Assessing Italy's Future Foreign Policy
"Italy no longer has a foreign policy; neither right nor wrong." Prof. Giancarlo Elia Valori discusses the foreign policy proposals of the various Italian political parties. Opinion
Giancarlo Elia Valori
| 11/03/2018
Photo: AP
While, in the so-called "First Republic," Italian foreign policy was an essential tool in the practice and activity of the various political parties, exactly the opposite happens in the current so-called "Second Republic."
After the Cold War, it seems there is no longer a need for foreign and defense policies – a bit like that US senator who asked for closing the CIA after the USSR fall.
Just think that – as the former Italian President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, used to say – 50% of voters rooted for the East.
Aldo Moro was the leader who led the intelligence services politically – the services with which, for example, we could afford to secretly deal with Arafat and the countless movements of the Palestinian insurgency to be spared terrorist actions on our national territory.
It is also worth recalling that the so-called "Lodo Moro" – an unwritten agreement introduced by Aldo Moro while Foreign Minister, which permitted Fatah and the other Palestinian resistance movements to move personnel, arms, and explosives through Italy on condition that the Italian territory was spared attacks – was well-known also by Israel, who appreciated the Lodo and used it.
A diplomatic and intelligence masterpiece that the current childish leaders in power would not even be able to understand, let alone conceive and put in place.
Currently, the Italian politics has seen the materialization of the play written by Roger Vitrac in 1929, namely "Victor, or Power to the Children."
In the programs of the 42 political parties that run for the 2018 general elections, there is obviously much talk about migration, but no one even thinks that this problem is related to foreign policy.
There are also apparently specific and analytical programs on international cooperation but, once again, the link between development cooperation and foreign policy is not understood – and indeed, even a child could understand it.
Do the drafters of many electoral programs probably think that there is no connection at all?
"Second Republic," or rather parochialism, provincialism, and demagogic incompetence.
In fact, one of the typical features of our current Republic is moralism, i.e., the evaluation of national or international political phenomena according to the distorting lens of supposedly superior ethical standards.
Precisely in his own country, Machiavelli is definitely dead and buried. Vacuous political narratives – often originated in North America – are rife on Kim Jong-un being "crazy" or Putin manipulating the US elections won by Donald J. Trump.
Putin is also supposed to make his "populist" friends win in Italy, too.
Whoever, like us, read the CIA-NSA-FBI documents on the issue of Russian pressure on the US elections can hardly not understand how the alleged Russian manipulation of the US presidential election is a huge fake.
A power like the Russian Federation certainly has its agents of influence and its specific relations with the American power, but the issue is not as the intelligence documents tell us.
What if all this happened to Italy? What would happen with the heirs of Vitrac? In fact, Italy no longer has a foreign policy; neither right nor wrong.
Obviously, this huge issue of Italy's future foreign policy is not at the core of the average voter’s interest, but it is anyway the soul of a State’s practice, even though it is still hard to be turned into empty propaganda.
Let us analyze the programs submitted to voters before the general election of March 4.
A deafening silence on the United Nations, which is also called into question at every turn, when needed.
There is no mention of the United Nations in the center-right coalition program, while the Democratic Party (PD) speaks about Italy’s one-year mandate in the Security Council as non-permanent member in 2017, where it has been replaced by the Netherlands in the current year. Italy had not sat on the Security Council since 2008.
However, Italy’s presence in the Security Council is regarded by the Democratic Party only in relation to the conflict in Syria and Libya.
For the time being, as far as we know, no miraculous results have been reached thanks to Italy’s mandate in the Security Council.
The Five Star Movement calls for the full implementation of the UN Charter, as well as of international law that is not as unambiguous and unequivocal as the drafters of the Five Star Movement’s program may think.
Conversely, More Europe, the liberal and pro-Europeanist coalition led by Emma Bonino, thinks about the establishment of a National Autonomous Agency for the Protection of Human Rights.
It should be noted, however, that there is already an organization known as European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, established in 2007 and based in Vienna.
No electoral program mentions the Council of Europe, OSCE (except for a minor reference in the program of Free and Equal, the left-wing coalition led by the former Speaker of the Senate and anti-Mafia prosecutor, Piero Grasso) and other international organizations.
