JOURNAL OF ITALIAN ARMY 2003 N.1 "RIVISTA MILITARE" by Biblioteca Militare

REFLECTIONS OFTHE ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF The fi rst number of "Rivista Militare" of 2003 gives me the opportunity of shar ing some reflections with the readers of this prestigious publication, in particular with Cadres, Soldiers and civilian Personnel, both on active duty and retired. The year just concluded was characterized by a very important step forward for the Italian Army. In fact, with the validation of the Corps Command established at Solbiate Olona (NATO Rapid Deploya,b le Corps - NRDC-IT) our Service, and therefore the whole Defence system, can have at last at its disposal a modern Command- and Control insln1ment, a decisive value added within the framework of the evolution of the national policy of defence and security. The attainment of this ve i:y important objective, on which we have worked incessantly for three years, makes me very proud and everybody should feel the same. On the other hand, this result should not be seen as a goal, but rather as the beginning of a profitable road, along whkh the Italian Army will be more and more integrated in the alliances to whkh it belongs and, from now on, r eady to assume the role of leader in multinational operations, and not only that of contributor of forces. Naturally, I do not want to expound here the de tails of the NRDC-IT project; on the contrary my intention is, starting from a concrete and modem element, to make some remarks that could be useful also for non-expert readers, in order to better inform them about our organization and our Institution: the Army. Probably not many know that the NRDC structure is based on a national "framework", completed with significant contributions of personnel from friendly and allied Nations, which give the Command its multinational characteristic. This is an element of strength which underlines the will and resolve with which the pr ocess if international integration is increasingly asserting itself a lso within the military. This implies continuous contacts with men and women from other armies, as well as the opportunity of learning from others, and leads to the consideration that the differences existing in this type of Command are a wealth rather than a limitation or a difficulty. The particular nature of the Solbiate Olona Command underlines the specific need for a constant and updated professional training, going from the linguistic to the doctrinal and procedural sectors, obviously subtending essential cultural values. ln view of this, great efforts have been made in order to qualify the personnel, both for the Italianled NRDC and for the equivalent Commands being constituted by other Nations, and very satisfactory results have been achieved. Nevertheless, we must abandon the logic of the "momentary solutions" and enter decidedly into the logic of "prevision of the needs" . In other words, first we must, firmly and resolutely, continue to follow the road leading to the anticipated determination of the Service's needs, rather than nmning after them, and secondly plan a nd programme in good time, with an eye to the future, getting organized for the attainment of the objectives, pursuing them with resolution and consistence.

This approach is even more necessary owing to the technologica l improvements occurring in soc iety as a whole a nd, consequently, also within the various components of the Service: these improvements concern, an will concern, everybody, withou t exception. The "senior" generations, therefor e, will have to overcome the resistance to c hanges, while the young, a lready naturally immersed in the new realities, will h ave to be the leading actors and announcers of this "technological" philosophy, which is going to be the real power multiplier for the armies of the future. On the other hand, the continuous professional improvement s hould not be understood as an end in itself but will have to be oriented towards the achievement of h igher and higher levels of real operational capability: this is what the Country expects of its Anned Forces, and we m ust direct all o ur efforts towards this goal. Obviously, this implies an adequate fina ncial obligation in the training sector as well as in the field of equipment, weapon systems and infrastructure, but it ma inly requires full awareness of the "crucial challenges" of tomo1Tow; if we do no t win those, any ambition will be vain. Thus, in connection with the end of conscription, we must recruit quantitatively and qualitatively adequate professional soldiers and decidedly impro\'e the standard of life of our personnel. Therefore: professionalism, real opera tional capabilities, financ ial resources, volunteers and quality of life. These are five aspects of a single problem, interconnected in different ways and degrees but, actually, all of them deal with personnel of every class, o rder or rank. These personnel must certainly find in their ideal values - courage, spirit of sacrifice, honour, patriotism, selfishness - the strength necessary to take up a profession characterized by constitutional obligations a nd exacting engagem ents. But o ur soldiers, in order to give their best, must see that those five aspects are considered and resolved according to a fars ighted project, capable of consolidating what has been achieved so far, paving the way for a better fu ture, meeling the expectations of a modem Co untry, which holds an im portanl position in the interna tional arena. All this is well known in the Institutional environmenl, and efforts in this direction a re under way, in order to start, already in the coming months, an adequate process leading to the solution of the most pressing problems. In this regar d, our Service has made the requested contributions and will continue to pursue the positive outcome of the initia tives under way at various levels. Wha t I really want to stress here is that the Anny is well aware of the fact that any fu ture project cannot but continue to be centred on the hum an being, which is the weapon system par excellence, a real "producer of security". Therefore he - or she - must be given top priority: any other investment would be senseless i(, first of all, we did not meet the requirements of men who are, at the same time, o bjects and bearers of changes and improvements. Therefore, this is the component to which our best energies must be addressed. The crisis situations which occurred in the world during the last decade confirmed tha t the great strategies, the increasingly complex operations and the emerging capabilities end up by having their synthesis in the Army soldier who, by being the bearer of values, professionalism and experience, is the authentic decisive element. All the other elements concur in the operation, but success - or defeat - are determined by the Army soldier, with his presence and his capability of conquering and keeping the land. This is the message with which I would like the Italian Army to start working in 2003. The multinational dimension, the more and more advanced armaments and materials, the achievements at home and abroad should not make us forget our main concern, i.e. the care of the real professional man resulting from a harmonic three-dimensional development: to know, to be able to do, to exist, suppo11ed by the high quality of the human resources provided by the Nation and helped by a public opinion which seems to know and progressively appreciate its Anned Forces. The Italian Army will proceed along this road: we are certain it is the right one. But, if it is true that the individual gro\.vth brings about the growth of the whole organization, we should not forget that we all must contribute to the achievement of the objective. We should not believe that our small gestures and our daily engagements are insignificant or imperceptible within the general perception, because any thing we neglect, any idea we do not give, any improvement we do not propose because "nobody listens to us an)'\vay", is a missed opportunity to bring the real model closer to the ideal one and to make the organization to which we belong "our" organization, at the unconditional service of the Nation. We have an enormous potential, which usually emerges fully in contingent and exceptional situations, such as operations, natural disasters etc., probably because in those moments each of us forgets his own very human and understandable egoism in order to gi,Âˇe something more, something that can change a mediocre organization into a successful structure. N'ow I ask eve[}Âˇbody to do his best to make our action permanently characterized by this generosity, for which we are a cut above, not only as Soldiers but as People as well. The over 6000 Army men and women engaged outside the national territory, from the Balkans to Lebanon and Afghanistan, are setting a good example for us, together with the thousands of soldiers who, inside the Country, give their contribution in fighting against terrorism and safeguarding human lives, as is the case with the populations of Molise and Sicily, severely hit by natural disasters. They represent all of us with full honour, at home and abroad; we are proud of them and send them our affectionate greetings to whkh I am sure I can add the warm embrace of all our compatriots. Good work to all! Lieutenant General Gia nfranco Ottogalli

CONTENTS

Number One 2003 January - February March - April

Rivista M ilitare aims at broadening and updating th e technical and vocational training of Officers and NCOs. It is thus a means of propagating the m ilitary way of thinking and a forum of study and debate. Through the publication of articles of technical and scientific interest, Rivista M ilitare also aims at informing the general public on the Army and on military issues.

The Italian engagement in Afghanistan emphasizes the value and brave,y of the "Alpini". Also these mountain troops have female personnel in their ranks, and they are well-prepared and extremely motivated. As in the whole of society, the women of today are protagonists in the modem professional A.my.

FOUR-MONTHLY Supp lement to numb ers 1 a nd 2 of Rivi sta M ilitare Italian Ed ition

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I Reflections of the Anny Chief of Staff

Politics, Economics and Strategy 2 The NATO HQ at Solbiate Olona is Now a Spendid Reality (Roberto Speciale)

14 On Both Sides of the Dh-i ding Lines

(Fabio Mini) 32 The Malaise of Aflica (Maurizio Coccia)

44 The Wise Adaptability of the Atlantic Alliance (Gi11seppe Cucchi)

54 Wind of Change from Eastern Europe Exclusive Interview with Colonel General Nikolay Viktorovich Kormiltsev, Army Co mmander-in-Chief and Deputy Defence Minister of the Russian Federation (Enrico Magnani)

76 Towards a Common European Identity Interview with Brigadier Rupert C. Montanaro, Commander of the Armed Forces of Malta (Enrico 1\;fagnani)

86 The FINABEL Committee (Tasks, structure, organization) (Giaiigiacomo Calligaris)

Sociology 92 Women Enrich the Army (Isabella Lo Castro)

History 98 The Enigma of the Fox (Nicola Pignawj

108 The Legionary Medical Service (Gerardo R.estaino)

119 Sommaire - In.halt - Rcsumen

2003 ÂŠ Copyright by Rivista Militare

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Instructions for Contributors: Anyone may contribute. To guarantee the highest objectivity of information, Rivista Militare leaves contributors ample freedom, though it does not necessarily share their opinions. The Author is t hus solely responsible for the articles which, published unedited and without editorial ties, exclusively reflect his personal ideas. Articles must be original in thought and should not exceed ten typewritten pages. Once the Author receives his fee, he loses all exclusive rights. Rivista Militare may then pass the article on to other publications and EMPA (European Military Press Association) periodicals. Articles should be accompanied by su itable photographs, illustrations, explanatory tables, together with a photograph of the Author, a brief ÂŤcurriculum vitae" and a ten-line typewritt en summary. Rivista Mili tare reserves the right to change the title of articles and choose the typeface deemed most suitable. Rivista Militare is equipped with a computerized system for phototypesetting and videopaging. In order to make the production of the articles more expeditious, it is desirable that the Authors provide, besides the text on paper, also the diskette with the text files of the article. Any system and type of computer can be used.

The realization of what appeared as an ambitious project is another important goal achieved by our Country and , in particular, by the Defence Administration. Credit must be given to the political and military management of our Defence and, above all, to the constant and persevering efforts lavished by the Army for the timely achievement of the full operational capability of its Corps for NATO, to the extraordinary motivation of everyone and, last but not least, to the excellent professional and spiritual qualities of our men and women in uniform. The most precious resource of the Italian Army of today. 2

-ii~~

The Italian-led Major unit has recently achieved its full operational capability, after a long serie s of extremely selective evaluations

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rn ~mrrmlm]] wrunmfil A FUNDAMENTAL STEP TOWARDS A FULLY PROFESSIONAL ARMY, THE NEW HEADQUARTERS WILL ALSO BE THE SERVICE'S TRAINING MODEL FOR THE PROJECTABLE DIVISIONS AND BRIGADES OF THE FUTURE n Dece mber 12, 2002 the Ita lian-led "N ATO R a p id D e p lo y abl e Co r p s - IT HQ", located a L Solb ia te Olona, wa s a ltri b ut ed i ts F u ll Ope rati onal Capability. The evaluation, conducted by a specialized team from S HAPE , was passe d \Nil h ex t remely p osit i ve results . Th is success was lhc outcorne of t he conce rte d efforl of a ll the ,A.r my com po ne nt s, wh ic h fo r t he las t tw o years have b ee n \NO r king t owa rd s t his p re s ti gio u s goal. The c o nsi d era b le ca p abil i ti es ac qui re d by t h e Headquarte rs g ive a su bs tantial c o n tri bu t io n to t he p rocess of

renewal of Lhe st ructures of the Al Iiance and ope n new prospects for the whole Italian land instrument. AL this point, it seems appropriate to go over the steps which led to the estab lishm ent of th is new t\ATO Command and its fu ll operational ca pability, pointin g o u t the b asic comp on ents and outlining its possible future development lin es.

ORIGINS OF THE PROJECT T he constitution in Italy of a High-R ea din ess P,Âˇojectabl e Mul t in at ional Head q uart ers, dedicated to NAT O, shows the national will to concretely conLri b u te to the "NATO For ce Structure Review". In particular, the project of esta blishing hi g h -r ead ine ss, projcc Lable Headquarters derived from the need to provi de the Al lian ce with an ins tru me nt capa ble o f 4

facing the threats Lo the security and stability of the member Nations, as defined a t the NATO Summit held in Washington in Ap1il 1999. These HQs will have to allow NATO to carry out bo th class ic operations for collective clefence (contempla ted by art . 5 of th e Treaty) and opera tions directed Lo the management o( interventions included in the category of Crisis Res pon se O pera ti ons (CRO). On the whole, managing units of multinational forces of varia ble s ize, up to a max imu m of approximately 60,000 men and for long periods, activating a r-otation cycle am ong the HQs made available. l n additio n to th e Itali an project, 5 more "High-Readiness F orce (Land) Head qua r ters (HR F (L) HQ ) proje cts ha ve b ee n submitted. Th ey are a ll politically and operationally very valuable: AC E Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) located

After numerous and intense LraininR ac1ivi1ies, the personnel at Solbiate Olona is ready for every type of operation, from traclitioncd ones to PSO.

at Rheindalen, Germany, wi th UK a s leader Na tion a nd th e participation of o Lher 15 Allied Iations, I taly among them; German/D utch Arm y Corps, located in Muens ter, Germany, with Germany and Holland as leading Nations; Eurocorps in St ra sbourg, France, with Belgium Fran ce, Germ an y, Luxembourg and Spain as leader Nations; 3n1 Turki sh Corps (Istanbul), with Turkey as leader Nat ion; High-Readiness Corps in Valencia , Spain, w i Lh Spain as leader Nation. Fu r thermore Greece, Logeth er with a three-national organization constituted by Denmark, Germany and Poland , offered to realize a joint "Force of Lower

The new NATO HQ 'is characterized by a marked mu /tinationa/ity.

MULTINATIONALITY

Readiness" (FLR) HQ, resulting from the reconfiguration of the present Corps HQ located in Thessaloniki , Greece (C Corps) and the Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) located in Stettin, Poland.

THE PREPARATION AND VALIDATION CYCLE The preparation and validation cycle has been an extremely important passage in view of a possible successive employment in operations. The procedure of operational validation conducted by NATO referred to a series of military requirements (about SOO). In order to meet them, it was necessary to develop real operational capabilities in every functional sector of the Headquarters, in particular projectability and mobility. In this prospect, the preparation of the NRD C-IT fo llowed two directions. The first concerned essentially the individual training , with a remarkable effort in the sectors

of languages and NATO procedures. This phase was very active in 2001, but considering the normal rotation of personnel, the same situation will cyclically come up again. The second direction, developed in 2002, concerned activities not immediately connected with the training of the HQ and will continue at regular intervals, in order to maintain and improve the acquired capabilities. Th e p re p a ration of the HQ involved numerous exercises,

with the employment of conside rn b I e hu man, material and financial resources. Among the most important ones, we can mention "Lion Start" (February 2002) and "Spear Head" (Apr iI 2002), two ''Compu ter Assisted Ex e r cises". "Spear Head" was conducted at the "Combat Preparation Centre" of the US Army in Ramstein, Germany, wh ere our HQ trained in the a pplication of NATO's "Standard Opera ting Procedures" ( SOP) and in the employment in warfigh ting and CRO situations. Furthermore "Hot Red Fire", a Command Post Exercise (CPX) was conducted in June 2002, followed, in September and Octobe rÂˇ, by "Eagle Flight", a complex redeployment excr-cise in the Civita vecc hia area, with the participation of more than 1400 men and 500 a ir, naval, rai lway and wheeled carriers, employed for the deployment or the Hcadquarlers. Successively, the SHAPE vali dation team, in order to certify

Ext reme projeclability is a.n indispensable prerequisite for all modem operational realities.

