A-Infos (en) Italy, Livorno, FAI: A punctual drone, Italy's new military missions approved - Umanità Nova on 17/3/24 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last February 26, the Council of Ministers resolved on military missions 
abroad. In record time, not even 10 days, Parliament discussed and 
approved the resolution. ---- 12,000 soldiers will be engaged abroad in 
new and extended missions, for 1.5 billion in spending. In previous 
years, several weeks, even months, elapsed between government resolution 
and parliamentary approval. Times that the government has tried to 
further accelerate, trying - without succeeding - to pass the approval 
in an emergency procedure, to avoid discussion in the competent 
commissions. Certainly, the barrage of six shots fired from the 72/67 
Oto Melara cannon of the Caio Duilio destroyer which shot down a Yemeni 
drone 6 km away also put pressure on parliament. Close to the 
parliamentary discussion, the risk of a military escalation and the 
relentless campaign on the threat of the Houthis for the Italian ships 
present in the Red Sea, made it necessary to have an authorization 
framework for the naval mission that Italy had already been conducting 
for December. All this certainly gave the possibility of forcing an 
approval in record time.

The three approved missions are the Aspides mission, a naval mission in 
the Red Sea, the Levante mission, which is part of the war in Gaza in 
Palestine, and the EUAM Ukraine mission. Considering that this last 
mission has actually been active since December 2014 and the current 
approval only concerns the sending of a magistrate as part of a European 
mission to support the security system, we will focus mainly on the 
first two.

The Aspides mission is a European Union mission, launched in February, 
whose command is entrusted to Greece and is based in Larissa, Italy 
managed to secure only the tactical command of the operational forces, 
of which it was Rear Admiral Stefano Costantino was in charge and has 
its own center on board the Caio Duilio.

The new mission is presented as a new operational commitment within a 
more general extension of a "multi-domain device". The fact sheet on the 
operation in fact brings together four distinct missions, the 
aforementioned Aspides, the EU-led Atalanta mission off the coast of 
Somalia, the multinational EMASOH in the Strait of Hormuz and the US-led 
CMF. The precise authorization of men and vehicles for the Aspides 
mission is therefore not specified in the government resolution, but the 
overall commitment for the four missions is indicated: 3 naval vehicles, 
5 air vehicles, 642 personnel units. Of course, seeing 3 ships engaged 
in 4 different missions makes you think of Mussolini's famous tanks, but 
attributing everything to quackery and propaganda - which is certainly 
not lacking - would be misleading. In this shell game there is a clear 
attempt to make the decision-making process more opaque and the 
responsibility for each individual mission less defined. An 
authorization like this leaves the government a free hand to divide the 
missions into different interventions depending on needs. Just think of 
the area of intervention authorized for these missions, which is 
incredibly vast: "Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and coastal countries, Gulf 
of Aden, Arabian Sea, Somali basin, Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean, 
Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf , Gulf of Oman, Bahrain, Djibouti, United 
Arab Emirates and other coastal countries". These are four naval 
missions of a different nature and with different rules, which would 
also interact with land missions.

Similarly, with the Levante mission, a very general military commitment 
was authorized, and we still need to understand how it will be 
structured. The official press focused on the first two points of the 
mission's objectives, aid to the civilian population and the provision 
of a "field hospital and a naval unit with healthcare capacity". But the 
second two are not usually mentioned: "precautionary measures for the 
possible evacuation of compatriots or the extraction of Italian forces 
from the region; strengthen the presence in the Eastern Mediterranean". 
More than a humanitarian aid mission, it appears to be a mission with 
the aim of consolidating the military presence in the area and 
coordinating any emergency situations linked to the substantial presence 
of Italian contingents, which to varying degrees are engaged in Lebanon, 
the West Bank and Egypt. For this mission, the deployment of a naval 
vehicle, an air vehicle, 10 ground vehicles and 192 military personnel 
is authorized.

The area of intervention is also very vast in this case, and includes 
"Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, 
UAE, Qatar and the Eastern Mediterranean region".

I don't think we can think that these generic terms are imposed by rapid 
approval times, which on the contrary would require the authorization of 
a more precise and defined commitment. The way in which the forms for 
these two missions were prepared actually seems to have been well 
prepared to anticipate the new authorization procedures for military 
missions that the government would like to introduce. The amendment to 
law 145 of 2016 which regulates the matter was proposed by the 
government with DDL S. 1020, a reform bill approved by the Council of 
Ministers on 25 January. Among the main points of this proposal, now 
being examined by the Chambers, we first highlight what was written in 
the technical report upon presentation of the proposal to the Senate. 
The reform would introduce "Greater flexibility in the use of structures 
and personnel units within missions belonging to the same geographical 
area. By foreseeing in advance the possible "interoperability" between 
missions in the same area and subjecting them to the preventive scrutiny 
of the Chambers, the modification allows us to respond more promptly in 
the event of crisis or emergency situations, which are increasingly 
frequent in the current international scenario". Furthermore, it would 
make it possible to "pre-identify, through Government 
resolutions[...]forces with high and very high operational readiness, to 
be used abroad in the event of a crisis or emergency situation[...]in 
the event that it becomes necessary to emergency use of high and very 
high operational readiness forces, the Government's resolution is in any 
case transmitted to the Chambers, which, within five days, with specific 
guidance documents, according to the respective regulations, authorize 
their use or deny them authorization".

The first point, by providing for greater flexibility, would undoubtedly 
make the policy of military missions abroad more opaque, making it more 
difficult to understand the scope, responsibilities and actual limits of 
the authorizations. In this way it is easier for the government to 
shuffle the cards, to articulate military operations in a different way 
by exploiting the coverage of already authorized missions with vague 
purposes and for very large areas. The second point would give the 
government a free hand to take the initiative for a military expedition. 
This has already been happening for years, with missions authorized by 
Parliament months after the actual start. This measure, with the excuse 
of bringing procedures back to normal, gives the government greater power.

That the government wants to extend the powers of the government, 
bringing the current excesses into legality, and that it presents as 
effectively interoperable missions that until now were presented as 
specific interventions conducted autonomously, clearly represents where 
the war policy that the government is leading carrying forward with the 
transversal support of the main oppositions. If the missions are no 
longer individual interventions but a strategic campaign, if the 
government does not act in derogation, but assumes greater powers, 
further steps are taken towards open war. What will stop this spiral of 
war will not be laws and elections, but social struggles and 
anti-militarism.

Dario Antonelli

https://collettivoanarchico.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/16/un-drone-puntuale-approvate-le-nuove-missioni-militari-dellitalia/
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