Hence, we wonder what prospects and guidelines our future representatives will have in those structures.
With reference to torture, the center-right coalition proposes a law putting aside this type of crimes possibly perpetrated by the law enforcement agencies, but torture is an international crime that is precisely so if it is perpetrated by public officials.
Furthermore, the rule published in the Official Journal in July 2017 has been criticized by the United Nations itself.
Hence, a foreign policy that seems to be the result of a rock concert, devoid of any realism and continuously having a guilty conscience: we are the "rich" (but you can rest assured that soon this will no longer be the case) who exploit the "poor" – without considering the impact of Article 11 of the Constitution.
Rules and regulations that would not allow our "peace-keeping missions" abroad – not even in strictly legal terms – or probably not even the reaction to an attack.
While the "repudiation of the war" enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution is the foundation of Republican Italy’s adhesion to the UN and the other international peace alliances, Article 11 does not distinguishes between defense war, resistance to the forces of a possible invasion, Italian action taken jointly with allies, defense of the territory, and, even worse, defense of national interest.
Former Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema shall be given credit for having considered this constitutional tenet "outdated and old-fashioned."
Even the repression of terrorism can hardly fall within the scope of Article 11.
In the Constituent Assembly of 1948, Luigi Sturzo said that war was a crime in itself and obviously the Communists skillfully manipulated the Constituent Fathers’ strategic ignorance and the fully specious union between Fascist warmongering and ordinary and effective military defense.
The wording of Article 11 was good for a Constitution at a time when the Communist Party and the Catholic and liberal forces glowered at each other with hostility, but certainly not today, when the rules and regulations pursuant to Article 11 jeopardize even our participation in actions in Libya.
A treatment implicit in the "repudiation of war," which implies reducing a country to the servile state.
In fact, before Italy, it was put in place only with the Japanese Constitution, dictated by General MacArthur in 1946 after two nuclear bombs being dropped on the Japanese territory.
Indeed, also Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution speaks about "renouncing the sovereign right of belligerency," but since 2013 Shinzo Abe has developed the Japanese Self-Defense Forces significantly, so as to clearly oppose China.
The United States has even been happy with this new proactive Japanese pacifism combined, however, with a resurgence of national pride and imperial traditions.
Still today, albeit secretly, young officers of the Japanese "Self-Defense Forces" go to the Yasukuni Shrine to worship not only their ancestors but also the heroes who fought against Westerners (and the Chinese).
Still today, the red-ray flag that General MacArthur had forbidden – is secretly sold.
If the Cold War ends, you must also think that there is no longer the Big Brother rescuing you from an invasion.
Hence, you prepare for not giving in and for creating a strong deterrent.
If you are still a State and you have a just decent ruling class.
Incidentally, it is worth recalling the sibylline yet witty remark by former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti when he was accused of having declassified Operation Gladio. "If I had not declassified it, the others would have done so."
Which others? Easy to imagine. But here we are still in the Republic of Adults, not in the Republic of Children – just to paraphrase Vitrac’s play.
However, let us revert to the electoral programs: in Silvio Berlusconi’s opinion, common defense would make us "save billions of euros" and the EU go back into the mainstream of world's great powers.
Unfortunately, defense is not made only of money, but also of doctrines, technologies and political will – and I doubt that this potpourri of European defense could develop a common policy line.
France looks to a European Army because it takes Italy’s weakness and the new alliance with Germany into account.
Let us also think about the role played by France for peace in Libya, with a truce declared during the meeting held between Macron, Fayez Al-Sarraj and Haftar at the end of July 2017.
A role stolen from Italy, but Italy has no one to blame but itself.
Therefore, Berlusconi thinks that NATO should be strengthened and that we should side with the new Franco-German axis.
A defense policy that does not necessarily combine our economic interest with the interest of the new Franco-German axis.
In the foreign policy program outlined on January 18 last, the current Forza Italia party also speaks about rising military spending, to 2% of the GDP, which has long been a key political goal of NATO and the United States led by Donald Trump.
Nevertheless, unlike what happens in Hegel’s philosophy - quantity does not automatically turns into quality.