The m.odern Command and Control system is the nervous cen1re which perm.its to receive, transmil and use all available data.

the ach ievernenl of the "Full Operational Capabilit y ", subjected the NRDC -TT lo a fina l evaluation which coinci ded with a multinational exercise, "L ightship 2002", which was carried out in the Civitavecch ia/Monte Romano area from 7 to 13 December 2002, with the participation or n1ore than 3000 officers and NCOs (staff personnel included) from the 10 allied Nations which had joined the Italian project (Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Poland , Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the Un ited States). Already on September 23, 2000, before the FOC certification, the Solbiate Olona HQ had acquired the status of multinational Headquarters and moved under 6

SACEU R' Operational Command, with the denomination of NRDCIT, following the signature of a specific Memorandum of' Understanding (MO U). It should be noted that. according to the Command-and-Control Technical Arrangements (TA) between Italy and NATO, the HQ can be employed in European-led operations, subject to the aulhoriza tion of the Alliance.

,vas an excellent and tested reference for the setting up of the project; geographical ones, because the area is provided with many airports, roads and ra ilways and is a lso sufficiently close to ports, which could enhance its projectability; infrastructural reasons, since the garrison includes spaces for possible improvements and extension of the buildings used for the HQ and [or the vvelfare of the personnel.

THE SELECTION OF SOLBIATE OLONA The Rapid Deployable Corps has been constitu led through the re configuration of the p re-existing Anny Projection Forces HQ (FOP), formerly located in Milan. The choice of the "Ugo Mara" Barracks at Solbiate Olona (Varese) was justified by a number of reasons: operational ones, in that the preexisting FOP-HQ had a lready been employed in Operation "Alba" in 1997, and

.MULTINATIONALITY AND PERSONNEL As we said the Italian - led proj ect was joined by 10 allied Nations, with the contribution of 95 elements between Officers and NCOs, i.e. 25% or the HQ staff. The Peace Establishment (PE) consists of 402 members between Officers, NCOs and enlisted men, both nationals and from the l O allied Nations. This number practically doubles

filuht Ae~ia l view of the "Ugo ;Ha ra" Barracks, ho me of the 11e1V Rap id Deployable Corps. Below Other importanr activities lVill be carried out this year in prepara1i011 of di/: ferenc types of 111issi011s.

in case of cris is or war~ reachi ng a total of about 800 men . The contribution of multinational perso nnel to the NRDC-lT HQ is by far the highest among the newly established HRF (L) H ea dquarters w ith Ita lia n , S panish an d Turk i sh rr ame work . T he presen c e of these p erso n ncl is re gul a tee! by t h e Memorandum of Understandi ng signed by the representatives of Italy, the 10 Nations and NATO. The M OU is based on the "Paris Protocol" (1), which covers the status of NATO personnel a nd H eadquarters . T he largest co ntribution is given

b y the U ni tcd Ki ng clom - 2 4 m e n, in cl ud in g th e Depu ty Com111ancle1~ (a General), reciproca t ing th e arra ngement e x-

istin g in the ARRC-U K HQ - follo wed by the US (1 9 me n) a nd H ungary ( I 5 men) . Likewise, I ta li an O fficers a n d

TRAINING ACTIVITIES - YEAR 2003

DISCIPLINED WARRIOR(RC)

SHARP DAGGER ( \.\lJLDFLECKEN)

N ORTIIERN LIGHT (SCOTLAND)

21 .o\pr - 02 May

15 - 26 Sep

24 Feb - 0 7 l\ru

ADVENTURE TRAINING

BATILEFIEID TOUR

0"' - 11 Jul

13 - 17 Oct

I I

JAN

FEB

MAR

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

DAYBREAK GHOST LOYAL SUPPORTER Il'lNOVATIVE SIGNALLER BRILLIANT FIRE \J,l'Il)E

FAITHFUL YEOMAN 10 - 14 Mar

GLO"WING BEACON BLAZING GUNS PRODIGIOUS EAGLE SUNRISE GLOBE 17 - 211\ru

SEP

OCT

I 1r-.n- 1 NOBLE ERUPTING VOLCANO

HEFTY DOCTOR 30 Jun - 04 Jul

LEGEND D D D D D

08 - 12 Sep

l NOV I

nmus

DEC

I m,n

TY SIL-IBP BLADE

10-14 No"

Main exercises Other exercises Internal seminars Individual training Other activities

STRUCTURE AND FORCES OF THE NRCD-IT HQ

XXX IT RRC - - • UNDER NATO COMMAND (PROVIDED BY ITALY) - - • AFFILIATED AND PROVIDED BY OTHER NATIONS - - - AFFILIATED AND PROVIDED BY ITALY

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A national support structure - a Signal Brigade - is permanently under NATO-OPCOM with its combat and suppon "'nits.

NCOs have been assigned to the equi vale nt Germ an, Du tc h , Sp an is h , Tu rkis h a nd Gree k Headq ua rters, o n a recip rocity bas is , according to the contrib utio n s made t o the S o I bia te Olona HQ. Besides Lhe Multinational S taff (402 men) th e HQ includes the Signal B r igade wiLh its 1" Signal Regi me nt, sta t ioned in Milan's "Santa Barbara" Barracks, the Sup port Reg i me nt a nd t he H eadquarters Co mmand , both 8

stationed in the "Ugo Mara " Barracks. This Major Unit provides the HQ with a real capability in comm uni cations, logis tic support and in-garriso n securi ty, both in training and in operations. Th e Brigade !IQ is also in c harge of all stri ctly national activities concern ing Italian personnel. As a whole, the NRD CTT HQ an d the Signa l Brigad e (a ls o und er NAT O OPCOM ) employ about 2400 Itali an professional sold iers ; 20 of them be long to the Navy, th e Ai r Force and th e Carabini e ri.

AFFILIAT E D H EADQUARTERS AND UNITS In case of operations and exer-

COMBAT SUPPORT

COMBAT

SERV. SPT

cises a nd as needed for the mission received , in additi on to the abovementioned units, th e HQ will have a t its disposal a national po ol of H eadqua r ters and associated m anoe uvre units for tacti ca l and log is tic su pport. Thi s su ppor t may in c lude 1 Division Hq, 4 or 5 lVIanoeuvre B rigades plus some Com bat Support Brigades and Com bat Servi ce Support Brigades, fo r a tota l o f approx i matel y 40 Regim e nts. The Commander of the NR DC -IT w ill i ssue the appr op ri a te in s tructi ons to th ese Headqu arters and Un its, in order to achieve the n ecessa ry sta nda r di ,.ation o f procedures and training. T he fta li a n Headqua r t ers an d units will be joined by the multi-

Right and below Exercise "Lightship 2002". The nurnerous training activities carried out by the Rapid Reaction HQ were unanimously praised by the highest Italian and international political and military authorities.

national ones made available by the contributing Nations in compliance with the so-called "affiliation" agreements, which establish a de-facto connection between those multinational units and the Solbiate Olona HQ, without having to go through their respective National Military Authorities. In particular, it should be underlined the advanced state of such activities carried out together with the British Military Authorities and aimed at affiliating, for training purposes, one of their Divisions to the NRDC-IT. This is a token of the strong B r itish support to the Italian-led HRF (L) HQ and of the decennial presence of the Italian personnel, including the Deputy Command e r, in the ARRC -UK. Furthermore, the negotiations with Greece and Hungary for th e affiliation of Divisions, Brigades and Supports are almost concluded.

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THE "COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SYSTEM (CIS)" AND THE FIELD COMPONENT

The CIS system is one of the key elements of the whole project. Its full operational capability influences directly the Headquarters' capability to manage the subordinate units. The architecture of the Command, Control and Communications system is totally based on materials developed and produced na tionally, subdivided into a fie ld component and a garrison component. The field component ensures the

CJS supporl to the units in operations and the connections of the HQ to 4 Divisions and up to 20 tactical and logis t ic supporl units . Among the most significant systems, we can n-1ent1on:

nevv-generation Command-Post containers; mulri-channel satellite terminals that can operate with the Italian military system SICRAL and with commercial systems; a new version of the 9

na tio nal automated Comm a nd and Con trol sys tem S lA CCON 1/A, with a man /machine Eng lish -lan g uage interface, in line w ith the e nvisaged standard of internati onal interoperabiliLy (MIP-ATCCTS) (2). \ 1Ve m ust more ove r · unde,·I i ne th e high pa t en t ia l or the " Tntcgrated Com ma nd and Contro l" syste m ( TCC) of the H ea dquarte rs' "Ai r Operation and Coo rdi nation Centre" (AOCC), the most advanced among those used by the equivalent HRF (L) H ea dquart ers . (Only SHAPE has an identical one) . Th e garrison compo ne n t at the "Ugo l'vlara" Ba rracks envisages the es tabli shment of a S ystem Cent.re for Co nimuni cations a nd Infonna tion , lo \vh ic h the corresponding NATO and national systems will be linked, as well as the establi s hment of loca l co mputerized networks for the con nect io ns of the HQ Staff. Fin a ll y, a mo ng the ma t e 1·ia ls em p loyed by the fi e ld compo nent, we shou ld point out the more than 60 s h e lters ror var·io us services and over 200 pn eumatic pressurized tents, whose com bined use by modules ensures a level of n~xibility and mobility full y a dequate Lo the different conditions of emp loyment. IMPROVEMENT AND ADAPTATI ON OF T HE INF RA STRUCTURE The infrastru c ture as pect co ncents clfrect ly the Headqu arte rs' abi lity to be ready for employment in a suitable and adequ a te setting, cons ide ring the func tionality a nd "quali ty of life" s ta n dards normally expected in NATO a n d multi na tiona l environ men ts . Moreovei~ il is act ua lly o ur "visiL ing card" for the all iec.l personnel participating in th e proj ect, w ith a consequ e nt grea t impact on th e c redibility 10

an d visibiliLy of our CounLry on Lhe international scene . In this connection, the infra s tr u c tu n .tl proj ec t consists or two segmen ts. The f'i rst r·efers to th e im provement and adapta tio n of the operational stru c tures of the "Ugo Ma ra" Barracks .

Above

Training for swvival i11 e11 viro11111e111s co111ami11ated by nuclear, biological or chemical ele111e111s. Right Operational sinnilations are effective tmining imegrations a11d good re111i11ders of 1Vha1 was previo11s(v learned.

The second concerns the provision of lodgings for Jtalian a nd foreig n pe rsonn e l. As rega rds thi s second aspect, a specia l agency was created for the a cq 11is ition of apanments o n the l ree mark e L. Th e apa rtm e nts w ill be assigned with procedures similar to those envisaged fo r se rvice loclgi ngs. As con ce rns t he improvement and adapta -

Li o n of th e "U. MARA" Ban-acks, many substantial infrastructural works have been started o n all the ex ist ing buildings and Lwo new stru c tures a re under construction. One, made bY heavy prefabricated nrnte ,·ial, is rea dy to hou se the Sta ff; the o ther is

lioÂˇhter and will accorn moclate 0 the Headquarlers of the Support Signal Brigade and other multinational elemen ts. Moreover, for the cor:related ceremonial needs, the Solbiale Olona HQ will con Linue to have at its disposal Palazzo Cusani in Milan, the former headquarters of the Projection Forces. As far as the quality of li fe is concerned, we shou ld mention the adaptation and upgrading of sport installalions and equip ment (tennis co ur ts, alble Lic track, gym, etc.) and the restructuring of the recrealional facili ties for the staff.

EVOLUTION PROJECT

THE

The validation of its "Full Operational Capability" marks

the full-fledged transition of the NRDC -lT into the group of NATO Commands . Within this framework, the training cycle continues without

The Headquar1ers, equipped wilh shelLers and pressurized pneumaLic Lenis, can operate in extreme condi1ions.

interruption, in order to ensure the Solbiate Olona HQ an operational stancla rÂˇd adequale to the tasks it could be asked to perform in the future. At the same Li.me, the "pairing and exercising" agreements between pairs of new HRF (L) HQs is very likely will be formal ized . For Italy this could imply the lwinning with the Headquarters o f the British ARRC. This sol ulion, mainly aimed at sharing the training burdens (exercise clireclion, reinforcements, affiliated units), envisages an alternation o( the two Headquarters: the supported one will be ready to perform its operaLional task, while the supporting one will work as "trainer" and reinforcemenL. The Solbiate Olona NRDC-IT HQ, together with the oth er HRF (L) HQs wiJJ play a very prominent role in the constitution of the NATO Response Forc e, whose concept of employment and configurat ion will be defined by the Alliance within the first half of this year. As regards the naLiona l affilia11

Left The lvlin ister of Defence, Hon. Antonio Martino, the Chief of Staff of Defence, Gen. R olando Mosca Moschini and the Army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen . Cian franco Ottogalli during their vis it to Exercise "Lightship 2002".

Below The HQ person nel is trained for long operations in exrre111e conditions.

s im il ar cha r acteristics at the "San t a Barbara" Ba r r acks in Milan. CONCLUSIONS

ted units, the Corps will be the catalyst of all training activities connected with the preparation of t he p ro j e ctab lc Divi s i o n H ea dquart e rs , Bri gades an d relevant CS and CSS assets. It is easy to imagin e t h e enormous spin-offs in Lerms or force readin ess a nd opera tiona l cap ab ilities, as well as in terms of knowledge of NATO procedures. Fina ll y, the modern i7.ation a nd acquisition plans for ma teria ls will be comp leted, particularly in the CIS sector and in the fi eld compo nent . A s pecia l imp u lse will be given to the accomplishment of the works necessary for the adaptati on of the infras tructure. Co ncerning th is latter asp ect, the very adva nced projects fo r the co nstruct ion of the "Monte Rosa" village will start t his year in a large a r ea adj o ining t he "Ugo Mara" Barracks. This highquali ty enterprise incl u des t he constru ction of 21 l differe n t aparLment s, scho ols, cinemas, s port installa ti o n s, a b ank, a 12

p os t offi ce and a ll th e o ther structu res necessary to guarantee a high quality of life to the fa milies o f th e personnel. F ur therm o re , th e re w ill be another hou si ng complex w ith

The ambitious goa l, achieved wi t h the "F ull Op erat io nal Capability" in a synergi c effort s upported by both the political and m ilitary leaders hip of t he Italian Defence, with the involveme nt in prim.is o f every com ponent of the Army, con firms the succ es s of t h e i ni tiat ive a nd represents the recognition of the efforts made by our Nation . T he Rapid Deployable Corps of

Solbiate Olona is now a solid reality, strategically very valuable to the Defence and the Country. In the wider context of the structural revision of our Service, the realization of the NRDC-IT HQ is a timely and fundamental step on the road towards a fully professional Army. In view of this, the Solbiate Olona HQ will be a training ground for the cadres of the entire Army and the "reference model" for the development and complete implementation of similar capabilities in the projectable Division Headquarters. The success of the ini tia rive required a remarkable engagement of human, material and financial resources. Nevertheless,

considering the very short time at our disposal, it is evident that the achievement of this ambitious objective must be ascribed, first of all, to the professionalism and hard work of all members of the Army. Therefore, we can be certain that this commitment will continue in the future, \.vith the achievement of further significant goals in which the Armed Forces, and Italy as a Âˇw hole, will be engaged as protagonists in the field of international security.

