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1042@SURTITRE = Bureaucratic Imperialism
In its 2 May 2005 issue, Defense News describes what it calls ‘a perfect operation’, one that transpired on 8 April in the skies over Italy. It was the day of the funeral rites for Pope John Paul II, and a considerable number of personalities, including heads of state and of government, had gathered in Rome for the occasion. A private aircraft, a LearJet, classified as ‘unknown’, was reported entering Italian airspace. At the same time, information from intelligence services indicated that the aircraft had a bomb on board and might have the intention of carrying out a terrorist attack against the throng that had gathered for the Pope’s funeral ceremonies.
The weekly explained: “The Italian Air Force scrambled an F-16 fighter, which intercepted and diverted the aircraft. The report of the bomb turned out to be a false alarm. One American official called it a ‘perfect’ operation.”
How can an operation that culminated in demonstrating the falsity of an intelligence report be called ‘perfect’? Simply because what warrants the label is not so much the mission itself as the way in which it was carried out in terms of command and control procedures and the like.
We restate the general conditions surrounding the mission: on 8 April, there was an exceptional gathering in Rome for the funeral rites of Pope John Paul II – heads of state and of government, officials from the entire world. The American President was there, as were his two predecessors (Clinton and Bush Senior). The American security services had demanded that the Berlusconi government grant them a very broad oversight over the security zone and over Italian airspace generally, and the Berlusconi government had obliged them.
Speaking with European military sources about this incident and about its reporting by Defense News, we were able to reconstitute the following elements:
• The information about what the aircraft was supposedly carrying (a possible bomb in the hands of terrorists) came from US intelligence services, relaying FBI/Homeland Security Department reports.
• It is the Americans themselves who are reported to have sounded the alert and to have given the order to the Italian F-16 to scramble. It appears that they had the technical means for doing so, if not the political authorization.
• One of our sources observes: “Everything transpired as if it was the Americans who were in charge of Italy’s air defense that day.” Our sources attribute this situation to the technical procedures put in place and indicate that in order for the Americans to take control of the Italian systems, there is no need of a formal decision – political or other – which would obviously be difficult to obtain and highly risky. “Strictly speaking, there was no political authorization, according to our information. Let us say that the situation was such – in the emergency climate unleashed by the alert – that it was effectively the Americans who directed the command and control of Italy’s air defense, especially when it came to calling the crucial shots for the operation.”
• The conditions surrounding this incident are such that the hypothesis might be advanced that the entire operation, including the flight of the aircraft and the alert that that was set off by the aircraft’s entry into Italy’s airspace, could have been mounted by the Americans themselves to test the reliability of their technical mastery over Italy’s command and control apparatus – and to affirm that role politically. And it is in that perspective that the interception operation might be described as a ‘perfect operation’.
According to American sources, the leasing by Italy of forty American F-16 aircraft four years ago marked a turning point in Italian-US cooperation. In fact, the arrival, three years ago, of the Berlusconi government, with its pro American policies, constituted the driving force behind this improvement in cooperation.
Defense News describes and explains the new climate of cooperation between the two countries: “’Right now there is close cooperation between the US and Italian governments, and because of the increase in training, this is reflected at the military level, with coherent doctrine also evident in civil military work,’ said an Italian general based at the Ministry of Defense here. ‘September 11 was the spur, as well as the US push on net centric warfare. It is telling that Italy has adopted the same net-centric terminology as used by the US.’” The figures from the Italian side are revealing: $12 million and 350 Italian Air Force personnel for military air training in the US in 2000; $105 million and 785 in personnel strength in 2004.
It is clear that the Americans feel that they have made a major effort with the Italians and that they believe that they are on track for achieving their goal of integrating the Italians as much as possible in the general framework of their armed forces. The US officials questioned, detailing these improvements in coordination and training between Americans and Italians tend to offer extremely ambitious assessments. One of these officials observes that “the change we’re seeing has strategic significance.”
One of the sources that we have cited observes that the Americans in fact place very strong emphasis on the importance of training and procedures, as well as on perfecting automatic responses in situations typically encountered in combat. “The Americans are persuaded that by employing these methods they can achieve a veritable ‘cultural revolution’, and thereby bridge the ‘cultural gap’ that exists between Americans and Europeans.”
A remarkable aspect of this presentation of the offensive by the Pentagon bureaucracy to win over Italy is the contradiction that ultimately emerges. Such an initiative claims to rely solely on planning, technical capabilities and cooperation procedures with the avowed aim of achieving operational effectiveness. Consequently, it is an initiative that claims to be totally neutral politically: it is a technical accomplishment achieved between two countries that consider themselves as allies politically. But the ultimate effect, that is not long in coming, is an appearance of just the contrary – i.e. an initiative with a dimension indirectly measurable as very strongly political.
We shall cite two passages in the text which we refer to here, a text that effectively claims political neutrality, a political neutrality that is belied by the two contradictory passages. The first is a commentary reporting the opinion of experts on the question: “Analysts said the increased interoperability would underpin Italian-US military relations even if a more pro-EU, center-left government came to power here [in Italy].” Further on, the text again cites an expert, this time identified as Andrea Grazioso, a consultant of the Centro Militare Studi Strategici (Military Center of Strategic Studies) of the Italian Ministry of Defense: “Analyst Grazioso envisaged little let-up in US training in the event of a change of government. ‘Italy plans to fly the Joint Strike Fighter until 2045’, he said. ‘How many governments will come and go before then?’”
