“Coronavirus: globalization and secret services”. Giannuli’s book read by Gagliano
Aldo Giannuli analyzes the implications determined by the pandemic both from a geopolitical and an economic point of view
Punctually arrives in our bookstores the latest essay by Aldo Gianulli entitled "Coronavirus: globalization and secret services" (Chiarelettere, 2020) in which the author analyzes in a broad and articulated way the implications determined by the pandemic both from a geopolitical point of view and under the economic profile.
One of the consequences of Covid will certainly be the increase in the unemployed which could reach around 1,250,000,000 workers worldwide. Even assuming that this forecast came true only for 30% – underlines Giannuli – we will have almost 400 million unemployed with obviously enormous consequences for the world economy. One sector that has already been hit by the pandemic, and which will certainly be even more affected, is tourism; connected to this sector, the catering sector was also heavily affected.
But certainly one of the consequences with the greatest economic impact will be that linked to the drop in the price of oil, so much so that a bottle of oil now costs less than mineral water, Giannuli stresses not without irony.
From a financial point of view, insurance companies are certainly the most affected and, in particular, insurance from the United States, because these completely replace the typical welfare of European countries. Consider, for example, that Covid patients in the United States have now exceeded one million and 800,000 cases.
Obviously, during these periods health care costs can only grow exponentially and if these expenses are to be covered by insurance, these will inevitably suffer significant damage. Hence, the States will necessarily have to intervene to reduce the danger of a very serious global recession by on the one hand increasing public spending financed as we know by the growth of the debt and on the other hand by constantly issuing liquidity.
It goes without saying that strategies of this nature can determine the default of a state, especially of those European states – such as Italy – which are structurally very weak from an economic point of view.
However, mafia organizations will certainly benefit most from this crisis because they have a lot of liquidity. Just think of the Nigerian, Japanese and Korean mafias that will certainly have the opportunity to consolidate their economic power and therefore their political influence.
One of the aspects that emerges most clearly from the author's essay on the implications of the pandemic is the crisis of the neoliberal economic model which once again demonstrates how the United States is a giant of clay feet. Suffice it to think, for example, that two American economists, namely Robert Merton and Myron Scholes – winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1997 – despite having demonstrated the predictability and avoidability of financial cracks after having founded a hedge fund, were themselves victims of a financial crash of about $ 1 trillion that caused the bankruptcy of their fund. And what about the criminal practice of subprime mortgages that led to the Lehman Brothers crash, putting four large American investment banks at the same risk? Doesn't all this demonstrate the intrinsic fragility of the neoliberal economy that Luciano Gallino had already had the opportunity to ruthlessly denounce?
The answer can only be yes.
And what about the failed wars waged by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan? If we think that the war in Afghanistan, in 2008 alone, had absorbed 700 billion dollars alone, we realize the very serious global implications that the irresponsible American policy determines on a global level. But until the American empire is organized around the alliance between the sword and the currency – "the dollar is in fact the exclusive currency of the international exchange that guarantees the USA the right of seigniorage that makes ends meet" (page 213 ) – the dramatic global implications of his foreign policy choices can be reabsorbed.
Even if the pandemic will lead to a profound restructuring of globalization, there is no doubt – the author underlines with appropriate realism – that it will once again be the logic of power of the States to put in place the most suitable solutions to avoid apocalyptic implications at of world economy. And it is precisely the state that has once again entered the scene with all its realpolitik and its arcane empires.
If we turn our attention, for example to Italy, the author underlines how the measures taken by the prime minister have undermined the separation of powers, marginalized parliament by allowing the exercise of a power of decree by the presidency of the council unknown to our legal system. We also think of the fact that the presence of the army on the streets, the surveillance of citizens by drones , the blatant violation of privacy put in place by Fontana and Zaia have brought Italy closer to an authoritarian country. However justified these measures are, the author emphasizes, nevertheless they were very dangerous measures because in fact they allowed the suspension of any constitutional guarantee to be introduced into our legal system.
Let me be clear – Giannuli specifies – similar measures have been applied in Spain, France, Germany, the United States and England.
But it was in the countries that are furthest from democracy that the authoritarian dimension has taken on very clear and clear characters: in the Philippines, Colombia, Indonesia, Thailand but also in Hungary where President Orban has assumed full powers by suspending the entire constitution, closing parliament and effectively acquiring the power to suspend or modify all existing rules. In short, a real coup d'état against which the EU has once again demonstrated all its political inconsistency. Indeed, to explicitly quote the author: “Europe is an ectoplasm devoid of identity and head, a salad of quarrelsome and inconclusive states” (page 118).