D ''Lieutenant General, Deputy Chief of Siaff of the Army

The Operations Centre is the propulsive system of all operational and coordinative activities

NOTES (1) Signed in Paris on August 28,

1952 by the member Countries of the Atlantic Alliance, it lays down a status of supernational rules on the legal status of multinational and Host-Nation personnel employed in NATO HQs established on the territory of one of the signatory Nations. (2) NATO acronym for "Multilateral Interoperability Program - Army Tactical Command and" Control Information System". 13

(!)IJ!) fiJ@tl(l} !J!](f)!}!J (!)!J !l(l}(} fj)IJfJl(/fj)/JllJ@ a/J!fJ{jfj

BETWEEN TWO CENTURIES

The concept of sym metric and linear warfare was practica lly ruled out at the end of the 20'h century, which saw the hig hest numb er of confli c ts with t he hig h est d ea th toll ever. The a potheosis of war was first reached in t he concept of global war and then in a non-war situation; i.e. a war between Lwo geopo liLical blocs which was potenlially so devastating to becom e impossible though perfec tly understood by western rationalisl views. The 21 " cent ur y has op e ned

wi Lh a totally asymmetric and non - li near conDict whi ch is so dis Lant from the western way of thinking to become, in our view, irraLional. Between these two ce nluries, during a very short span of time, warfare was first declared buried to pave the way to the so called p eace operations and then was brought back Lo life to be waged again in its most archaic and at the same time most technologicalJy developed forms. The reality of a non-linear war, as evoked by the terrorist attack of September l I, unleashed our

fears and took us and our defense capabiliLi es by surprise. The loss of a traditional frame of reference to help us understand this type of war gave way to the development of extremist concepts. On the one hand, every social, political, economic, finan cial and military event is considered as a war action, while on the othe1~ any violent attack on us is generally described as originated by a well -known background, which therefore is hypocritically deemed reassuring. And even though war is no longer limi ted by traditional tenito15

ting on its own future. The terrorist attack of September 11 came as a complete surprise THE WEST AND THE EAST OFWAR

The reason why the western world is so disorientated and uncertain in understanding new forms of war is because it is incapable of accepting a non linear way of thinking and acting. There are many ways to classify the world in order to better study it: northern and southern areas, rich and poor countries, developed and developing nations, iclea1ists and materialists, white, black and yell.ow people.

Kabul: trooper ing guard.

of the

"Guide " stand-

rial borders, it remains unchanged as it still depends on those who wage it and on their equipment: i.e. troops and their means. Two Chinese Colonels, however; Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, wrote a book in Chinese (therefore for Chinese readers) on war with no limits (1) ' They started analyzing the Gulf War which , in their opinions, witnessed the triumph of technology, of the killing power of traditional weapons and of asymmetry. Before September 11, in the 16

western world too, a debate was carried out on the futute of warfare , but, while the Chinese warned everybody on the threat posed by non traditional weapons or even non-weapons used in sneaky and secret wars, no less devastating than traditional conflicts, Westerners were develo ping plans to scrap military and .in teJligence assets. In fact, peace support operations cou.ld not justify a huge military instrument or expensive techno logical innovations. The USA was not developing its national missile defense system any longer and even NATO, the only military alliance still alive after the Cold War, was reflec-

As regards warfare and its different forms, the most important difference lies in the fact that one part of the world adopts linear systems in waging war and the other part p.-ivileges a non-linear approach. Consequently, if we consider the Western world ( i. e. our world and our social, political and economic reference system) as the

paradigm of linearity and rationality, we automatically think that in the Eastern world the opposite rule applies. But this is once again a linear approach and it is not valid in itself as it requires a previous definition of "the West and the East of war" . This definition must then be compared with our present situation, also in the light of the globalization process. The resulting classification of the world is not so linear as expected and therefore it is much more credible than the initial definition. In fact, as regards the in terpretation or philosophy of war, the West and the East are not geographical concepts and not even subdivisions between races, reli-

gions and political systems. It is a sort of cultural subdivision but only as regards cultural contributions to the concept of war. The pa rameters on which this classification is based are the different ideas of Time, Space, Life and Death. As Life and Death are also the fundamental dimensions of war, the difference between the two parts of the

world lies also in the very concept of war. On one side of this dividing line there is the Western world which has adopted the concept of a linear tim e: i.e . a straight line running from minus to plus infinity. Space is a dimension external to men and it is not chaotic Life and Death only refer to the b iological dimension of men; there is a beginning and an end, which are at opposite ends . Everything has its opposite. Men are at the cent.er of everything and are the term of reference for everytl1i ng, divinity included.

Kabul: motorized patrol in action

On the other side of the divi ding lin e there is the Eastern World with its idea of a cyclical and even circular time. The idea is that space (universe) is both internal and external to men and is chaotic: all sentient beings are closely involved in the Life and Death cycle. The two conditions endlessly alternate. Men are only a projection of this eternal move-

ment and have a value of thei1Âˇ own in that they are part of a whole. Here Life and Death are complementary and everything does not have an opposite but a complement. Divinity or the relation with transcendental experiences is based on the transcendental component and on the cosmic balance, not on the single man. In between the two extremes, there is a wide range of different overlapping positions and nuances. To further clarify the extreme positions, it is necessary lo stress that as regards the western reference system, war is an instrument in the powerful hands of men, while in the eastern reference model, it is a task men have to carry out lo the benefit of the transcendental component or of their communities. ln the first system, war has a logical beginning and an end while in the other, there is no beginning and therefore no end. The first defines victory as neutralization of the enemies; the second defines it as a balanced situation. In the western \vorld, man w ages war using all the means at his disposal; in the eastern world, man is the instmmen t of war. The first sees the degree of acceptance of Life and Death as one of the major factors in a war, the second does not consider either aspect as important as they are complementary, indivisible pmi.s of an uncontrollable plan. How one lives and dies is much more important than just living and dying. Geographical considerations are irrelevant to all this. There arÂˇe ancient cu ltures geographically distant from our world which share the same principles in waging \,var as ours, 'While other cultures geographically closer and integrated in our world adopt totally opposite principles. Thanks to the globalizat ion process and the enhanced possibilities of exchanging communications and travelling, the West and the East are more physically 17

intermingled lhan ever, but , at the same time, they have never been so concepLmdly distant . Hm,vever, the gaps a rnong cultures, as iden Lified by i\llr Huntigton, do not exist and trying to define thern at all costs only adds pol iLical problems to cultural difficulties. This is the reason why Huntigton's vision is misgui din g. But it is also true that the so called melling-pois do not exist; they have onl y been invented to dupe minorities or cultures other than the dominating one. Even those who belong to

Kabul: marksman controllinP, his fire sector.

hybridized races do not represent merged and integrated cultures, but only the contradictions of their original cultures. Wi lh all due exceptions, the concept ual approach to war or the whole sub -Saharan Africa clown to South Africa is typical of the western world. Australia (exce p t for the aborigines) belongs to the West, while New Zealand with its Maori aborigi nes belongs Lo the West thanks to the fact that they Gercely fought 18

the colon ists, un like the Australian aborigines. Russia, Belarus and UkrÂˇaine belong to Lhe West but in central As ia repub li cs and in the Caucasus ther e are pockets of popu lations of purely Easten1 origin. Asian populations of Chinese culture (Japan included) as well as communities comprising Mongols or pre-Mongols, Hindus and Buddhists, central Asians and Persians, Muslims and Polynesians, follow the Eastern philosophy of wa1~ Northern Africa belongs to the

eastern world and the Basques are much more oriental than the Arabs. European countries in the Balkans belong to the East and, in a certain sense, a large part o( Italy is instinctively more eastern than \vestern oriented. In fact, Venice is the most "oriental" of western cities and this is the reason why Italy and Venice have a lways understood and loved the East. As regards religion, geographical reasons are not so important even in the separation or the East from the West. The western world is a lmost

totally fou nded on the J ewishChristian tradi ti on which flouri shed in a geographically Asian area. The Jewish re li gion is purely occidenta l while the Christian religion is essentially oriental. The biblical approach to 'War is linear. An eye for an eye. Every reaction is prnporliona l to the offence suffered. All wars described in the Bible are balanced and rat ional battle. The direct d ivine intervention is the secret \veapon of the Israelites. But it is also the token of their faithfulness to the only God. The Alliance with God is more po litical and military than religious. Violating the Alliance or being unfaithful to it carries horrible punishments. When Sodom and Gornorra reached the limit of impiety, they were set on fire. Today, an effort is being made to demonstrate that it was not fire but nuclear weapons. It would not come as a great surprise. Therefore, it is quite easy to understand 'Why Christian confessions which refer to the old testament, as in the case of Protestan ti sm, are cu lturally much more distant from Catholicism than from Buddhism. The Christian evangelic doctrine is linear, nonetheless it is different from the biblical doctrine in the way it deals with war. Here, it b ecomes non - linear, almost irrational and sometimes incomprehensib le even for the apostles . "Give Caesar whaL belongs Lo Caesar" is linear reasoning just as "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us" but "if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well" is non .linear reasoning. The same can be said for " not protecting our Lord with our sword" . Disarming powerful countries by martyrdom is non - line ar and extremely asymmetric reasoning. Eastern cultural entities are not

Kabul: soldier garrisoning the Italian HQ.

different by vir tue of their geographical positions, but their diversity from our culture does not mean tbat they are a ll culturally homogeneous . Al though fragmen ted, they find a unifying value in the cultural opposition against the West. Howeve1~ whi.le the opposition against the West may be a unifying aspect, the reasons for this opposition are different. This is why it is not possible to rely on the consensus of one component to gather the consensus of all. It is necessary to w in total consensus.

THE WESTERN MILITARY PHILOSOPHY There is even greater confusion in the field of military and strategic studies . In the western world, the way to interpret military actions, as well as warfare phi losophy and behavio1~ is deeply rooted in the thought of the Enlightenment , rationalist and romantic periods. No other expression of human tho u ght as the military philo sophy has such close ties with the Enlightenment and the romantic period. Western philosophy has developed since then. After Voltaire and Kant, there have been Nietzsche and Freud who contrib uted to dismantling all certainties of the 19th century and its rationalistic principles, which Schopenahuer and Kierkegaard had already discussed. These two thinkers, the first a philologist and the second a doctor, criticized the central position of language in Hegel as well as Marxist materialism and scientific positivism. These were philosophies which had in com mon an exaggerated faith in futu re progress. To this end, thev criticized the strongest tenets ;f the western civilization. Nietzche, in

particular, is one o[ Lhe representatives of the vita listic doctrine which exalted li fe and its inner irrntional aspects. In "Thus spake Zarath ustra" he vvro te : "one must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star". Physics has abandoned Nevvton ian mechanic and has discovered the theory of re lativity and structured chaos, ma thematics and biology have discovered the theory of complex ity; social systerns have changed and Lhose which have originated from the hi g hest expressions of the postEnlightenment period have collapsed .

Unlike the above ment ioned d isciplines, war p hil osophy and stra tegy sLi ll refer to doct i-inal and menta l parameters set by von Clausew i tz for warfare in general and land warfar-e in particular. His concepts have been of major im po rtance also in Lhe development or a ir and nava l strategic doctrines. Seapower is a Lypically Anglo-Saxon concep t, which has been developed by geopolitica l experts Ii ke the American Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan and the British Ad rniral Julian G . Corbett. As regards air strategy, Lhe impact of Clausewi tz on Douhet and Mecozzi is evi 19

dent, even though there is a wide range of opinions on the nature of air power doctrines . In the western world, no military philosophy has ever been so prevailing as von Clausewitz' \Nar doctrine which, however, has not been the only military doctrine and may not have been the most refined one. Some analysts underlined the importance of the works of Raimondo MontecuccoJi (1609 1680)(2)2 and their impact on Napoleon who considered Montecuccoli as an unparalleled master of the art of war. As regards

Kabul: Italian patrol carrying out a surveillance action.

other correlated aspects, Machiavelli, Baldassarre Graziano, the great theorists Maurice of Saxe, Frederic II , Guibert and others have shaped the history of the political-strategic thought. Howeve r路, their teachings, like those of Montecuccoli, Gustav Adolf, von Bulow, the Archduke Charles, and even Jomini who was the only one to counter the advance of clausevv路it:t,an doctrine, were forgotten in the period of Napoleon and in the following development of von Clausewitz doctrine \,v hich , as a mere consequence , emerged as the prevailing philosophy. Clausewitzan doctrine was the

characterized military philo sophy as elitist, is considered today as a severe setback. Since the 19'h century, all wars have been waged based on Clausevvitzan doctrine , namely his war of physical annihilation of the enemy. This remark is not aimed at criticizing von Clausewitz' system but only at underlining that all conflicts which affected mankind at large have always been first a European prerogative and then a western specialty, from a cultural point of view. So far, the most devastating conflicts have been fought in the West and always by warring parties which shared the

result of the European culture o[ the Enlightenment period, reinte17Jreted in the light of romanticism. But, its being the only war doctrine had the negative consequence that its impact was felt only within the rnilitary world, thus contributing to the separation of it from the rest of the society, given the specia lized, rationalist and scientific nature of the military thought. This specific nature \vhich in the past

same war philosophy even though ,,vith different operational concepts and rules of engagement based on the available means. The two cultural exLremes of the West and the East of war have never met. They have confronted each other路 for ages, but always within the same reference model of warfare. Alexander the Great fough l in India just as he \.Vould fight in Greece. The caliphs 路who opposed Christian faith and threatened western culture, adopted the sar:ne philosophy of war as the crusaders. The pre-clausewitzan philosophy of war was globally accepted at least as far as the Chinese borders and, as the chinese borders were never crossed, the two systems never got into contact. All fightings between the East and the \\Test were never considered as wars but as catastrophes. Barbarian and Mongolian incursions have been the on ly exam.ples of the eastern concept of war seen in the West for centuries. On those occas ions, the western world was helpless. The asymmetry was evident in combat behaviors but again the difference was mainly cultural. In the case of barbarian incursions, it is the culture of movement versus a static culture. It is the different way to understand and use Time and Space (their ratio equals velocity) and it is also the different way Lo understand Life and Dealh and, in particulai~ the way it is worth Jiving and dying, At that time, the West tried to rationalize Lhe cultural diversity of lhe ferocious barbarians ,vho did not respecL any rule . The resu l I of this effort was that the western world d id not understand any cultural difference and accepted barbarian incursions as natural disasters. This went on [or centuries and when lhe \Vest became mechanized and more rationalized this diversity grew even stronger.

The 19'" century was anolher important step. At that point, the western world was deeply rooted in the Enlightenment period doctrines which charmed the eastern worJd so strongly that easterners were ready to accept a sorL of cultural compromise. Japan left the ,.vest of war in which it had lived in isolation for more than ten centuries by adopting the Dutch Navy disciplinary regulations and starting an industrialization process which would transform the whole country into a regional power~ capable of conquering the sou th east of Asia and defeating an imperial power like czarist Russia. The agony of the Chinese empire coincided with the invasion of western military "experts" and the modernization efforts. Before the Enlightenment period, however, the European concept of war was much more "oriental" than it is now. Suffice it to think to the low impact of the Time factor on holy wars, dynastic wars (The Hundred Years' War, the Thirty Years' War , etc .) and sieges . The same applied to the Space factor : battle space was strictly limited to the area of operations where small formations of elite or mercenary armies confronted each other; combat was ritualized ( fighting between "champions" ) and ethical and chivalry codes focused not on winning or losing but on the noble \Nays of dying or winning. Victories were never decisive and defeats in the field could a lso be transformed into politic a l advantages. This system collapsed w i lh Napoleon who established mass armies, enlarged the areas of the battle space and reduced the time of maneuvers. Victory was necessary at all costs, defeat in the field entailed the collapse of political systems. Clausewitz built on Napoleon's experiences and further widened the gap between the western phi-

losophy of modern war and the eastern and the pre-enlightenment war doctrine. This does not mean that linear and rational ideas are conceptually superior or that symmetry is necessarily linked to them. Colonial \Vars which gave Europe the supremacy over the entire known world up to Vv'vV2, are the epitome of the imperial and linear philosophy of the

each other~ even \,v hen supported by a clear supremacy in technology and forces. Every Lime the East has fol lowed traditional parameters in conducting war; it has been successful, ,.vhile it has always been a looser Âˇwhen it has made reference to western models and systems. ISLAM

Kabul: control of the territory is one of the tasks assign.eel to our contingent.