More Europe, the coalition created by Emma Bonino, believes that Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense (PeSCo) – which inevitably leaves a great deal of autonomy to national governments – must be strengthened significantly.
More than this? And how? Where is Italy’s national interest in this choir of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9?
More Europe also wants the denuclearization of the whole Europe and the universal abolition of nuclear weapons.
Military inventions, however, can never be disinvented and we wonder what would happen if terrorist groups or minor States were to use "dirty" nuclear bombs or threaten the use of a nuclear weapon – albeit small – to reach a specific political or economic goal.
In the Mediterranean region alone, which should be the perfect theatre for testing PeSCo, the countries which plan to have nuclear weapons are currently Algeria, Egypt and probably Morocco.
Are we sure that, in this case, it is enough to sing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, "You millions, I embrace you"?
Obviously, Brexit is a unique opportunity to build a new hegemony in Europe, but everyone is playing a new national role. Only Italy is stuck to the old Cold War and asks for others’ help, which is never disinterested.
The Five Star Movement does not even talk about a specific electoral program for foreign and defense policy.
Nevertheless, considering their Parliamentary positions, we must mention the difference existing between the group in the House of Deputies and the group in the Senate with reference to Italy’s NATO membership: the former is quite favorable while the latter is fully opposed to it.
With specific reference to the mission in Niger, someone said that we are going to "patrol the desert," not considering the fact that the desert there is currently very populated.
The Free and Equal coalition deems it necessary to further reaffirm the constitutional principle of repudiation of war, also in relation to international terrorism, and to sign the Nuclear Weapon Prohibition Treaty. Also, the More Europe coalition agrees on this latter point.
The aforementioned Treaty was adopted on July 7, 2017, at the United Nations and was supposed to come into force after 90 days with the ratification of at least 50 States.
Fifty-three States have already ratified it, and it was already adopted – God forbid – by the Italian Parliament on July 18-24, 2017.
God forbid we miss the new Manzoni-style edict described in his novel, The Betrothed, boiling down to empty gestures, as well as all talk and no action.
Hence, there is no need to include it in an electoral program.
In short, a collection of platitudes and ultra-pacifist clichés typical of the late 1968 protest movement.
"Italy no longer has a foreign policy; neither right nor wrong." Prof. Giancarlo Elia Valori discusses the foreign policy proposals of the various Italian political parties. Opinion
Photo: AP
While, in the so-called "First Republic," Italian foreign policy was an essential tool in the practice and activity of the various political parties, exactly the opposite happens in the current so-called "Second Republic."
After the Cold War, it seems there is no longer a need for foreign and defense policies – a bit like that US senator who asked for closing the CIA after the USSR fall.
Just think that – as the former Italian President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga, used to say – 50% of voters rooted for the East.
Aldo Moro was the leader who led the intelligence services politically – the services with which, for example, we could afford to secretly deal with Arafat and the countless movements of the Palestinian insurgency to be spared terrorist actions on our national territory.
It is also worth recalling that the so-called "Lodo Moro" – an unwritten agreement introduced by Aldo Moro while Foreign Minister, which permitted Fatah and the other Palestinian resistance movements to move personnel, arms, and explosives through Italy on condition that the Italian territory was spared attacks – was well-known also by Israel, who appreciated the Lodo and used it.
A diplomatic and intelligence masterpiece that the current childish leaders in power would not even be able to understand, let alone conceive and put in place.
Currently, the Italian politics has seen the materialization of the play written by Roger Vitrac in 1929, namely "Victor, or Power to the Children."
In the programs of the 42 political parties that run for the 2018 general elections, there is obviously much talk about migration, but no one even thinks that this problem is related to foreign policy.
There are also apparently specific and analytical programs on international cooperation but, once again, the link between development cooperation and foreign policy is not understood – and indeed, even a child could understand it.
Do the drafters of many electoral programs probably think that there is no connection at all?
"Second Republic," or rather parochialism, provincialism, and demagogic incompetence.
In fact, one of the typical features of our current Republic is moralism, i.e., the evaluation of national or international political phenomena according to the distorting lens of supposedly superior ethical standards.
Precisely in his own country, Machiavelli is definitely dead and buried. Vacuous political narratives – often originated in North America – are rife on Kim Jong-un being "crazy" or Putin manipulating the US elections won by Donald J. Trump.
