal weakness, serious military actions, the consequences of which cannot be foreseen.

Gorbachev can win at the negotiations table because he can, almost without limits, play with ruthlessness at all levels. Nobody is asking him to question the true element the Russian power altering the balance, far more than missiles or atomic heads, between East and West and which threatens international security.

Even if he will have to give up some missiles, Gorbachev, whose intention to start a process of modernization of the Soviet society I am not questioning, will in fact maintain, by means of totalitarian and military-police control of his empire and of information (which he will never be able to give up precisely in order to win the resistance to his policies), the unchanged possibility and power to engage in any aggressive action.

The only alternative is that of defending and forcing on the the totalitarian state the principles of the necessarily slow, contradictory and multilateral formative process of the decisions of a democratic state, as the only effective and ascertained obstacle, imperfect as it may be, against the temptation of war.

It is therefore a political suicide to a priori relinquish the only and true deterrent force, that of democracy and freedom.

But to achieve this, Western democracies should reconsider their policies concerning alliances, and the ruthless and cynical disguises of military or racist regimes.

The twelve countries of the European Community, in spite of everything, are less involved and less compromised in such policy as compared to the United States. More credible, thanks also to the courageous positions that the European Parliament has at times held on the important issues of justice, civil rights, security and hunger in the world. Is it a utopia to think of a European Union capable of reorganizing the security policy?

Already to be able to impose on public opinion, to the mass-medias and to the political leadership the discussion on the above mentioned issues would be a great victory and a great result.

We would not be talking, for example, about professional or conscription army in the modest terms in which the debate has developed, if only it were reflected on the possibility for young Italians, young and not so young citizens of a politically united Europe, to be really called upon to defend security and peace, rather than to remain idle in the barracks. If, as the Constitution lays down, taking part to the defense were a duty and a right of every person, not only of males "apt" for martial arts.

If workers, physicians, teachers could be mobilized on the front of war and hunger.

If the best resources of culture and technology were used simply to inform the millions of citizens of the East, who have been deprived of the fundamental good of truth, the chief premise to benefit of the good of peace.

If, quite simply, we could convince ourselves and convince others that it is not true that the boundaries of democracy, of freedom, of right to life and justice can be arbitrarily laid down along the Berlin wall or in the Sahel desert.