It is very easy to understand why Islam is that part of the East which raises the concern of al l westerners.

West, even though they were totaUy asymmetric. Sea dominance which is abso1u tely necessary to colonial expansion has been achieved by winning few battles and by conducting a race war (officially or unofficially) ,vhich is not only non linear and asymmetric, but it is a barbaric war where movements are the key factor and the space of the battle has no limits, like the prairies fro rn Mongolia to I-I u ngary in the first case or sea fields in the second. In fact, a linear and rational idea of war has never prevailed in all modern wars which saw the West and the East confronting

Many people thought that it was a western and therefore predictable cultural system. In fact, the truly oriental na t ure of Islamic fundamentalists, and not of Islamic rulers, had been forgotten clue to the fighting for the price of oil at the stock exchanges, the battles against OPEC, the rhetoric image of Lawrence of Arabia, the linearity of the Arab Israeli confl icts and of the war on Iraq . ln the hope of exorcising a ll fears, the West had classified fundamentalism as a sort of a mere fanatic deviance and revelled in the support of those governrnents which apparently 21

foll owed w es Le rn ways o f thinking . But, o nce again , the calcul a Lion t u rne d out to be wrong. B erna rd Le,.v is (3 ) h as ver y clearly highlighted the complete isolatio n o f the Christia n rl'Om the Arab world over the centur ies. In fa ct , these two world s have ne ver deve lo ped a mutual knowl edge even though they have come into contact, h ave been o bl iged to a forced in tegration and h ave in turn r eciproc ally domin a ted one a n.other. · The Ara b Palesti nia n /l srae li conflict clearly shows how deep is the mutu a l ignorance eve n though Lhe t,vo e ntities belo ng to the same race and Is lam shares the same roots as Hebraism and Chris tianity. Tslam is still an unknown e ntity, but now it freely circulates throughout the world , having both the necessary resoL!l'Ces and reasons, and whe n th e Is lamic ideas o( Time, Space , Li fe and Deat h enter our worl d, the bio'w is devas tating. According to Braudel: !s lam is a long road wh ich goes fro m rhe Allantic to 1he pacific Ocean and crosses the rigid and powerful Old World. Islam is an austere and de manding religion for men who are used to living in lhat human empriness IVhich is called t h e dese rt and was filled bv th e incamale word of a m.an touched by Gmce. The desert is an obsessive and nosralgic presence in Islam as Revelation cam e Fro m the du nes, hlll ii is the urban en v i ronme n t 1vh ich i s more i n keeping 111irh Islam .. In fac1, an Islamic believer always leads h is life within his co rmnunily and therefore develops a strong feeling of belonging to his group, clan , co1111nuniry . It is a well s1mctured organ ization ". Accor·ding to fgor Man (4): religious pillars are: profession of faith, praye1~ alms, absrinence and pilgrimage. And faith is eve1ything. But Is lam has left the desert and now lives in Western and ec1stern 22

t o wns an d c ities and is often embodied by fun damenlalis ts who move freely throughout the 1Vorld. Ruhollah Khom eini who ousted the Shah, had studied Greek phi1os ophe r s a nd in pa rticul a r· Plato's "The Republic". When he became the head of Tra n , he dre amt or buildin g a n Islamic Republic, jus t as a wes te rn rule1~ but Lhe resu lt was completely clifferent a nd Iran fell prey to pazdarans . Alter h e e xpul s io n of th e Soviets, Afghanistan was in the hands of its Kornn students. In oth er a reas , th e re are th e h ez bo llah S who s h o w wh ere fs la m's real d riving for·ce is. Saddam Hussein is an Islamic believer, but he promotes the cult of his own l'igure jus t as weste rn rulers a nd easte rn emperors do . Saudi kings and the emirs of the "oi l a rea" arc more at case in Lhe lu xury hote ls they o wn in th e west than in the desert, but their power still lies in the clan they belo ng to a nd in the fa ct tha t Lhe ir role as champio ns of the fa ith is accepted . Eve n Gheddafi d reams of an

Islamic regime based on western m odels, but he is mor-e in keeping with traditions than all the o the r- lea d e r s . He li ves in th e desert for security reasons a nd to remember thal he, as a Bedo ui n, belongs to lhe desert. Even I houg h Islamic I lead of States cannot be trusted, the reason why Islam ra ises the concern of westerners paradoxically lies in the fac t that it is ou t of the control of Islamic rulers and that the Wes t has u n de rst ood that Islam is a total lv different \\·a,· of thi nking and li,;ing. It is eth ic·s in all th e possible meanings of the word . E th ics genera lly tra ns late the list of rules that men set as regards what they think is mora ll y righ t or w rong . In the case of Islam, Go d set these rules as well ads the c ri teri a to d istinguish what is true from what is fa lse, give n that th e quest ror truth a ncl the need to communi cate it to o ther h um an beings ar·e moral values in themselves. Islam ic relig ion can be considered as the most com plete e th ics, as all moral values mankind has developed O\'er its histor have

been set by Allah, since the very beginning. It is this set of ideas and beliefs which is 110w under· discussion,being considered as the expression of a fanatica l atti tude. Today, those Islamic be.l iever who are underprivileged and disparaged embody Nietzsche 's forecasts on slave1·y. I-Te thought that what is generally accepted as "good" or "evil" had been defi-

Left Kahul : llalian patrol in the southern periphe1)1.

Below Kabul: rangers clearing a buildin~.

ned as such by the "owners", thus corn ing incredibly close to Lhe ideas Marx was developing in that same period. Il may happen, however, that another kind of eth ics be developed by those who are s laves, because thev arc ·weak and want to deny the ·;·ight of their masters by opposing their "ethics of r~sentmcnt". Th is pers pective, which has been developed based on ancient sophists' d iscussions, has led to rejecting first of a ll Plato, who in his "Republic" had objected to the idea of "might is righ t" supported by Trasirnacus, then Christianity as a strong supporter of the equality of all men in front of God, to end with Democracy and socialism as an example of a moral Christian ideals badly misunderstood . In the end, Nietzsche makes a sensational discovery: the ethics of the weak may become the ethics of injustice, because, when the slaves unite they can impose th eir· values bo th forcibly and peacefully. This translates into a sort of nihilistic attitude , which can be divided into passive or active nihilism. This philosophic reasoning is similar to the one developed by Islamic fundamentalists who have identified the enemy of the Islamic faith in tbe USA and, therefore, move against o u r philo sophic foun dations , Christianity, democr·acy, socialism and obviously always aga inst the strongest. The ethics of resentment becomes the ethics of injustice and active nihilism , whose most sophisticated instrun,ents are the isolated suicide attackers. For this reason, there are widespread fear·s wh ich are completely justified, also because the ethics of resentment does not belong only to Islam and can very easily be followed by any other entity which thinks it is dominated by a stronger power:

THE WARS OF

THE XXI CENTURY The Afghan model After September 11, analysts of conflicts focused their a ttention on terrorism to discover that suddenly the most powerful and protected part of the \vorld had become vulnerable and unprotected.

Kabul: artificers selling up 1he blast hole for RPG rockeLs and mor/ar bombs lefi by the Talebans.

Discussions on defence instruments are on ly one of the aspects of the deeply fe lt concern. Amer ica's reacLion against Afghanistan, though clearly asymmetric , has highlighted the technical and logistic difficulties of a tradiLional military action. Theatres d istant fron, all friendly bases, hostile natural environments and almost unknown territories were the rea sons for signing agreements, bilaLeral alliances and establi-

shing ad hoe coalitions which contributed to a severe destabi1iza t ion of the entire south eastern As ia.Lie theatre and to the setting up of new geo-politi cal aggregations, vvhich were at the same time encouraging and alarming. For a short period, the war in Afghanistan has been considered as the repetition of the Gulf war: technology, a ir bombings, "zero casualties". But then it became clear that notwithstan ding bombings and thermo baric weapons, state-of-the-art techno logies were almost use-

less as it was impossible to "digitally" know the territory. And they wer-e also extremely expensive. Land forces were necessary to direct smart weapons and above all seize the territory. Therefore the employment of special forces was an unescapahle choice. Traditional land units, necessary to conduct operations, were not available and, moreover, could not be accepted by the so called Northern Alliance. Special for -

ces, which in their nature are 1-educed and unconventional, were the spearhead Cor Afghan i forces and their special capabilities were only used to brush up old offensive techniques and improve their skills in riding mules . Some thought that the reference model for the wars of our century could be the war in Afghanistan in the light of the new alliances, the acquisition of logistic and operational bases in central Asia, the concurrent employment of new generation weapons, special forces, Afghani forces as well as the lack of operational and counterterrorism intelligence. Today the war in Afghanistan is virLually over and is already being discussed as a reference model for future conflicts. It is necessary to rethink global te1Torisms seen as the pattern of conflict between different civilizations and as a new ideological threat to the West, which calls for a global and unified answer. Whi le the idea of the axis of evil is losing support, the idea of eliminating those regimes which harbour terrorism or have mass destruction weapons is still widespread. The systems of choice will be open \,var or destabilization from abroad , a imed at supporting coups d'etat . Some analysts, not particulady informed on Is lam, dream of helping peoples of Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other countries oust their regimes . All analyses and studies are now in a thick fog, also because international terrorism has cast a shadow on everything and made the tasks of decis ion makers very difficult. However, the Afghani mode l can still be taken into consideration when preparing a war at global level. Lessons learned in Afghanistan have shown thaL all powers aiming at playing a role at global level need to develop a global operational and logistic network, based on bilateral ag1Âˇeements.

Kabul: Italian patrol in action.

Future scenarios

It has always been very risky to make forecasts on future wars and the risk has been worth running only in very few cases . However, there are two impor tant kinds of clues which can make this task easie1~ The first is the scenario of wars with no boundaries. According to this scenario , wars of the XXI century will not be fought between different cultures in those areas where these cultures come in to touch, as Huntington thought. These wars will be fought between different "warfare cultures" and , therefore, will be asymmetric. It is not important to know the names of the warring parties, what really matters is the fact that weapons and goals will be different and asymmetric.

Conflicts w ill take place everywhere and in the place of choice of the weapon or "nonweapon" which either party will use. If the East chooses terrorism, the place of choice of its actions will be any symbolic, highly vulnerable place where the number of casualties would be very high and psychological and material damage remarkably severe. When the target is information technology, the place of choice would be both the East and the Wes t, mainly vvhere IT is widely used and less protected. If t he weapon is financial destabilization, the place of choice would be stock exchanges and business banks, if it is political destabili1.ation, these places would be diplomatic buildings , national or international political headquarters by means of those influence operations which have assumed an increasingly growing importance since their first timid appearance with lobbying grou-

ps. These wars will be rought at sub - regional level between nations or non-nations ( private wars) and for non state reasons which require an external military interven tion. They will be pre-emptive operations aga inst terrorism, i !legal trafficking, threats posed by mass destruction weapons and crirnes against humanity. But, they ,viii be mainly wars fought on behalf of new empires: the web, communications, IT and intellectua l resources for research. These new wars could also see the deployment of regu lar armies and the employment of traditional techniques, but the mobilization o[ public opinion or of opinion makers will always be necessary. These new wars will employ economic and financial , political and diplomatic, intelligence, information and any otherÂˇ deterrence means. T he most important, supporting or provocalive roles will be 25

played by supranational economic and financial institutions, NGOs, multinational or national corporations, intelligence assets, mafia groups and also indivi duals covered by one of the collective nouns like Luther BIissel which are common on the web. There wil l also be Nations vvith their resources and armies to make up possible coalitions or alliances. According to this order of priority, soldiers are in the last place, even though they will be the first or may be the only to appear. ln this h:amework , the USA is the nation w ith the strongest intervention capabilities. But the USA is still a structured national entity which needs its people's consensus and international support . Adven tures are possib le only when both American people and the rest of the world approve them passively and actively. Ho,.vever~ rich countries, irrespective or their geographical positions, are capable of conducting wars with no need for pu bl ic de bate or consensus. Poor countries have the same capability, especially if underprivileged people or those \Vho fee l slave or an alien and evil power succeed in exploiting vulnerabilities or inertia of the r ich and powerful. Chinese Colonels who wi ll go dovm in history only to join the group of those who have been misunderstood, hav e already highlighted the possibility that terrorist and fundamentalist organizations can launch powerful attacks with asyrn metric rn eans and methods. However, they have also deno u nced lhaL there are aggressive busines smen \Nho act like terrorists and that dubious policies of international financial institutions can cause rnore serious damage than a ,.var and bring entire social and political systems to the ir knees. They have clearly explained that America is still sticking Lo the tradit ional pattern of war and

has not dared adopting asymmetric methods and its various nonweapons as strategic. ,-eference models. They openly accuse America for being Jim i ted by technology. According to these colonels, the American mi litary strategic thought st ill relies on technology and is therefore strictly limited by technological developments Thus it foHows a linear and rational path, bas ed on Newtonian mechanics . \Vith some minor exceptions, th.ese remarks can be applied to the whole western school of thought. Technology, however, does not fix a limit to the use of violence and power. Conversely, the West has always transformed any tech nological development into new means of \var a nd destruction. Technological deve lopments have alvvays been applied first to weapon systems and then to the civilian sector. Giving technology an excessive importance can be a limit but has no practical consequences. What Chinese co lonels have not clear ly exp lained is that if \.Vestern institut ional. organizations do not develop a non linear military thought, other entities not completely linked to the establishment or even totally inde-

Above Kabul: one of the town markets.

Below Arui-perso11nel mines, u sed by the Talehans, before being destroyed.

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pendent can have the opportunity and the capability to make use of extreme means. Corporations, NGOs, private companies, crime and terrorist organizations have been clearly identified by lhose colonels, but nobody has believed them. After September 11, tough, the US has taken diplomatic, political and military iniliatives ,.vhich are rather innovative, as compared to the past. Fulure wars \.Vill increasingly be characterized by the adoption of imaginative and unusual solutions and the use of all available means, both lawful and unlawful. Means which are unlawful for certain enliLies are lawful for olhers as lawfulness only depends on coded ethics and laws. So far, no universal code has been laid down. The second future scenario is drawn from an even more clear clue: today's official plans of the USA. This scenario sees Lhe war on terrorism as the starting point.

The ultimate goal, i.e. the liberation of the world from any fear of terrorist attacks, has turned out to be the only reason capable of mobilizing more resources than those needed for a wor ld war. This is an unexpected advantage. \Var on crime, drug and illegal trafficking are side products which are given priority one only if they hamper war on lerrorism. The imminent war is therefore a war to free us from any feac It is a war as old as time, but it adds a new kind of war to the lisL of insLiluLional and private conflicts , i.e. an all-out pre-emptive war. This scenario is far less academic than the first one and not exacLly reassuring or less apo calyptic. As the American defense secretarÂˇy , Donald Rumsfeld said (S) in line with the so called "Bush doctrine" , tl1e USA will not base the next war on the type of enemy, the terrnin , the lechnologies available or the results to achieve.

