All the nonsense about military spending
Here are the bizarre theses of those who criticize the increase in military spending. The article by Michele Nones, vice president of the Iai, for Affarinternazionali
Defense and security are two primary needs of every community and are distinctive and founding features of every state. It applies to each of the 193 member states of the United Nations because in their relationships each seeks to guarantee the protection of their interests, as well as their citizens, territory and values, against any potential threat.
PEACE, DETERRENCE AND NEW NEEDS OF SECURITY
The Armed Forces to the outside and the police forces to the inside are the tools to ensure this capability. In the same logic, there are firefighters in every state to prevent fires when and where possible and put them out if they break out. No one complains if to carry out this activity it is necessary to allocate part of the public expenditure to it and, indeed, it must often be acknowledged that it is not done sufficiently. Everyone hopes that they never have to intervene and, therefore, that they are available, trained and equipped, but remain in the barracks because there are no fires. If, however, they need to be able to do their job.
Decades of peace have led many to think that the Armed Forces were now useless and that the American umbrella of nuclear deterrence protected us adequately. The wars took place in other parts of the world and did not involve Italy. Then suddenly the breakup of Yugoslavia brought the war back close to our borders and forced us to intervene to put out a fire very, too close.
The awareness that only by intervening immediately can wars, such as fires, be prevented or stopped, has prompted us to participate in a series of military missions decided by the international organizations to which we belong. For this we have paid a high price in terms of human and financial resources, but we have managed to make ourselves known in the world as a credible country, recovering, at least in part, what was lost due to the inadequacy and unreliability of our political system.
Reliability is the basis of international relations and of deterrence itself. To counter a threat, those who exercise it must be convinced that they have the ability and the will to react. Both are necessary, always. But the first is in any case the presupposition of the second, otherwise it is simple ambition.
A SURREAL DEBATE
The ongoing debate in Italy these days has something surreal about it. The fire rages in the heart of Europe, demolishing, together with an unfortunate country, even the dreams and illusions about the impossibility of a new traditional war in the Old Continent . Suddenly the European countries realize their military and, in part, also political weakness. They are trying to exert their economic strength to dissuade the Russian Federation from continuing military action, but this kind of pressure still takes a long time and the Ukrainian population has none. Everyone is wondering how long the ongoing war can still last and how far it can go, but no one can answer. Certainly, however, there is a widespread impression that we have not been found prepared.
All the European Armed Forces lack, albeit in a differentiated and patchy way, modern equipment and, when there are, often adequately maintained, trained personnel, the ability to work together, effective common chains of command. What is there is thanks to NATO.
In Italy, however, there also seems to be a lack of a sufficient culture of security and defense. And so, despite the ongoing fire, some argue that we must not spend on defense what other countries spend, and in particular those similar to us.
The first "justification" would be that we are going through a serious economic crisis and that we have other priorities. But the same is true for all European countries. And if everyone made this choice, Europe would not be able to exert any deterrence and would remain exposed to all kinds of threats. Moreover, when in 2014 we committed ourselves to reaching 2% of GDP by 2024, our situation was no different and in all NATO and European meetings our Prime Minister, Foreign and Defense Ministers reiterated the Italian commitment in this direction (even those who shortly before discussed Italy's exit from NATO and / or the EU).
The second concerns the supposed massive purchase of weapons at the expense of schools, hospitals, etc. The reality is, however, that in addition to replacing old equipment with other modern and more efficient ones, the expected increase in defense spending will serve to take care of maintenance and make timely updates of the vehicles in service, to support research and development programs. , to allow a continuous and adequate training of military personnel, to favor a constant generational turnover to keep the average age low, to build and maintain reserve forces to be used in times of need. All this will have a positive effect on economic and social development in favor of the whole of society, but the real reason for doing so is that only in this way will we guarantee our defense and security capabilities.
The third, however, in contrast to the other two, sounds like a mockery. Playing with the numbers, we try to deny the evidence, arguing that our defense spending already reaches almost 2% (while it is still 1.5%). But when making statistical comparisons, the calculations must be done with the same methodology. You cannot cheat by adding up some expenses for Italy and not for other countries . Attempting to do so in the international arena has already exposed us to ridicule as, when, we would have liked to consider the expenses for the cyber security of the entire public computer system.
A FIELD CHOICE
Everyone knows that military capacity does not depend only on the amount of expenditure. Fortunately, quality also plays a fundamental role and Italy has repeatedly demonstrated that, however, our Armed Forces have so far been able to guarantee a certain level of protection and a significant ability to operate where necessary. But now the fire is too big and close: guaranteeing them what is necessary is not only a duty, but in the interest of all citizens. And it is in the interest of the whole country to demonstrate our reliability to partners and allies because mutual trust is the premise of any alliance, political or even military.
Article published on affarinternazionali.it
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/tutte-le-sciocchezze-contro-la-spesa-militare/ on Sun, 03 Apr 2022 05:36:40 +0000.