Putin is also supposed to make his "populist" friends win in Italy, too.
Whoever, like us, read the CIA-NSA-FBI documents on the issue of Russian pressure on the US elections can hardly not understand how the alleged Russian manipulation of the US presidential election is a huge fake.
A power like the Russian Federation certainly has its agents of influence and its specific relations with the American power, but the issue is not as the intelligence documents tell us.
What if all this happened to Italy? What would happen with the heirs of Vitrac? In fact, Italy no longer has a foreign policy; neither right nor wrong.
Obviously, this huge issue of Italy's future foreign policy is not at the core of the average voter’s interest, but it is anyway the soul of a State’s practice, even though it is still hard to be turned into empty propaganda.
Let us analyze the programs submitted to voters before the general election of March 4.
A deafening silence on the United Nations, which is also called into question at every turn, when needed.
There is no mention of the United Nations in the center-right coalition program, while the Democratic Party (PD) speaks about Italy’s one-year mandate in the Security Council as non-permanent member in 2017, where it has been replaced by the Netherlands in the current year. Italy had not sat on the Security Council since 2008.
However, Italy’s presence in the Security Council is regarded by the Democratic Party only in relation to the conflict in Syria and Libya.
For the time being, as far as we know, no miraculous results have been reached thanks to Italy’s mandate in the Security Council.
The Five Star Movement calls for the full implementation of the UN Charter, as well as of international law that is not as unambiguous and unequivocal as the drafters of the Five Star Movement’s program may think.
Conversely, More Europe, the liberal and pro-Europeanist coalition led by Emma Bonino, thinks about the establishment of a National Autonomous Agency for the Protection of Human Rights.
It should be noted, however, that there is already an organization known as European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, established in 2007 and based in Vienna.
No electoral program mentions the Council of Europe, OSCE (except for a minor reference in the program of Free and Equal, the left-wing coalition led by the former Speaker of the Senate and anti-Mafia prosecutor, Piero Grasso) and other international organizations.
Hence, we wonder what prospects and guidelines our future representatives will have in those structures.
With reference to torture, the center-right coalition proposes a law putting aside this type of crimes possibly perpetrated by the law enforcement agencies, but torture is an international crime that is precisely so if it is perpetrated by public officials.
Furthermore, the rule published in the Official Journal in July 2017 has been criticized by the United Nations itself.
Hence, a foreign policy that seems to be the result of a rock concert, devoid of any realism and continuously having a guilty conscience: we are the "rich" (but you can rest assured that soon this will no longer be the case) who exploit the "poor" – without considering the impact of Article 11 of the Constitution.
Rules and regulations that would not allow our "peace-keeping missions" abroad – not even in strictly legal terms – or probably not even the reaction to an attack.
While the "repudiation of the war" enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution is the foundation of Republican Italy’s adhesion to the UN and the other international peace alliances, Article 11 does not distinguishes between defense war, resistance to the forces of a possible invasion, Italian action taken jointly with allies, defense of the territory, and, even worse, defense of national interest.
Former Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema shall be given credit for having considered this constitutional tenet "outdated and old-fashioned."
Even the repression of terrorism can hardly fall within the scope of Article 11.
In the Constituent Assembly of 1948, Luigi Sturzo said that war was a crime in itself and obviously the Communists skillfully manipulated the Constituent Fathers’ strategic ignorance and the fully specious union between Fascist warmongering and ordinary and effective military defense.
The wording of Article 11 was good for a Constitution at a time when the Communist Party and the Catholic and liberal forces glowered at each other with hostility, but certainly not today, when the rules and regulations pursuant to Article 11 jeopardize even our participation in actions in Libya.
A treatment implicit in the "repudiation of war," which implies reducing a country to the servile state.
In fact, before Italy, it was put in place only with the Japanese Constitution, dictated by General MacArthur in 1946 after two nuclear bombs being dropped on the Japanese territory.
Indeed, also Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution speaks about "renouncing the sovereign right of belligerency," but since 2013 Shinzo Abe has developed the Japanese Self-Defense Forces significantly, so as to clearly oppose China.