Its new strategy is not based on the identified threat but on its offensive capabilities. Rumsfeld clearly explains that a military instrument is to be established ,,vh icb is capable of counLer.ing any threat, event those threats which a rÂˇe still unknown or have not yet come to light. The areas to he put under control at global level are four as the "rogue" states which are to be e lim inated. The strength of the deterrence po,ver lies in the ce rtainty of the military action, coupled with the uncertaint y on the first target . Apparently, Rumsfel d still adopts the old eastern concept called " the .Marshal's cocktail" which states that success is not contingent on deploying a military instrument as strong as possible, but on e mploy ing several instruments and adop ting all known strategies against a spec.ific enemy. This kinds of strategy requires huge investm en t s and new priorities in acquiring weapon instruments. Priorities have already been defined and funds have been allotted for an unprecedented plan, aimed at upgrading the military instrument. Notwithstanding all exhortations to think different, to find new strategies and tactics, not forgelling old ones, Rumsfeld's war is surprisingly linear and exceedingly asymmetric . It is also easily predictable as it fol lows the general principle " one against all" and in particular "one against four" for the near futu re. Moreover, this kind of strategy which does not exploit one of the great advantages offered by asymm etry (great results with few resources), is extremely expensive and does not guarantee positive results. To develop credible deterrence levels, targets to defeat are clearly defined ( one of the four rogue countries ) . This way, however, an incredible advantage is granted 27

Trooper of the "Guide "standin g guard.

factor even more important than knO\.ving a potential enemy. But no strategic advantage derives from knowing that the enemy's only goal is fighting in itself. On the contrary, it has negative consequences on those \,1,,ho cannot even take into consideration an aimless \var with no end state. The a symmetry of space, means, technologies, doctrines, policies and of the moral values of the warring parties can be understood and accepted, unlike the asymmetry of goals which stirs instinctive and irrational fears. The asymmetry of the existential fear

to the "fifth country"; i.e . that myriad of "fifth countries" which have nothing to lose and are interested in having one of the four rogue countries destroyed by the West . Osama bin Laden cou ld be ( or have been) one of these "fifth countries ". But , just li.ke Osama, th ere can be dozens of "fifth countries" , under cover in the West and in the East, which are interested in unleashing American vengeance. An all-out pre-emptive war will not be the fina l warfare model of the 21" century, but it certainly is the initial one. It begins in the moment when the s tra tegy is declared and all necessary resources are allolled.

NEW ASYMMETRIES

Asymmetry of goals

International ter-r-orism highlights a new aspect of the asymmetric war, even though future scenarios do not envisage only terrorist warfare and wars on terrorism. It is a dimension which goes beyond known borders and establishes new, though vague, limits . The usual asymmetry of means and strategies has been coupled with the asymmetry of goals . On one extreme of this asymmetry there are objective goals and well defined ideals and on the other there is the tota.l absence of goals: an aimless warfare. Knowing goals is a strategic

The Âˇw est is almost overcome by a paranoiac fear o[ the future. The reference universe for the West is an external and distant universe. \Nestern [ears come from the future and from external space and take possession of an inner emptiness . The East, on the contrary, lives in the present, today, yesterday and tomorrow. The universe of the East is inside every man and completely fulfils him . Fears from the external space cannot penetrate the inner space and , in any case, they \,\/ill mix with all the fears of the inner universe which represent a constant concern for any easterne1~ In fact, a world which looks ahead in the futme, also thinks about space. lls limits are represented by the limits of its means. A world which looks ahead does not fear external space because it is capable of understanding it. A world which does not look ahead in future time , does not think about distant space. The highest expression o( this attention to closeness is introspection, which has no technologica l or

sensorial limits. Those who have the universe inside themselves cannot have the same li .m its as those who considers the µnive.rse as external to themselves. Obviously, the perception of fear is completely different. If those who look inside themselves, are convinced that lhe inner universe is unchangeable and ever lasting and that the material world around them (their bodies included) is a sort of dress to change when it is worn out or is considered as an instrument to reach eternal happiness and victory, then it can be said that fear can only be felt by those who look ahead in lime and space. The asymmetry of existential fear poses a serious problem as regards the identification of appropriate means to eliminate it. All men having an inner universe only have a feeling of fear when they are not able to expand their inner universe. They are more vulnerable when they are powerful and narrow-minded, but if they are pure and deeply convinced they do not feel any fear. The difference between those who are pure and those who are convinced is the same as the one between saints and fanatics. They both feel no fear. Deterrence (preventive use of terror) is useless with them, as useless as all references to material advantages. FUTURE CONFLICTS

Priorities In the above mentioned scenarios, new wars have objective limits. The first is the priority of reasons to wage war. Beyond the numberless possibilities of wars with no limits and no goals, there are many other more practical reasons ·which can become priority one and trigger traditional but not adequately prepared conflicts . One of these reasons is water. The whole rn iddle east is at risk, like other parts of the

globe. Another reason in supranational organized crime. The various crime··organizations are increas ingly growing and resources allotted to wars with no limits, reduce those lo be used in countering crini.e organizations. If crime organizations prevailed, it would be necessary to wage war against them. In that case, all investments in missiles and unmanned platforms would be almost useless. There are also political priorities. The pol itical consequences

in solving all problems. Their weakness lies in the volatile nature of the agreement on which they are based. Aggregation based on the sharing of a same ideology is no longer possible after the encl of the "two b locs" period, which sav.1 the opposition of two completely different ideologies. EsLablisbing alliances based on the sharing of val ues is more a slogan than a reaJily. If China, Russia, Uzbekistan declare their willingness to sup-

of a war are not always limited to its theatre. What can be even less foreseen is the political influence of other more insidious types of asymmetric warfare : informaLion warfare, cyber warfare, financia l warfare and ecoJogical \Narfare.

Kabul: patrol in action in the cenLre of the town.

Alliances and Coalitions

Alliances, wh ich are one of the most important instrumerll Lo join forces for- ,,v ar and security purposes, are changing their dimensions and becoming a limit more than a strong point. Alliances, based on the sharing of princip les, purposes and tasks are now established in a new way. It is not certain, however, that new coalitions can succeed

port the USA in its war on global terrnrism, it is nol because they share the same values as regards democracy, human rights or free market. An alliance signed in the name of a religion is a sort of historical finding which is not even mentioned in school text books . Some think that belonging to a common civilization should be the driving force of new alliances, but it is a debatable reason and not always valid. Globalisation has changed the idea of civilization as well as the idea or poliLics. Both words refer to one root: the

city. The city is a social ent ity defined by a territoria l extension, a governing authority and a law. The idea of civilization touches the concept of territory or authority. Civilization is opposed to barbaric behaviour, not because it is typical of peoples without traditions, but because it is not static, it is not limited by definite borders, it is not subject to an external law, but to the law of the individual or of the clan. Today, there are not longer rigid and impenetrable borders. They are mobile and the idea of civilization do not a pply any longer. Enforcing civilization and the rule of law is hopeless when the kind law to adopt it is to be defined . Today, in the so called civil world, criminals cannot be expelle d as the law in force in one nation is not accepted by another. Even though today's "vorld has been given many definitions as "post-cold war" or "postmodern ", anothe r definition should be added, i.e. post-civil Establishing new alliances based on the sharing of the same technologies, living standards or even interests has become obsolete. Today, the West is more fragmented than ever before. This is particularly true in the military technologies sector. Within NATO, there are coun tries with cutting edge soft technologies and other countries which are still living in the "iron age" . As for the sharing of interests , it is necessary to stress that within the only competition system, the interests of one competitor go to the detriment of another and severely affect living standards. The only force which can cement completely different political, social and military components is fear (as it was in the stone age). But, as i t has already been said, the fear that torments the West is different from the one that tortures the East. 30

A patrol of Lhe "Guide" controlling a sensitive poirzl during a preventive control action.

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Deterrence as asymmet ric defence

It seems paradoxical but, to win any fears, recourse is made to terro1~ which becomes a deterrence element when transformed into a d efence and dissuasion instrument. Rumsfeld's strategy is a deterrence strategy. However, deterrence can be successful only when it is credible. If deterrence is in the hand of a coalition, then the whole coali tion is to be credible. There cannot be vulnerable or weak elements \vithin a coalition , mainly as regards the total adherence to the goals of the coalition. Modern coa litions are Lo be made up by strong and determined elements , capable of gathering a large internal consensus, in the case of democracies, or to exert absolute internal powe1~ in the case of dictatorships. After a purely military deterrence ( as nuclear deterrence) , new forms of deterrence are to be found in future conflicts, within those same areas where new weapons or non-weapons have been found: new forms of deterrence which go beyond the purely military area. This means emp loying enormous amounts of human, financial and material resources in all activity fields by all components. These resources which are not unlimited , are to be drawn from other sectors. This is a limit to credibility and may also be the first purpose of the enemy. Moreover~ it is uncertain that this expensive global deterrence can have any impact on the adversary, given the different nature of the existential fear. It is such a rational and foreseeable effort that in an irrational or chaotic world it has been already foreseen or it has been considered irrelevant.

The asymmetry of the existential fear, therefore, poses a double problem: it makes alliances among culturally differen L elements unreliable and does not guarantee an effective deterrence. Th is is a very important aspect for those who only rely on deterrence. Resources

Another objective limit is the reduced number of resources. Notwithstanding the huge investments already scheduled, the preemptive inte1Âˇve.ntion plan, al global level, will never be properly financed. Adjustments will be necessary. There is also the issue of the reorganization of intelligence assets which carry out the double task of preparing all political, diplomatic, economic and military actions and conducting their own institutional missions.

It takes a couple of years to prepare a carrier for combat missions, but it takes al least one generation to re-train an entire intelligence structure. Reaching a high_ level of co-operation among all lntelligence organizations can take centuries and can even be a utopian vision. Luckily, some limits have been overcome. The political and social consensus which has had an impact both on great victories and defeats, seems now to have been definitely .acquired. Financial resources, which depend on consensus, are not vet enough to fulfil security regui;Âˇements, but are sufficient to boost all technological and industrial sectors involved. \Vhat is more important, though, is that all limits in human resources can be considered irrelevant. The reason is not to be found in a higher

number of young people who want to join the armed forces but in the exceptional capabiiity multipliers that technology offers to soldiers and logistical support units. Moreover; the great importance given to special forces allows for gathering the only exceptionally valid human resources in fe,,._, units of excellence. The "zero casua lties"option syndrome seems to have been forgotten. The war on terrorism has reduced the importance of thjs option which jeopardized all other operational, tactical and technical options. The post cold-war soldiers, puzzled by the "peace-keeper" rhetoric should not and could not die. When this happened, it seemed it was their or their commanders' fault. \,Var operations have been conducted employing soldiers who

could not be employed to the utmost of their capabilities and training levels. These soldiers were risking their lives for something they did not understand. They wondered \.vhy humanitarian actions, the fight against injustice, and the defence of western values were worth their work as volunteers but not the risk of dying. These soldiers had already found an answer to their questions in the generally hypocritical at Li tude and \Vere , anyhow, determined to sacrifice themselves. The soldiers of the XXI century \.v.ill be free from these hypocritical restrictions. Obviously, they must not die, as all the others who have given their lives for their countries. But the soldiers of lhe XXl century can die, in the performance <)f their duties, like warriors and combatants for Justice; the only value which can guarantee Peace. Soldiers can be called upon to risk their lives by their countries, the world or the international community. There are again ready to accept that the cause of global international is wonh their while.

D Lieu tenant General, Commande1; KFOR 7,

NATO HQ, Pristina

NOTES (l) Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, "Wars with no limits" edited by Fabio Mini, Libreria Eclitrice Goriziana, 2002 (2) R.Luraghi "Le opere di Raimondo Montecucco)i Army General Staff, Historical Records" Office, 1989 (3) Bernard Lewis "Europa Barbara e infedele", Arnoldo Mondalori Eclitore, 1989

(4) Igor Man "Islam From A to Z", Garzanti 2002 (5) D.H. Rumsfelcl "Transforming the Military Foreign Affairs". May/June 2002

While our look turns to geographically distant regions, the Black Continent makes all its weight felt with its burden of unresolved atavistic contradictions and new opportunities

The great Land of the Sun, as an old Swahili song defines it, is close to us also owing to the flows of desperate people . seeking redemption, which are only the most evident aspect of the problem. This is due also to the many con trasts, the innumerable diversities still looking for integration, the desire and fear of a leader-nation, the territorial disputes and poverty, sickness and illiteracy, population growth and migration, the failure of the aid system and the quest for a more suitable economic dimension. Who knows, perhaps the worst evil derives precisely from its immense resources. Apart from its extreme beauty and its strong, almost instinctive appeal, the African continent must still be turned to a better account, first of all by its own people, starting from the pride of being African.

While progress welds the EuroAmerican association and from the security viewpoint, as it often happens in this post -bipolar period, the attention of the world is centred on the Near- and Middle East, a "stone guest", apparently unmoved, looks at the growing and tossing frenzy that precedes action, apparently without noticing it. Not unlike a bather who mistakes the imposing back of a whale for an islet, or a hunter taking an elephant for a rock. This is the way Africa presents itself, at first sight and from our European perspective. And it is highly probable that this is how we are seen from the opposite side. Is it a dialogue among deaf? We shall see. First, we note that nowhere else there is nothing similar or comparable in the relations among peoples and Nations. Evidently this exception is so widespread that it i.s possible to assume that it would be useless to try to understand Lhe situation through an objective analysis. At the same time, the level of impassibility, indifference and remoteness shown bv both sides is rather suspicious. Let us try to go round it by using our feelings as a key to read the enigma. Our memory recalls lhe illu -

strations of the Continents as goddesses surrounded by symbols, appreciations and auspices. Africa differed from the classical and severe Europe for its brightness and its physical exuberance, displayed with a generosity which, unusual in those times, was a precise sign of an irrepressible enthusiasm, underlined by the abundance of fruits and the charm of the scenery. A chimera full of attractions.

Who could imagine that the only remainder of that reality, full of hope of cooperation, would be the scorching sun, and the piquant nudity would soon turn into hopeless misery? Who could believe that this setback of the Continent would depend on men more than on climate, on progress rather than on events or on defined and definable faults of its peoples?

