It has been read in recent days that the Italian government would be ready to double the Italian presence in Libya. Yet it seems a lot of ado about nothing: in the Council of Ministers the renewal of the International Missions has already been voted. That a Unifil photocopy is being worked on in Lebanon? The comment by Mario Arpino, former Defense Chief of Staff
International missions have always been surrounded by an aura of mystery, which sometimes fuels the imagination of do-it-yourself geopoliticians. Mind you, some reason for this annual run-up to full missions can actually be understood, if not justified.
The procedure for their determination is long and cumbersome, the topic is among those least appreciated by politics, as it provides for “defense expenses” which instead would be more popular to reduce to a minimum or, perhaps, to zero.
A few years ago some jokers, in fact, took Costa Rica as an example to imitate, where you can live very well even without the Armed Forces. There are the traffic police, few, but this, they say, is enough and advances. Another factor that induces decision-making delays, sometimes even worrying, is that the argument – in these times in which the politically correct is in force – is rather slippery and an injury can cause you to lose buckets of votes.
Moreover, since it is the only occasion in the year in which, reluctantly, problems concerning the defense are faced in parliament, it is necessary that those who pronounce themselves do so with rather tiring semantic attention.
For example, the delays with which thirty years ago we faced what our Tornadoes really had to do in Desert Storm, although already deployed and painted with camouflage sand-colored, with five thousand-pound bombs hanging under their bellies, they risked at least on a couple of occasions to hear us say “no, thanks, it will be for another time, now go home …”.
Then, ingeniously, instead of making war we carried out an “international police operation”, and everyone (except Bellini and Cocciolone) was happy. In this climate, therefore, the imagination flies free.
However, it is surprising that this is also happening in this 2021, where Minister Guerini, who knows well how the Armed Forces are the most eloquent instrument of foreign policy, is doing things right and on time. “The mission in Libya will double”, was the last joke media coverage of no-you-know-who.
Yet, in the Council of Ministers the renewal of the International Missions has already been voted and the provision is already in the scheduling phase for parliamentary discussion. The content, in summary, is part of a press release from the Council dated 18 June last and anyone can read it on the net.
Of course, Libya is cited as the vertex of an imaginary African triangle of national interest, whose sides, passing through the Sahel, connect the “fourth shore” of ancient memory to the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, passing through the Sahel. So Libya is there (and it could not be there), but there is no mention of doubling our presence.
On the contrary, the State Major of Defense, usually very sparing in terms of communications (usually the prerogative of the Cabinet of the Minister or the Undersecretaries), categorically denies with unequivocal expressions, defining these news as “information without any foundation.
There is currently no dialogue with the Libyan authorities aimed at increasing the national contingent as hypothesized by unqualified sources “. We then refer to the triangle we have already mentioned, adding that “as resolved by the Council of Ministers in the African area, 17 missions will be deployed (out of a total of 40, ed), confirming the Italian strategy aimed at promoting greater attention to south”.
With regard to Libya, where the Italian presence settles at 250 units out of a maximum authorized of 400, the press release states that “… ..peacekeeping is a priority to better support the United Nations initiative to accompany the country to stability “.
All clear, but the curiosity remains to understand the origin of the presumption of “doubling”. Here the galloping fantasy is ours, because we dare to associate the last sentence of the Smd note just quoted with the many things said and proposed at the Berlin Conference on Libya on 23 June last.
Many have intervened authoritatively, and here we limit ourselves to mentioning Angela Merkel, Antony Blink, the German minister Heiko Maas, the UN Secretary General (on video) Antonio Guitierres, his deputy secretary Rosemary Dicarlo, the EU high representative Josep Borrel, Libyan minister Najla al-Mangoush. Commonly, the mantra was: “In Libya next December’s free elections will have to be the keystone of the solution.
For this to be possible, it is important that all foreign forces withdraw from the country. A full implementation of the truce between the local militias and the presence of impartial observers sent by the UN will be necessary ”.
Sewing all this with the words of President Draghi in the Senate, where, I urge the European Union to take a position on Libya, recalling that the United States would prefer not to get involved in that part of the world, stating that Italy has “several cards to play ”in the sector, has allowed us to understand a sort of readiness for something that resembles a strong Italian contribution to order and peace.
Is there a shared orientation to prepare a photocopy of Lebanese Unifil in favor of peace and order in Libya? Could this be the under-thinking secret of who originated the rumors of our doubling? We will see, December is approaching.