The conclusion that appears then is one that is truly ambiguous, with the political dimension in clear view. One can understand the line of bureaucratic reasoning, which is to consider any change in political orientation (relative to the Berlusconi administration) as a danger for the cooperation put in place, and to consider, at the same time, that the cooperation is strong enough to prevent such a change. One soon comes to the realization that it is necessary to accept the key premise of the reasoning, bringing us to a remark by one of our sources cited supra: “it is clear that one comes to a point at which one is led to ask if the cooperation and interoperability are not put in place in order to preclude, by their presence and by their action, any political change – as much as for their operational aspects, and, under certain circumstances, more than for their operational aspects.”
In order to measure the importance of this interpretation, it will be noted that this text presents for the first time the opinion of a non-US expert on the prospective purchase of the JSF by Italy as a means for obliging Italy to maintain a pro-American military policy despite possible changes in government and therefore in general political outlook. The JSF program would utilize the cooperation and interoperability framework established for the F-16, and would impose even more elaborate, more rigorous and more sophisticated arrangements (because of the sophistication of the JSF system itself). The upshot would be an even firmer imposition of a pro American policy.
The net result can only be seen as a sort of ‘bureaucratic coup d’état’, and, as the title of a 1964 book by the late French President François Mitterand put it, a ‘coup d’État permanent’ – a constant coup d’état. It is difficult then to escape the idea that the political aspect is an important part of the international JSF program: even before the aircraft is operational, and in the more than likely scenario of program snags and delays, the bilateral cooperation would already be an achieved fact (if only as a follow-on to the F-16 cooperation) and would in all likelihood ensure continuation of Italy’s pro-US policy. Again, according to our European source: “One thing we can be sure of is that the Americans have alternative solutions at the ready in the event of any snag, delay or even failure in the JSF program – be it F 16 aircraft, new versions of the F-16, loans of aircraft – whatever it takes to keep the cooperation going for the political constraints that are an integral part of it.”
We have set forth the theoretical aspirations of an initiative that is only at its beginning. Even so, there already emerges a certain contradiction: US Italian cooperation is presented as something new and revolutionary in terms of aviation technology and of aerial combat; in point of fact, however, it is at least as old as NATO. Since 1950, Italy has had a significant number of models of fighter aircraft of US origin – the F-84 and the F-86, the F-104G and the F-104S, as well as the embarked AV-8B. Thus, Italy is already heavily involved in a highly structured form of cooperation with the US that is standard for the majority of NATO countries integrated into the NATO military structure. Technically therefore, there is really nothing ‘revolutionary’ in the present bureaucratic situation; what is revolutionary is the political subtext that undergirds it.
This subtext is fundamental because, today, contrary to the situation during the second half of the 20th century, Italy’s status as a pro-US stalwart within NATO can no longer be taken for granted. Now there exists an alternative that looms ever larger with each passing day: the EU – Europe.
Practically, we are already at that point. Currently, European industrial circles indicate a strong Italian penchant for European programs. The Italians, who have always wanted to maintain a certain balance in their industrial activity between cooperation within Europe and cooperation with the US, have become aware that they have allowed the European element to take a back seat, and they want to reestablish the balance. For example, the Italians are the most active partners of the French in the European UCAV Neuron program launched last year by the French. They entered the program with a major participation (Euros 100 millions), having made a point of wanting their participation to be at that level. The Italians are also ready to participate in a future European fighter aircraft program, which would be pursued – if it is pursued – with France as lead country. These commitments translate into operational consequences within the EU, with European coordination and interoperability. And they are contradictory to what has been set forth in the case examined supra.
It is certain that the ‘perfect operation’ of 8 April exposed supra remains for now an exceptional case limited to the unique circumstances described, rather than a structural case. Indirect control (without explicit political decision) by the US security services over the defense machinery of a country occurs, in effect, during unusual circumstances involving movement by President Bush; and the funeral rites of John Paul II readily fell within that category of unusual circumstances. It is for that reason that one cannot speak of a definitive structure.
On the other hand, it is possible to foresee potential problems or incidents in the course of developments headed in such different directions. Contrary to the arguments of the ‘experts’, whose political agenda remains an open question, a JSF that is not only far from being delivered but that is not yet ordered, comes far short of ensuring a lock on Italy’s national security policy. Even if there are successive Italian governments, their political choices must reflect Italy’s fundamental commitments. All of which leads us to believe that the ‘bureaucratic imperialism’ initiative described here, far from indirectly imposing a pro-US Italian policy, is bound instead to give rise to incidents, contradictions, conflicts and polemics at the heart of the Italian governmental machine and in Italy’s armed forces – in other words, a little more of the disorder that the US bureaucracy so excels in creating. It is by no means sure, however, that such a state of affairs will serve to procure Italian assent to American policy. What it could well do is to cause Italy to openly question that policy.
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