···~_, Is this an emotional and pessimisUc view? The rnedia unfailingly inform us of the decline of Africa's social, political and economic systems. The general reaction l1as eventually led most people to indifference or~ even worse, to accept the si luation. In an editorial titled 'The decadence of the market empire" (La Repubblica, October 29, 2002) Giorgio Bacca, a well-known journalist, points out that, in the advanced societies, a kind of political realism is progressively asserting itself, according to wh ich it is not necessary to feign compassion on poor Africa in order to p ro tect one's own income. Nowadays , cynicism muffles enthusiasm and the African chimera h as mostly dissolved . The common feel in gs have a preference for Africa as a svmbol. ., A myth ic al, intense, moving and cheering land, capable of enriching itself with all its rnagic and of involving everyone deeply._ There is nothing similar, and no anti dot e , to the n ostalgia for Africa. It is Lhe ga rden of E den , 34

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the Earthly Paradise. Sun, life, a wild and im posing nature. A nai've and un lucky people, protagonisl of indescribable vicissitudes, from the so-called civilization to the slave-trade, colonization, recovery of independence, racial discrim in ation, th e Third World, mass migration, indebtedness, neo-colonialism, racism and the xenophobia of late. Also th ese symbols of the hu man saga have been largely abandoned, w ithout even trying to keep up appearances, because of the eager w ish to be abreast of the times. Everything has been forsaken, together with the past, witl1 ils load of experiences and errors . Advanced socie ti es live esse ntially in the present and aJlow themselves only a rnini mum projection into the future. Th us the greatest rnerits of the African peoples disappear: the endless odyssey, the proud and difficult construction of modern States respectful of their traditions. Only the frailty of the residual components remains visible. A review of the past, if only of

the most recent one, indicates an inevitable reaction to the crumbling of traditions, certainties and self-respect, emphasi1.ing the voca t ion to a different social system and a more extended and multiform development than the one concentrated mainly on local resources, especially raw materials and cheap labou1~ The deep nalure of the peoples of Africa emerges, with their haughty and proud identity, their ritu al and cultured personali ty. A natur·e which has long been subjected to a role nol its own: exploited, kept , apart from the process of moderniza tion and fr om th e E uroAmeri.can development model. The recent slaughter in Nigeria, triggered by the fundamentalist refusal of the values and meanings or the "Miss Wo rld" contest, poses th e question o f what will even tu ally be the results of the chronic marginalization of a proud and sensitive society. One can inves tigate in many direc tions . For example, Africa as a justification of a social, political and religious behaviout~ a hinter-

land of the Middle East con fli cts, an a libi for the fanat ical fringes which , by defending val ues neglected el s ew he r e, ennoble with ethical values their violent actions. Africa and Islam. Africa as a potentiality for terrorism, meant as an a rmed and ocganized rebellion against a \Nay of life consideced unreachab le and unacceptable. Africa as an exception. A heartless goddess. The immense land mass does not have its own internal motion . Once the great kingdoms were poles of attraction, mediation and culture, not on ly at regional level. During the last century the caravan routes penetrated everywhere with a close-meshed spider's web, carrying goods, inform ation and culture, balancing - and in some cases exalting - all fonns of isolation. Today the desert cuts the Continent in two parts: on our side, the Mediterranean areas of Mashrak and Maghreb . On the other, everything else. As it was at the dawn of those civilizations, the Sahara is a psychological more than a physical obstacle to communications and collective recogmt1on. The Mediterranean is another wall, as regar ds Europe. America is fa 1· away. Africa re-emerges to the attention of the world wi th its southern tip, South Afri ca, the rainbow Nation, the symbo l of freedom which has overcome all forms of colonial ism: classic, creeping, post-moden1, and vvhatever. For Europe, considering tl1e long African coasts, the keyword has always been "circumnavigation" . Suez o nly sh orte ne d the route. The regional answer has always been the same: general and ge1;~ralized "contraposition" . Europe, Asia and A Cr ica , together, a ce the Old Continent, the most ancient and sett led social who le. Far from establishing a communication system, they go through this re;lity -

which is not only geographic but g lobal - l ike scpara~e partners living in the same home. It is a hitter admission, since il reappraises Lhe centuries-old ques t fo r mutual knowledge a nd respect. On the o t her hand, never as LOday has the attent ion been turned to E uro -American interac tion, an endeavour that perrnits no distraction, not even for good neighbourly relations. Th e situaLion is .m ade even more serious by the evident fact that in the region Lhere is no credible leading Nation, followed by con vi need s upporters . The Continent la cks an internal motor, s uch as th e U.S . in th e Ame1·icas. Also missing is a group o r reference Countries, like France, Germany, BriLain and ltaly for Europe,· or China and Japan for Asia, with Russia straddling the two Continents. SITUATION

53 Countries, 4 dependencies and 2 aulonornous communities,

30.3 mi llion sq km, which make it the second largest Continent. Africa's population is 15% of the pl anet's: like that of th e t\.v o America s put toge ther or twice that of Europe, despite the desert areas. The regions w ilh a similar, if not homogeneous, character arc not many: Mashrak and Maghreb Lo the North, connected w ith the Mi ddle Eas t area; th e Sahara desert, Lhe GuH of Guinea , the Great Lakes, the Hom of Africa, the Kalahar i clese n an d South Africa. The difference between States and historical and geographical regions indicates at first sight the ex ten t of th e in ternal disputes, the inherent difficulties of a solid and lasting process or cooperation, and the global level of insecurity. There are many dialects , few languages (Arabic, Zulu, Swahili, H ausa, Malagasy), w ith addition, in certain regions, of Fre nch, English and Portuguese as conseq uence of colonization. The main religions are animism (in the Centre and South) and Shiite

Islam (Mediterranean and subSaharan areas, Horn of Africa). The average pro-capita income is less than one fourth of the world average. The highest revenue, close to the Ital ian or the Saudi Arabian ones, is that of Libya and Southern Nigeria, thanks to the well-knovvn global value of oil. Life expectancy is around 52-55 years for men and women respectively. From the ethnic viewpoint, we see the widest and most diversi fied melting pot of peoples. Africa presents oases with an acceptable quality of li[e, but the general picture is progressively deteriorating. As a Contine nt, it suffers also from the incalculable damage caused by endem ic conflicts suddenly exploding vvith particular vehemence . On the background looms the unquenchable and inexorable violence caused by the dispute between Israe l and the Palestinians. The bloodiest, longest and most hostile con fli.c t ever recorded in the history of mankind, which feeds on every plausib le pretext in order to produce new vio lence, exalting al l over the world the disruptive role of ethnical and religious diversity The smokes from that fire infect the air and un leash passions at every latitude, inflaming the extremists and thwarting any attempt at a pacificati on based on lasting foundations. After decades of compromises, ,,ve still witness continuous negotiations and pol itical p ressures at all levels. Meanwhile, Africa uses up on its Mediterranean border the share of attention paid by the rÂˇest of the world, and any other regional reality remains in the shade. The picture is made even more critical by the ract that, as we said , people seem to have got dreadfully used to the situation. ft is not by chance that the nature, origin and substance of the problems are always descri36

bed with the same well-known words, which do not require particular explanations. They are: polit ical and economic dependence, part icularly on Europe and the United States; international interventionism, its forms and goals; internationa l aid and its des t inations; noninterventions; local political leaderships and limitat.ions posed by neo-colonial ism , widespread author itarianism and anarchy; stubborn defence of the s tatus qua and ultra-conservatism; oil prob lems; territorial clispu tes; racia l c las hes and xenophobia; wars and violence; role of the Armed Forces; terrorism, crime and drug trafficking; injustice, corruption, inertia; state centralization and deurbanization; irresponsible population growth; poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy, unemployment, m igration; child mortality, ep idemics and AIDS; urhanization/gheltoization (according to a UN estimale, by 2005, in the southern hemisphere one man out or two will live in a city) and its contrar-y, i.e. the persistence of nomadism in in creasingly lirnited spaces; shortage of transportation; internal discriminations; women's condition; droughts, aridity, advance of the desert areas and the proble ni of water distribution. In Lhese conditions, the management of publ ic affairs is not a simple matter. In Africa, as in the Near East, the internal balance depends on the religious parties, the i:nilitary, the bourgeoisie and the government system, i.e. the Leader: Any modernist concession leads to new vu lnerabilities and, even more, to largely foreseeable reactions. For instance, giving a party, founded on democratic and participative values, the opportunity of leading an alternative government is an enlightened act but has the demerit o[ leaving the religious party alone in the opposition, thus .r adicalizing it. Sooner or later this will lead the military to clash d irectly with the opposi-

tion, using q uestionable methods and strategies, with the conse quence of depriv ing the government of power, or even of delegitimi zi ng it, seriously endangering the interna l and internat ional balances. The combination of this instability w ith the interferences and pressures of numerous (too

many) external actors results in ungovernab le situations t lutt leave no room for innovations . Compromise, always frantically pursued by the ruling castes, curtails the space for any substantial change. The s ituation is ser ious , and there are many indications that even ,vorse times are approaching. In Burkina-Faso the population dou bles every 25 years. The internal corn mu n.ications are still

hampered by the lack of education and the use of 60 dialects . Agriculture and cattle-breeding, the local main productive activities, suffer from the progressive impoverishment of the soil. The desert moves in, covering oases and cultivated areas of Lhe adjacent Countries. Not all have had the far-sightedness, the con-

Egypt, Nigeria and Algeria . The cocoa and cotton plantations of Mali and the Ivory Coast employ 12-year-olcl children (more than 15,000, according to UNICEF) in order to reduce the manpower and social costs and balance Lhe accounts according to the strict rules of profit, on which Lhe economic globaliza-

owing to the progressive introduction of the sharia, the Islamic law. In South Africa Lhere is no shortage of problems, but there is also the will of do ing things and move rapidly away from a dread[u I pasl. This is enough to give stability and respite to the Country. Normality and common sense achieve vis ible results, even

stancy and the economic possibility of erecting artificial barriers. In Libya 92% of the territory is desert. This is the reason for Gaddafi's last great project. After the flop of a Pan-Arabian League, now is the turn of a confederation of independen L African States, with a common foreign policv and economy. A facsimi le of th~ U.S., the gre~t enemv. The ambitious plan ~is suppo rÂˇtecl in principle by some important Countries, such as South Africa,

tion is based. ln Africa as everywhere else. In Tanzania, the main problem of the moment is the split between the citizens - who refuse to go to the polls - and the Institutions . This reaction has been unleashed by the gener-al situation, based on ghettoization, injustice and corruption . In Nigeria, the war for oil has turned from ethnic (we a ll remember Biafra) to religious, between Moslems and Christians,

if the Country, to some extent, is still an hostage Lo multinational corporations, just as in the past. Since August 1998, the large and very rich Congo has been at the centre of an endless war that involves the whole of central Africa. On one side the Banyamulenge rÂˇebels of the East, supported by President Kamila's friends: Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. On the other, Zimbabwe, Ango la and Namibia, advocates of the status quo.

fn the Horn of Africa, two antithet ical States persist in ncve r:.ending confrontations and clashes, in order to give a meaning to their identity. Ethiopia, a sovereign Nation of European, or rather Hapsburg, mould and Somalia, inhabited by nomads, which pursues an aggregative politico -social proj ect aimed at uniting its people. This strategy produ ces recurrent v iol ent actions, in Ogaden, French Somali land and in the strip of Kenya inhabited by a Somalian majority. The Tuareg of Niger sell handicraft via the internet, thanks to a Canadian foundation which put a virtual store at the ir disposal. Unfortunately, only the 0.02% of the goods available on the net are produced in the Continent, w itl1 the exception of South Africa. Anyhow, the net is disrupting the control of information established hy every African State. At the present time, there are about 120 newspapers on line, but unfortunately lhe level of the information and the goals it pursues are not equally encouraging. ACTIONS AND REACTIONS Jn lhe relations among African Nations, the main problem has always been that of connecting too many id enti ties: African, Arab ian, 1\.1editerranean, Saharan, tribal. Africa endures internal ambi tions and p i-esumptions of expansionisrn that arc not taken seriously, being founded on national and nationalistic outlooks . One day is Nasser's Egypt which asks for continental recognition; fol lowed by Saddam Husse in's Iraq, then Nigeria, and so on. Albeit with these limitations, a spontaneous process of recognition and mutual respect s LilJ survives, even if it does not make it to the headlines as mucl1 as wars and terrorist attacks, and is a ll loo often obscured and impeded

hy the continuous proposals, decisions and demands of the western world. Instead of a stable regional association we see more 0 1- less durable aggregations, which can be sincere ly felt or just conve nient and short-lived. There is the indubitable historical, religious and cultural bond among the Arab Countries, in Africa as in the Near East. There is Israel, wilh its sol id ties with the United States, Europe and the rest of the world, its security cooperation with Turkey and Jordan. Egypt is naturally projected towards Europe even if, for regional security reasons, is associated with Syria and Saudi Arabia. Iran is an -Islamic reference. Libya pursues its PanAfrican project. South Africa has a socio-economic b ri dge with lhe US, and this has obviously a high politica l value. France, Brita in, Belgium, Holland, Germany, the U.S., Russia, China and Japan loom behind th-~rn, just as in the past. Furthermore, one should not forget the role of some ex.lernal Countries, such as Pakistan and Cuba, that of the Na tions benefiting from the energy resources and the influence of the multinational com pani es that manage them. Probably the persistence of so many umbil ical cords is the cause of the survival, both on the north and on the south, of a kind of national is.rn, incapable of uncle1·standing the advantages of a free-circulation system, similar to the European one . There is still a preference for bilateral, rather than multinalional and communitarian, r·elations . This should be taken into clue account when promoting globalization. In Africa, internal and external influences have merged in an apparently inextricable tangle. To sav tlrnt solidarity is absen t ,.v~uld be unfair, but ·undoubtedly iL has not reached its objectives; to the point that it seems necessary to reexamine lhe modalities of its distribution.

Albeit vvith an open preference for the Mediterranean area , th e US and Europe have been generous with aid and advice, playing upon Lhe economic factors. For many years, it has been a common and firm beli ef that econ o.rnic growth would p ull any other creed towards t~1e \Vestern values. Today we can say w ithout hesitation that everywhere, and particularly in lhis Continent, lhe econornic component of the aid Lo development has failed. There are many reasons for this. To start with, we can observe that the aid flow has never reached the people; on the contrary, it has been feeding the conservative oligarchies capable of opening to what is new without involving the underdeveloped masses, which practically receive only the increase of the cost of every producl, starting wilh the essentials. Hence the rush to em igration and illegal work. For the dism issed workers, Lhe rush is to recover the land leased to sharecroppers. Nepotism and patronage are on the increase, reviving tribal, clan and religious relations. Re] igious fundamental ism draws its strength from this social d isintegration , w here everyone tries to remedy matters as he can. The most enlightened governments, understanding lhe importance of widen ing the decisionmaking basis, associated to power new forces, capab le of · containing the people's discon tent. But, after all, lhese are only tactical concessions, not radical changes, considering that power is still in the hands of an au thoritarian minority, which acts accor·cl i ng to the Western ideas and values only to safeguard the ir in Le r·ests and noL lo red uce the national unbalances. T he development gap wit h the European neighbours has many aggravations. One should not underestimate th e in -princip le refusal of the

Western model of development, which depends on factors of identity and independence and is at the origin of the passivity and the lack of the strong will that would be necessary in order to reach a compelitive leve l. 1n short, there is no convicl.ion that this is the right way, since it is too different from the one followed in the past, marked out by history and culture. Furthermore, how could Africa ever compete, even if il were willing to do so , with a modern industrial agriculture , tailormade to fit the possibilities, the profit goals and the markets of the la rge politico-cconom ic Western aggregat ions'> But other important reasons can be found for the present malaise. For example, th e long deterio-

ration accumulated in time has never undergone a reversal of course, so that the damages have finally become more and morÂˇe widespread. Then there is the wicked mechanism of i ndebtedness . Nobody loves his creditors especially if, as is the case with the International M.onetary Fund and the \Vorld Bank, the relation is strictly one-way, i.e. in line with the Western perspect ive, u nder the banner of the open market without reservations. As a result, the institutional incompetence of l.be African States and the fra ilty and poveny of the local economies are laid bare, while the local archaic economy based on b arter, n,ral agricu lture and familyitribe-lcvel stock-Can1:1ing is destroyed . The attractive force or profit

crushes a ll previous efforts aimed at keeping the unity originally fostered by the oppos iti on to a common enemy. The growing flow of information leads to comparisons, raises resentment and rancour~ which arc matrices of violence, revolution and terror, as happened in czarist Russia. The preconceived hosli lily evolves but does not change direction. Only the West talks about solidarity, but it is not certain that Africa understands, accepts and a bsor bs it as a b asis for a real approach . The social rnesh that is being destroyed in Africa nowadays is thal which had succeeded, with its incisive creativity, in reacting to the damages of colonial ism and the fragmentation of the Continent made with a drawing ruler, heedless of traditions and 39

history~ to the relations with the U.S. and Russia in the bipolar period, to the new relations vvit.h the religious representatives of all faiths, to the international cooperation still managed by the European Countries and the mu ltinational companies. The modernist connective tissue, still aware and heedful of Africa's history, is being destroyed: it is the "Proud to be African" generation, which has the merit of having wanted to check and manage most problems "in loco", avoiding the phenomenon of em igration, which is actually growing beyond any foreseeable limit. ln its place, by applying our model of development \,v ithout adapting it to the different real ities, we are nurturing a generation of crafty and skilled operators who only manage profit oriented and utilitarian projects and do not hesitate a moment to get rid of any hindrance in order to remain competitive. They are indifferent to the general, regional or even local balances and also to the parallel rise of rebels inured to all kinds of suffe r路ing, against whom there is no antidote. Global terrorists, comparable to the romantic revolutionary workers of the last century as an atom bomb can be cornpared to the ball- and gun-powder pistol. Furthermore , we should not disregard the fact that the African habitat is extremely