The United States has even been happy with this new proactive Japanese pacifism combined, however, with a resurgence of national pride and imperial traditions.
Still today, albeit secretly, young officers of the Japanese "Self-Defense Forces" go to the Yasukuni Shrine to worship not only their ancestors but also the heroes who fought against Westerners (and the Chinese).
Still today, the red-ray flag that General MacArthur had forbidden – is secretly sold.
If the Cold War ends, you must also think that there is no longer the Big Brother rescuing you from an invasion.
Hence, you prepare for not giving in and for creating a strong deterrent.
If you are still a State and you have a just decent ruling class.
Incidentally, it is worth recalling the sibylline yet witty remark by former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti when he was accused of having declassified Operation Gladio. "If I had not declassified it, the others would have done so."
Which others? Easy to imagine. But here we are still in the Republic of Adults, not in the Republic of Children – just to paraphrase Vitrac’s play.
However, let us revert to the electoral programs: in Silvio Berlusconi’s opinion, common defense would make us "save billions of euros" and the EU go back into the mainstream of world's great powers.
Unfortunately, defense is not made only of money, but also of doctrines, technologies and political will – and I doubt that this potpourri of European defense could develop a common policy line.
France looks to a European Army because it takes Italy’s weakness and the new alliance with Germany into account.
Let us also think about the role played by France for peace in Libya, with a truce declared during the meeting held between Macron, Fayez Al-Sarraj and Haftar at the end of July 2017.
A role stolen from Italy, but Italy has no one to blame but itself.
Therefore, Berlusconi thinks that NATO should be strengthened and that we should side with the new Franco-German axis.
A defense policy that does not necessarily combine our economic interest with the interest of the new Franco-German axis.
In the foreign policy program outlined on January 18 last, the current Forza Italia party also speaks about rising military spending, to 2% of the GDP, which has long been a key political goal of NATO and the United States led by Donald Trump.
Nevertheless, unlike what happens in Hegel’s philosophy - quantity does not automatically turns into quality.
More Europe, the coalition created by Emma Bonino, believes that Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense (PeSCo) – which inevitably leaves a great deal of autonomy to national governments – must be strengthened significantly.
More than this? And how? Where is Italy’s national interest in this choir of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9?
More Europe also wants the denuclearization of the whole Europe and the universal abolition of nuclear weapons.
Military inventions, however, can never be disinvented and we wonder what would happen if terrorist groups or minor States were to use "dirty" nuclear bombs or threaten the use of a nuclear weapon – albeit small – to reach a specific political or economic goal.
In the Mediterranean region alone, which should be the perfect theatre for testing PeSCo, the countries which plan to have nuclear weapons are currently Algeria, Egypt and probably Morocco.
Are we sure that, in this case, it is enough to sing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, "You millions, I embrace you"?
Obviously, Brexit is a unique opportunity to build a new hegemony in Europe, but everyone is playing a new national role. Only Italy is stuck to the old Cold War and asks for others’ help, which is never disinterested.
The Five Star Movement does not even talk about a specific electoral program for foreign and defense policy.
Nevertheless, considering their Parliamentary positions, we must mention the difference existing between the group in the House of Deputies and the group in the Senate with reference to Italy’s NATO membership: the former is quite favorable while the latter is fully opposed to it.
With specific reference to the mission in Niger, someone said that we are going to "patrol the desert," not considering the fact that the desert there is currently very populated.
The Free and Equal coalition deems it necessary to further reaffirm the constitutional principle of repudiation of war, also in relation to international terrorism, and to sign the Nuclear Weapon Prohibition Treaty. Also, the More Europe coalition agrees on this latter point.
The aforementioned Treaty was adopted on July 7, 2017, at the United Nations and was supposed to come into force after 90 days with the ratification of at least 50 States.
Fifty-three States have already ratified it, and it was already adopted – God forbid – by the Italian Parliament on July 18-24, 2017.
God forbid we miss the new Manzoni-style edict described in his novel, The Betrothed, boiling down to empty gestures, as well as all talk and no action.
Hence, there is no need to include it in an electoral program.
In short, a collection of platitudes and ultra-pacifist clichés typical of the late 1968 protest movement.
