Will Todde have the strength to cut off Huawei in Sardinia? Or will Grillo stop him?
The geopolitical challenges of Alessandra Todde, new president of the Sardinia Region. The Huawei case tops the agenda. The speech by Marco Mayer, professor of Intelligence and National Security at Lumsa
It's never too late. Yesterday the government put on paper that it is good to be wary of Russia and China because they constitute hybrid threats.
Eleven years have passed since the conference promoted by MIT and Harvard which I had the honor of participating in January 2014. In that scientific venue, all the technological and hybrid risks deriving from the "aggressive" policies of Moscow and Beijing were already well present, as well as hypotheses have been put forward on how to react in terms of deterrence on the one hand and cooperation on the other.
Several times – including on the occasion of parliamentary hearings – I have tried to raise awareness among decision makers of the danger of excessive penetration of Chinese and Russian companies in the introduction of 5G (Huawei and ZTE ), in the field of cybersecurity (Kaspersky) and in combating the of misinformation. However, when it comes to geopolitical risks (especially when linked to telecommunications networks and the digital universe), I almost always had the sensation of finding a rubber wall.
Furthermore, even Copasir's timely report on 5G during the first presidency of Lorenzo Guerini did not produce significant effects. With the alarm launched yesterday by Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, things are changing. At this point, full political awareness of Russian and Chinese threats (existing or potential) is finally gained by the government. Translating this awareness – precisely because it is late – into effective measures is not at all easy.
Some processes will require a long time because, for example, in the Public Administration Consip still has multi-year framework projects in progress with criteria for awarding tenders without references to risks of a geopolitical nature. But faced with the upcoming European elections, some signals should be given immediately.
A minefield that cannot be avoided is that of adequately paying attention to subcontractors and the supply chain in the Pnrr's digital transition projects. There are also multiple options to carefully examine in energy matters (Gazprom and its subsidiaries) and video surveillance (Hikvision).
The list would be long. For reasons of space I will limit myself to citing just one example on which an immediate change would be significant for the elections just celebrated. I think of Sardinia. The mayor of Cagliari Paolo Truzzu (FdI) has been a standard bearer of Chinese technological projects in the capital and in Sardinia.
Now what will the newly elected president of the Region Alessandra Todde do? Will she have the strength to question the Truzzu-Huawei agreements , or will Beppe Grillo's furious reaction prevent her from acting with the necessary autonomy on an important issue for the future of Sardinia and emblematic for Italy's national security?
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/italia-contrasto-minacce-ibride-russia-cina/ on Thu, 29 Feb 2024 07:06:41 +0000.