The third period started with decolonization and the era o f development, with the making o f mimic and nationalist states, the erosion of a mi llenary culture and the in(Jux of foreign entrepreneurs who accelerated the impoverishment of the loca l societies by changing their priorities and caus ing immorality and pollution. Now, with the advance of a generalized free exchange and neo -liberalism, we are at the fourth globalization. Obviously the poor Countries have everything to lose from the unrefavourable to the development of strained opening of their markets terror organizations, whose aims in a picture of debts and therefocould be simply criminal or re of dependence. The reduction ennobled by a political cause. In of costs can be realized only to this limited area there are many the detriment of man ad nature. different cultures , behaviours, The local policies are overwhelobjectives, forms of government med by the demands of the and legal systems \Nhich permit market, which directly colonizes to pierce the security rneasures the State and its residual potenand to keep easy connections and tialities. synergies also at long distances. In view of this, the prospect of The road of multi national coo- a development guided by wicked peration and that of a convergen- decisions looms as a disastrous ce of behaviours, capable of set- possib ility. vVe refer to what was ting up a cred ible contro l grid as defined by Jean Francois Bayard an indispensable prer路equisite for as the "Sornali way of developa response to terrorism , have ment'', based on drug trafficking, been marked out, but their Slate crime , storage of toxic imp lementation in Africa will waste, and so on. meet with great difficulties. For those who do not accept The region is in terrible pain, the present reality there are on ly and the most serious situation is a few open roads. Resistance is the official/institutiona l one. severely penalized by the market Even if we consider only the last la,vs, which affect the possibility decades, we see that too many o( physical and psycl10logical blows have been delivered to the survival. Therefore there is only reference values of each Country: the way of clandestine dissent, independence and liberty, history with the foreseeable negative and customs, value and merit, r路epercussions on secu r路ity. The pride and success. long series of failures occurred The first worldwide globaliza- a lmost every where must be read tion took place with the discovery in this perspective: bankruptcy of of America, when the \Nest found the States which, all together; do out that the Earth was a sphere not reach 2% of the wodd's GDP; and extended its conquests. For political failures, emphasized by Africa, the resu lt was the slave coups, c ivil wars, corruption, trade. genocides; emigration , vvhich The second occasion was the magnifies its disrupting effects Berlin Con (erence which, in on individuals, fami lies , small 1887, sanctioned the division and cornmunities. total coloni1.alion of Africa. The reaction to this general col-

lapse is a great deal of hatred, which naturally converges in the wide field of those who oppose the democratic developm~nt. Luckily, the ordeal of institutional and official Africa encourao-es also the will to live and th: natural strength of populations and persons. In this dimension, the natural role of the poor is striking: they are an absolute majority who, in savannas and forests, in shantytowns and immense suburbs, must invent a method of survival, a life at the margi ns of the official system, rediscovering, in a wider dimension, the dynamics of the family, accepting any kind of makeshift . Thus a new type of life takes shape, a life which for many is more attractive and more suited to the real needs of body and soul than that of the few wellto-do. Exchange, gift, loan. Feasts, dances, dreams, and games . The lost values are recovered. The "good", meant as such, is not money (which is in hiding) and not even the goods bartered or received as presents or loans, but the bonds 'Which permit the flow of solidarity. A real and vital societv is taking root within the offf~iaJ society in a state of serious crisis. This process should not be confrtsed with a simple reaction for survival, but rather understood as a progressive rediscovery and reappraisal of inalienable values. Its extent is unknown to most people, and perhaps is monitored only by some humanitarian NGOs. As a matter of fact, new "native" societies are rising, witho ut the glitter, restraints and discomforts of the consumer's societies; without the new degenerate and Âˇwearing pseudo-values, originated by a progress undermined bv the individual's success; withot;t the obligation to run faster and faster

and to exaggerate every attitude in order to keep one's balance. This phenomenoii can be clearly seen on the outskirts of Dakar~ where it involves hundred

genetic and historical. It flouri shed in the middle of a severe and, at the same time, rich and generous nature and, until two centuries ago, ,vas well established th rough the small social organizations of tribe and family. Later it became exaggerated by pride and dignity, as a reaction to colonialism and alienation. Independence is not a â€˘ soc ial catalyst founded on the awareness of other people's rights, on tolerance and patience. Here it is an extreme refuge, a choice ,vhich, if questioned , unleashes a paroxysmal and violent reaction or ils opposite, a total, aimless and endless resignation. Lately we noticed a sensib le change. Vast areas of positive independence are laking root within organizations that , being in a state of crisis, are unable to rise and join the progress of the West . Their power or allraction, everywhere in the world, should nol be undervalued. WHAT TO DO?

of thousands of persons, bul .ii is mostly p rÂˇesent where there are large concentrations of poor and outcast peop le and is ra p idly growing as a philosophy of life also in more emancipaled realiLies . In Africa, inattention and globa I isation have favoured the triumph of independence, which is uncontro ll able because it is

To give a strong a reliable hand to Africa and its people it would be necessary, first o( all, to speak their language. A language ,,v hose key words are not interest, opportunity, compromise or market but, as we have seen, identity, dignity, culture, natu re, liberty, independence. Even today, a personal commitment, guided by a genuine wish to know, could lead to correc L some certa in ties dealt out with absolute carelessness by the mass media and believed by everyone with the same uncaring superficiality. Failing simple and reso lulive recipes, even the apparently utopian solution of bringing together the poor and the rich in 41

the wake of the Western values should be explo red. If anything else, in order to avoid an ex tr-eme concep tual divergence such as lhe one which is now ga ining ground , drive n, on the one hand, by the indifference of affluence and, on the othe,~ by an ir-reprcssible vitality. The re is no doubt that are the rich that s hould s low down and not the poor that should rnn fa ster. This is a probl ema tic assumpt ion, since it is difficult lo think Lhat the for mer could reduce their frenzied economic and trading rush forwa rd witho u t being swepl away. Up lo now, no one has shown the cou rage lo experiment such a change in development. Th us the rush continu es, sweepin g away toge ther those w ho are against and those who support il. This has reached the point that a choice of th is type has become unavo idable. To this land, whe re there is st ill time to stop and think, there is a growing conviction that it is possible to improve the coex istence of th e differ路e nt classes, the enemies of yes teryear. There is also the new idea that ,路cgional coopc42

ra tion could be at leas t as fruitful as the bi lateral relati onship with the U .S. and the European Union. The idea has a firs t po sitive imp li cati on, in th at the w il li n gness to unite tends to reduce the number of critical situ ation s. Obviously, fo r路 those who hold power and wealth it is a question of profit rathe r th an an ethic awakening. It is a matter of main tainin g the ir sta tu s in exchange for more rlexibility and helprulness towards othe r people. rn any case, the process of recognition and synergy gains benefi L, while a nother adva ntage derives from the fall o r ideo logies, with the co nsequent mor e open a nd positive dynamics. In a gene ra l context wh e re democracy is o bject ively impossible, where the price of individual freedom cou ld be a fundamentalis t revolutio n, and where econ omic development imp lies a politi cal stabi lity obtained with authoritarian methods, it has b een imposs ibl e lo build anything better than some form or conver-gencc Lo,vards the Western model. The results ar e remarkable, if

on e thinks that in Countries whose economi cs, up to a few year ago, coincided with the proceeds from natural resources or ext e rnal aid , now peopl e are beginning lo discuss dena tionalization , liberalization and economic integration with Europe. Clearly, confidence and capabilities are growing, even if there is the awareness of the fac t Lhat market contacts should be postponed until better times. Th e coex is tence of opposite extremisms has created a trend , more or less visible and practicabl e from State lo State, towards a kind of democratized authoritariani sm in original and prudent f orrns, so mu ch so that some analysts descr ibe it as a homeopalhic evolution bas ed o n th e tim e fact or, cons ide 1路cd in its w idest dimension, which tends to infinity. E ve ry Country fo ll ow s this trend, a dopting the mode l it can afford and taking into account its histo01 as well as the in ternal and intern a tional s ituation. The greatest care is take n over the wel lbalan ced in volvement of the main actors or public life: rcli g.ious party, the military, middleclass a nd gove rnment , ta king care that the latter does not lose too much of its power, since it is not known into whose hands it. could fa ll. Where possib le, the tendency is to widen the people's co nsent through a de licate and extensive compromise, in particular with the par a llel re ligious power, whose social sp ur can greatly influence poli tics and econom y. I n this subtl e gam e s u cces s depends mainly o n the Leader's skill. The time-factor is slill to be feared , beca use l he slow African approac h d oes not mat c h lhe speed of the changes affecting most of ou r planet. ln the general outlook the re are also two gre,:IL opportunities, as unfailingly ha ppens when Lhings don't go well.

The first opportunity is thal of adapting the Western-style development to the new social forces risen from indigence and repulsion, making \Vay for a more moderate, prudent, informed , extended and shareable way of development. The second opportunity consists in making up for the external cultural and social disengagement by encouraging local ini tiatives, enabling the Africans to rediscover their strength by themselves, reacting to the deeprooted temptaLion of depending on foreign help, selling their souls and limiLing themselves to regret it thereafter. It should never be forgotten that the future of Africa belongs to the African people. To think of building a region structurally compliant with the wishes of the Western Countries, or of putting the wounded gian t on bis feet only with the good will of others, would be presumptuous and suspicious . If anything, it is a matter of reestablishing the best possible condi tions for developm ent, untying the many knots of captivity, before they are broken by violent and uncontrolled reactions unable to distinguish between good and evil, between help and exploitation. Here also there are some posi tive signs. For instance, the periodic cancellation of the African nations' public debt, which is more significant as a symptom of world a wareness than for its practical results. At the same time, in the regio n there is a lanzer recourse to~dialogue, in the ;ttempt to convince others, avoiding manoeuvres of power or the immediate adoption of coercive measures as was done in the past; this shows a new ability to use the instru ments of democracy which, albeit not perfect, is c;mmendable and worthy of success. But an occasional and sporadic surfacing of good wi l1 is not

sufficient to rnend the rent insid e the region and with the rest of the world. · -. An urgent intervention is needed, in order to reverse t he trend. A plausibly open intervention, because the redress of so many evils can only be global and cannot set aside the connection of the Akican Countries with their neighbour·s, with parLicular reference to Europe. T h e way is already marked out. It would be s u fficient to implement the concrete conLents of the Barcelona Conference which, with its threefold economic, political and security goals remains the best plan ever devised by Europe for Africa and the Near East. With an important conceptual change, envisaging the cli,·ect involvement of every suffering Country, be it good or bad. The present lirnitations originate precisely from the fact that only few Mediterranean Countries participate in the project, s ince they were the only ones considered e ligible from the viewpoin L of Western progress and security. Another reason is the simultaneous management of two incompatible strategies: defensive, centred on regional bastions, and offensive, based on political economy and global opening. A project founded on the exchange of really desired gifts, such as the distribution o[ wealth in exchange for the dis tribution of security, would be extreme ly attractive everywhere , despite the many conflicts in progress, particularly the one b etween Palestinians and Israelis. Indeed, the project would overcorne and isolate them, showing what they really are, i.e . islands of very bad social, political and econom ic management. Playing its part, Europe commits itself both politically and diplomatically but, often contradi cted b y the initiatives or

its members, contin ues to lack capabi lities and conviction, showing its weakness and its economic paucity. So much the better: at least, in thi s u rnp teenth attemp t at res u rrecting Africa, there will be no pretexL for giving in due to the presence of threatening external strong powers, as it occurred in the past.

CONCLUSION A clear look at the "Black Continent" as a \vhole, with its id entity, real and imaginary, emotional and pragmatic, dying and foll of life, shows a swarm of unreso lved problems, malaise and remorse, if one just wants to note the vainness of the goals pursued and the efforts made. The security outlook reminds us that lo live according to feasible and shareable rules, on the same \Vave-length as the ent ire human society and not only as its strongest part, to be at tbe centre of a commitment for progress, and to do our best, conscious of being on the riglll side, is a necessary prerequisite for any type of guarantee for peace, prosperity and development under the banner of continuity. This is so necessa,·y that it des erves our full attention for whatever lime is needed, divert i ng it from the thousands of engagements connected with the proLection of our immediate advantage . Afr·ica evolves as a syn1bol, fallin g into line with the new times. The motionless giant, \,vith his heavy silence, reminds us that in an objectively planetary frame of attention, everyone can cont,·ibute to the search of absolu te benefits for all, ceasing to be satisfied \Nith those obtained Lo the detriment of others.

D ''Major General (rel.) 43

he American Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, has recently said several times that "the mission determines lhe coalition and not viceversa" . According to many comm en tators and as was the case with Afghanistan, this state ment explains why the U.S. only marginally did avail itself of the Atlantic A.lliance's help, even though the Allies were unconditionally and commendably willing to pa rtic ipate. There is some truth in lhis consideration in the sense that, among the various options available, some of them could certainly have given the U.S. the possibility of acting more effectively and readily than a recourse to NATO would perrnit. Actually, the experts add that the Alliance's operational capability would have been heavily conditioned by the pursuit of the partnus' consensus for every decision . By the way, th.is is probably the best safeguard of the Alliance. ln fact, on the one hand it prevents the predominance of the internal hierarchies and bureaucracies over the bodies in which the Nations are directly represented, thus safeguarding NATO's inter-governmental character; on the other, it permits to keep constantly under conlrol the activities of the Commanders on the field, blocking those decisions which, albeit right and correct in a strictly military sense, could be strategically and politically disastrous if examined from a wider viewpoint. Actually, the interventions of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) proved to be providential in at least two occasions . The first was when it became necessai-y to moderate a strategic policy that the military allies ,vanted to direct to the almost complete destruction of Yugoslavia's industrial infrastructure. The second case was when the NAC decided that NATO should not

enter into competition \.Vi th Russia in a senseless and dangerous rush to Pristina. The fact that in every war not only in this par ticular fight against terrorism - th e situation determines th e coalition and not vice-versa is an indisputable lruth from every point of view: political , strategic, and military. The U.S . Secreta1Âˇy of Defence's statement does not add anything new for the comprehension of the present situation. If anything, it confirms, with the authority of a political and technical intervention at the highest level, the fact that NATO is right in the middle of a transition period, the second in its history, where its structure and assets, 'While perfect for the previous phase, must now adapt to the new needs, which have suddenly appeared and asserted themselves with quite unexpected strength, virulence and rapidity. If we look back and review the history of the Alliance with a critical eye, we notice that it was initially conceived as the coalition most suitable for facing a situation of bipo lar confrontation. The model was so successful that even the enemy could do nothing else

I\ u nit of the French Foreign le[!,ion..