However, another element very clearly brought out the pandemic: that is, the foresight and lack of adequacy of political classes and the consequent social and health choices despite the fact that in 2012 David Quammen published a book in which he accurately predicted a similar pandemic to the current one caused by a viral transfer from bat-to-human zoonosis and despite the fact that on November 1, 2005, US President Bush had envisaged a four-point plan to prevent an eventuality of this nature.
Among the worst political leaders who have distinguished themselves for ignorance in the face of a crisis of this magnitude were certainly Boris Johnson, Trump and Bolsonaro.
In order to be able to assess exactly what scenarios will arise following this pandemic, we must keep in mind, among other factors, two very important aspects relating to the United States and China. If the United States also uses politics to strengthen its economic position, China, on the contrary, is using economic initiative to expand its political influence. After all, isn't the Shanghai pact thought of as an economic agreement? After all, isn't the project of the New Silk Road perhaps the continuation and expanded reproduction of the scheme of the Shanghai pact, the author appropriately wonders?
The United States is above all a maritime nation as evidenced by the presence of the seven military fleets with 13 aircraft carriers that patrol all the oceans, while China aims to control the Asian air, aims to have a fundamental presence in the Indo-Pacific and to have a close commercial relationship with Europe.
In other words: while the American nation is interested in affirming its order, its currency, its language and its law wherever possible, on the contrary the Chinese nation is inward-looking, continental, economic and commercial, and is not interested in exporting its legal system, its currency, its language and its law but is oriented to coexist with different systems and to distinguish between dependent countries, allies, and countries connected commercially.
Now, moving on to the role of intelligence, the examination carried out by Giannuli could only be merciless.
Despite the wealth and complexity of the data, the CIA's prediction on the possibility of a pandemic was nowhere near contemplated. Still too imprisoned in the logic of the cold war and above all too intent on opposing the Chinese enemy and Islamic fundamentalism. But above all, this lack of foresight depends on an element – which the author keenly underlines – and that is the lack of adequate preparation in the face of the complexity of the world. That is, in the face of the fact that cause-effect relationships in the real world are not linear because "the interdependence of all spheres of action and of all countries" (page 142) greatly complicates political and economic dynamics. But above all Giannuli, turning his gaze not only to American and European intelligence but also to Asian intelligence, asks himself an absolutely legitimate question: how is it possible that a pandemic of such proportions escaped these nations. Either the security services lied or they tell the truth and that is they did not understand what was happening and this shows their very serious inefficiency.
Just reflecting on the evolution of security services, Giannuli cannot help but turn his attention to two innovations that have emerged in the last decade, namely Sharp Power and Cyber Warfare.
The first expression refers to the ability to penetrate the defenses of others not only in cultural forms, that is, through propaganda and information, but also through economic penetration, making a country dependent on its own imports. Unfortunately, this concept is far from innovative because it is nothing more than a simple re-edition of the old concepts of psychological warfare and economic warfare that the Russian and European security services have well known and applied during the Cold War. In short, it is the usual typically American fried air of which the usual agents of American influence in Italy – to be clear, the grandchildren of Michael Ledeen – become spokespersons to impose their methodological approach on Italian intelligence.
The second expression refers to the insidious and effective cyberwar at the same time, as demonstrated by the one put in place by the Russians and the Chinese, especially to the detriment of the United States. And it is precisely this type of war that constitutes the real novelty of intelligence in recent decades. For example, the 61398 unit of the Chinese army has carried out hacking operations aimed mainly at the most important American companies, that is, from the electricity grid to gas to water pipes.
Turning his attention to the interests that revolve around the discovery of the vaccine, Giannuli emphasizes both the interests of large pharmaceutical companies and of scientific teams but of course and above all that of the States.
In this regard, on the one hand, the United States will certainly try to use the vaccine card in advance of the others and China – by making the choice of the vaccine as a common good – will try to attract much of Africa and many Asians into its orbit. Now, evidently, the security services are already working in the direction of spying on e-mails, intercepting phone calls from the various research groups to clearly understand where their rivals have arrived, trying in this way to anticipate their opponent.
Well, it is precisely to China that Giannuli turns his attention, underlining how the use of a set of elements in the context of espionage has allowed it to be globally competitive and among these delocalization, the intelligent and selective use of open sources, reverse enginering, the high-level university education that allowed her to transfer highly sophisticated knowledge. But it's not just espionage that has contributed to China's rise.
There are in fact other factors and among these, the demographic factor, the phenomenon of relocations designed to use a much less expensive workforce than the European and Japanese-American ones and the Mandarin culture that has allowed China to have a strongly meritocratic approach.
Of course, like all nations, China too has its limits, such as concentrating efforts only on certain development poles such as large cities or centers along transport routes, such as placing the quantitative dimension before the qualitative one due to whose production grows but often to the detriment of its quality; such as privileging the production of goods to improve trade balance data while neglecting investments for internal infrastructures and the education system. Or that of preferring short and medium-term objectives over long-term ones, often neglecting or postponing the necessary provisions for an efficient pension system.
But alongside China, another major player is certainly Russia which, with Vladimir Putin, reaffirmed its distinct identity from both the Western and Asian ones, thus creating not so much a pro-Chinese or pro-European Russia but rather a settled Russia. in a central position between the two and committed to connecting them.
Particularly significant for the history of Russia was 2008 with the Georgian question which demonstrated the possibility of the Russian military revival but above all demonstrated the importance of the gas pipeline war: if in fact up to that moment Russian gas reached Europe via the old gas pipeline that crossed Ukraine now Russia just to get around Ukraine has created the North Stream which passes through the Baltic to directly supply Germany and the South Stream which would pass through the Black Sea. The construction of only the first gas pipeline has determined the birth of a Russian-German energy center.
Another major cap in recent Russian history was the occupation of Crimea following which the US imposed sanctions on its European allies, sanctions that were aimed at blocking the Russian-German alliance. However, we would like to underline that Giannuli makes a remark of particular importance with regard to the stability of Russian power, namely the contrast between the secret service of the army – the GRU – and the FSB. In fact, Putin's power essentially rests not only on his personal influence but also on the support of the political police, that is precisely on the FSB.
Ultimately with globalization, concludes Giannuli, the world is much smaller and more united than in the past but it is certainly also more ungovernable since neither the invisible hand of the market nor the will to power of politics seem to be able to direct events according to some rationally determined and pre-established will. All of this can be explained, at least in part, with the growing complexity and dynamism of today's world to which the various state structures, multinational companies, lobbies and above all international organizations of various kinds contribute.
Now, the pandemic has done nothing but exacerbate the struggle for hegemony by triggering one of the most dangerous economic and financial crises in history. This mixture clearly suggests that dramatic scenarios are looming on the horizon. Precisely for this reason it will be necessary to prevent the political clash from turning into a military clash. The pacifist slogans as well as the good intentions have unfortunately never managed to avoid any war: today more than in the past the dividing line between the political world, the military world and the business world is further reducing, thus making the world increasingly insecure. and unstable.
Let us now consider the two appendices placed at the end of the volume. The first appendix analyzes in a lucid and merciless way all the errors that have been committed by the government and the regions in the management of the pandemic and among these, for example, the failure to create a single control room, subtracting the matter from the regions, the questionable composition criteria of the CTS, the absence of a representative of the information services within the CTS that make it clear that this body was composed with friendly criteria, in short, according to a typically Italian mentality.
But there are certainly other numerous shortcomings as well as profound differences between region and region: if in fact Veneto has made a moderate recourse to hospitalization, also leveraging the use of big data, on the contrary Lombardy has resorted to a systematic use of hospitalization while neglecting home care.
In the second appendix the attention of the authors, namely Amedeo Maddaluno and Andrea Muratore, pupils of Aldo Gianulli, is turned to the intelligence war and the role of the infowar.
The role of the information war in the management of the pandemic was certainly fundamental, as the Russians tried to build a positive image of themselves in the Italian public opinion by giving concrete and tangible help to the most affected populations. But this should not make us forget that among the men present in Italy there were also agents of the Russian secret services. In fact, the Russians have shown that they are aware of NATO's inability to manage this pandemic and have used information warfare precisely to hit the Americans.
Quite rightly, the authors emphasize how the techniques of information warfare are basically based on subtle games of mirrors and how they always rest on the subtle mixing of true and false.
It is obvious that the United States, strategic rivals of both China and Russia, viewed this aid as a potential threat to their hegemony aimed at eroding their credibility in recipient countries. To use the American expression soft power, Russia and China have wisely used the soft power theorized in America against the Americans. Indeed, both the Russians and the Chinese are fully aware that the image in the world of globalization is fundamental for the consolidation of the credibility of a power in public opinion. Trump's America understood this too late and therefore acted too late to be able to erode the advantage that the two competitors had managed to achieve.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/senza-categoria/coronavirus-globalizzazione-e-servizi-segreti-il-libro-di-giannuli-letto-da-gagliano/ on Sat, 10 Oct 2020 04:30:59 +0000.