bu t adopt it, albeit in a slightly diffe1Âˇent form, framing i t within a political context which was going to increasingly affect its practical cffecliveness. Thus, for forty years, from '49 to '89 , NATO took care of the defence of its member-States' territories and air/sea spaces, proving to be the "most successful Alliance in history", and a decisive instrument - albeit admittedly not the only one - forÂˇ the victo ry of the West in the Cold War. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the deriving upheavals accentuated the fact that, from that moment on, the old NATO - with its nuclear doctrines, its plans for huge tank battles on the plains of Central Europe and large armies based on conscription - was not the right instrument for facing a new situation, where the most urgent need was to control the instability of the arc of crisis closest to Western Europe, i.e. the area that from the Baltic goes to Central Europe and reaches the Balkans. In other words, the Alliance was not exactly the coalition required by the situation and was well

aware of it from the very first moment, to the point thal, almost immediately, .it took all the measures necessary for making the change which was seen as an indispensable condi tion for its survival. This was done in the years from .1989 and 1995. as a matter of fact, NATO in this period updated its vision of the world and the future, and made this public in 1990, with the final communique of the London Summit. It was the d ream of a West with a heart and two large wings. The heart in Europe, one wing to the West, in Anglo-Saxon North America and one in the Soviet Union, that was going to melt into fifteen different States. In 1992, in Rome, a new strategic concept was a pp roved. It was certainly imperfect and temporary, but it provided a basis for the much more e laborate plan adopted in Washington in 1999, on the occasion of NATO's soth Anniversary. The modalities for membership were also changed, and the North - Atlantic Cooperation Counc il was created, anticipating that "Partnership for Peace" destined to evolve in the Euro Atlantic Partnership Counci l" (EAPC). New faces appeared at the Brussels's NATO HQ, sometimes persons with Mongo lian features, people who spoke faltering English and maybe, now and then, at the canonical hours, spread a small mat in the corridors and oriented it towards Mecca to say their prayers. New realities ga i ned ground: the Combined Join t Task Forces ( CJTF) and the modular, multinationa l, j oint and projectahle Headquarters . We got used to the id ea that NATO could no longer ren1ain alone in the ivo rÂˇv tower of its splendid and isol;ted efficienc;, but was 1.neant to cooperate closely with other international organizations like the UN OSCE, the EU and WEU.

times it shou ld have been even subordinate to them, if anything for legi tiri-i'a tion reasons. M.eanwhile and in the same wa y, the member States modified the structure of their forces deciding in rnost cases to en cl conscri p tion, varying in favour of the Navy and the Air Force the traditional two -oneone proportion within the Armed Forces and trying lo make projectable a larger part of the instrument. It was a lon g and at times pain fu I process, which cont inuously questioned not only the previous situation but also the partial results already achieved . Besides everything else, il upset NATO's internal and long-conso lidated balances of power - and the -

refore oC privilege! - by shifting the attention of the Alliance to the south -east . No wonder, th erefore, if the change took no less than six years, making the Allian c e again perfect for the si tuat ion on ly in 1995. In many ways the de.lay was not harmful, a t least not to NATO. Its temporary absence from the rn ili tary scene gave a free hand to the other security organizations which all tried, one after the other, to deal with the Bal kan swamp . T he results were so negative that they gave rise to an almost messianic expectation for the return on the scene of the old German soldiers engaged in the Balkans.

... Danish soldiers controlling a tracked vehicle before a mission. Âˇ

Alliance . In the first half of the '90s, acknowledging its inability to reach an optimal level of military capability, NATO enhanced its poliLical functions. Furthermore, it joined the E. U., considering that it was inclispensable to proceed together to the rapid assimilation of the instable European area where the Soviet Union had prevented the explosion of tensions, while now Russia was not in a posi tion to exert even a minimal control. At any rate, in 1995 the transformation Âˇwas almost completed and , from then on and for the rest of the decade, the Alliance was again the main tool of the West for the solution of possible crises. Nevertheless, this did not stop or slow down the transfocmation process. In 1997, in Madrid, there \Vas the first enlargement and in Washington, two years later, the "New Strategic Concept " was approved. In this document NATO was almos t prophetic, Iis ting, in article 24, terrorism

as one of the emerging risks but it was unable to go all the way to the logical extreme conse quenc es. Therefore, on September 11 , 2001 NATO was a perfect coalition on ly for the two tasks that the member Nat ions had attributed to it until Lha t moment, i.e. the defence of national territories and the management of crises that could endanger important Euro-Atlantic interests. On the con trary, it was not absolutely unprepared to face a terrorist threat of the kind triggered off by Al Quaida. That does not mean that NATO could do nothing or that, lacking more suitable instruments, it could not be effectively employed in a reaction. In fact, if the attack had not been directed against the United States but launched towards any European Country, the victim wo uld have had no other choice but turn to NATO. Washington, on the contrary, could choose bet\.veen an action prepared and conducted using only its own assets, a large coa-

lition based on many bilatera l accords or, finally, a multilateral action planned and conducted by NATO . Probably th e NATO option would have bee n the best from the poli lica l and public opinion's points of view, but, militarily, was certainly the least effective. Thus the preference given by the U.S. Lo the second option should not h e considered as a pure and s im ple expression of a policy that suddenly becomes imperialistic while the "reluctant gendarme" of the world becomes a cowboy who takes the law into his own hands. There is surely also something of this kind in the American decision , but the main reason for it was that it was the best possib le choice. And this wou ld soon be proved on the field . It is Âˇwo rth noting, instead, the way the U .S. let NATO remain at the heart of the action, with a number of requests that permitted the AUiance to participate without b eing com pell e d to overexpose its limits . NATO could therefore offer its contribution to operation "Enduring Freedom", a valid su pport even if almost exclusively limited to air- and sea-actions. Eight NATO AWACS airer-aft manned by multinational crews flew for a long time in the skies of the United States, NATO naval units patrolled the Indian Ocean and the Standing Naval Forces of th e Mediterranean and the Atlantic took turns in the troubled waters of the Near and Middle East. In Lhe meantime NATO, well aware of the difficulties, tackled the problem of returning to be, as soon as possible, the coal it.ion mosL suited for the specific situation. This was far from easy. Everybody agreed on the fact that the new and most

important task was the fight against terror, especia lly the_ one provided with weapons of mass destruction. The r~al problems appeared when it came to aaree on a common definition b of terrorism. This turned out to be almost impossible in a world where, according to the political outlook, the same person could be labelled as a ruthless terrorist or a brave fighter in a liberation war. Also here in Italy we have been faced with this dilemma and this schizophrenia during the Ocalan case. At the encl, seeing that the member States were unable to agree on a precise definition, NATO was satisfied with the common defi nition of "terrorist acts", as had actually already been clone by the E.U. The Alliance, spurred by the most concerned Countries, also tried to make a list of the organizations active in the international context. This attempt succeeded only in part and came to a standstill against the Palestinian and Kurdish stumb ling blocks. In the first case, the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Turkey were faced with a rather compact European group; in the second, the positions were much softer. At the two extremes there were Turkey and Belgium: the latter has been hosting for several years, in Brussels, the so-called "Kurdish Parliament in ex il e". Anyway, the Alliance did not discuss only about tasks and definitions bÂˇu t, more than that, it tried to acqui i-e a new politico-strategic vision, in the light of which its structures could be revised. \l\1 hat was clear from the beginning on the politica l plane, was that the new situation, albeit serious, did not justify in any way the abandonment of what was alreadv under way. The management oÂˇf crises and the consequenl presence of NATO in th e Balkans were lo continue, even if with a lower

priority than in the past. A medium -term hope was that of promoting and accelerating as much as possible the European Union's assumption of responsibility in the security and defence sector. The possible deployment in the Balkans of a Corps under the European Union's flag (the so -called "H elsinki headline goa l") and of a European police force would allow the Alliance to progressively reduce its presence dovvn to purely symbolic levels . An idea that was also not abandoned was Lhat of improving relations with Moscow, in order to reach a po.int where the

A ranger during an operaiion in a snowy environment.

ongoing proce ss of Russia's conformation to the West could be considered irreversible, even if, up to that moment, the process had moved rather slowly and without any ,ving-stroke on the protagonists' part. Besides cverylhing else, good relations with Russia were indispensable in vie,v of the Prague Summit, where fundamental decisions regarding the second enlargement of the Alliance would be adopted. In order to be valid from the strategic viewpoint,

.. this operati on had to take on t h e dimensi o n of what the Americans, from the very beginning, had defined a "big bang", i.e. the admission of as many as seve n nevv NaU o ns . This meas ure, toge ther with the a lmost simultaneous en la rgement of th e E.U ., would a lmost conc lu de the proce ss of recov ery of the g rey Eas t European a rea. An agreeme n t with Russia, especially if facil itated by th e exi ste nce o f pro b lem s with internat ional te rrorism, which in many respects appeared to be common to both sides, at this p oint was alrnost unavoidable and , as a matter of fa ct, it was rapidly c oncluded at Pra tica di Mare, with full and mutual satisfa ct ion . L ater, in the first

Lwenty-m e mber joint meetings e nvisaged by th e Treaty, o ne could eas il y see that times had really changed. l t was immediately clear, in fac t, t hat the rÂˇemain i ng cli ffe1Âˇe nces were coming more from NATO than from Russia . The on ly real difficulty was therefor e t h at of con vi ncing the Russian delegates to make their speeches shorter The alignment of Russia perm itted to consider the risk of a large con fli ct com pletely waned and enab led the All iance Lo totally revise its Command- and force s -str ucture . As a con sequence, NATO began a n internal debate - which had its logi ca l conclusion in Prague - on the best way to adapt to the situa-

tion by adopting stream line d stru c tures and relying on fl exi ble, projectab le and immedia tely-ready Headquarters/Units. For a w hil e tb e p icture looked rath e r comp lex , a lso because num e r o us , typica ll y n at ion al r equ irements were added lo t he Al lian ce's. So, while th e U.S. was pr ess .i ng for th e im p le mentation of c hange s considered indispen sable and und cre rrabl e, also beca us e mo st o f th e n1 con ce rned Am e rican Command ers wearing a "double hat" (U.S. and NATO), many European Nations w ere f ighting a delaying battle, o ften motivated by the wish to avoid losing the Allied I Teadquarters deployed on their t erritory. I n many othe r instances , instead, as in the case of the "Centres of Air Operatio ns Control" (CA OC ), the res istance was due to unden iably sou nd s trateg ic and operational con sidera ti ons. After the Prague Summit, the final resu lt of th e de bat e is well known. At the high est leve l, the strateg ic Com mand of the Atlantic ceased being operational a nd took on only fun ctional responsi b ili ti es. Th is was t he offi c ial sanctio n of t h e Alliance's decreased interest for the North Atl a ntic area which t h nn 1g ho u t the whole bipol a r era h a d be e n consid e red a potential theatre of a decisive air-naval batt le aimed at safeguarding th e in flow o f the Am e rican a ll ies to th e Eu ropean baLtlefields. At the same time, as a consequ ence of th e sa me prnvi sion , the Ce ntral Amer ican Command er (CO M CE NT) lost his double hat and cou ld devote himself only to th e defe nc e or the U.S. territory, a ta s k th a t Wash i ngton wanted to be exclusive after the events of September 11.

British and American servicemen during a NATO ac1iviry.

A Spanish patrol on training.

Finally, the Russian territory, which for more than fifty years had been a respon s ibility of SACLANT/COMCENT, passed under the management of SACEUR. As a whole, the ,-e was a complete normalization of the situation: the idea of a possible large-scale conflict was completely abandoned and Russia was included in its natural geopol itical context. At the two lower levels, the reform approved in Prague heavily affected the number and characteristics of the Headquarters. Thus, the old "Combined .Joint Task Forces" project was given a definite form, by envisaging two Forces: one "land based" and one "sea based" . Therefore th.e number of fixed Commands was drastically cut (with particular reference to those consi d ered a remnant of the Co ld War). A very burclensorne remnant in terms of men and resources .

Finally, the role o[ the "High Readiness Headquarters" (HRHQ) was emphas ized. These Corps -l eve l Major Units had b ee n placed at the Alliance's disposal by the member Nations in the preceding years and in many cases were still going through t he evalua tion phase. The Prague reform involved also the forces and the

prov1s1on in g programmes. As a rnatler of fact, t he U.S ., exerting very strong pressures, succeeded in selling the idea of a "NATO Response Force", a formation of about 21,000 men, Âˇwl1ich should have an initial operational capabi Ii ty as soon as possible and be fully operational by October 2006. The hesitations, mostly European,

Members of a US ordnance-disposal team making preparations for blasting mortar bombs confiscated in Kosovo.

were caused by the idea that the force could be somehow competitive with the European Union's Helsinky objective. These doubts were later overcome thanks to the consideration that the two forces Âˇwould opera Le on two com pletely different planes: the NATO force at the highest operational level and the European force in the more restricted precin ct of Petersberg-typ e missions. As regards maLerials, the Alliance abandoned ,..vith no regrets the so-called "Defence Capability Initiative (DCI) which had been launche d at Lhe Washington Summit but turned out to be a failure, in that il diluted in loo many sectors of intervention the limited additiona.1 efforts that 52

the Partners were able to make. In its place, NATO launched, and du ly approved, lhe "Prague Capabilities Commitment" (PCC) - oh, the Ang lo -Saxon genius for abbreviations and acronyms! - which concentrated the conunon capa bilities of effort on the eight groups of materia ls whose provisioning was considered an absolute priority in the light of the new situation. Within th is fra mework, a new impulse was given to five pilot initialives aimed at reinforcing the Alliance's capabilities in the specific sectoi-s of nuclear, biological and chemical defence. ln substance, when NATO leaves Prague, the main lines of its second transformation are

French soldiers training with a 120 111111

field morlar.

a lready laid out. Arnong the tasks envisaged, the defence of the national territories remains, bul more as historical remain der and transatlanL ic cement than as real necessity. Crisis management continues, but vvilh the hope that the E . U. will soon be able to take over, at least in Lhe Balkans. Control of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and fight against terrorism become the real raison d 'etre of the Alliance. Does this mean that NATO is once more the right coalition for the situation? Certainly not. The transforma-

tion process has just started and will require years, difficult years, in order lo come to a s uccessful conclusion. A possible arrival date could be the one fixed for the full operational capability of the NATO response force, i.e. the autumn of 2006 . It is worth noting that in that case the second transformation would requ.ire the same time as the first, which went from the fall of the Berlin Wall, in November 1989, to the NATO air offens ive against Serbia, in the summer of .1995. The vears of the f irst tran sform;_tion were polil i cally very important for Lhe Alliance, in view of lhe time when its restored cap a bi ] i ties \VOLi Id take it back to the centre of the

military factor. Will things go the same way th is time? P robably yes, and therefore now is the moment to turn to poli tics, in order to receive the necessary minimal guarantees that are cons idered indispensable. The first guarantee entails honouring lhe commitments made i n Prague, Âˇwhich are actually a selected minirnum as compared to the necessities . The second regards the exact de[inition of the agreements between NATO and the Europe of security and defence. The existence of two structures working in the same sector can make us more flex ible and therefore enrich us, but only if they arc complementary. If they compete, for polit ica l or

Personnel of the Peace Forces in Kosovo ready to move to their areas of responsibility.

economic reasons, \Ve risk becoming considerably weaker. Finally, in a time of traumatic and very rapid changes such as th is, the pol iticians must have what the Amer icans call a '\vild imagination". An imagination that, after all, ex isted and was fruitful d u ring the first transformation of t he Alliance. God b less the unknovvn genius ,.vho first had the idea of the Alliance for peace !

D 'M.ajor General, forrner lV!ilitary Representative to the NATO-EU Committees 1

General, how is the Army reorganization getting on? Is there a connection with the restructuring of the other forces in your country?

The Army reo1Âˇganization is getting on well. The aim is thal of setting up a military instrument adequate to carry oul the assigned tasks, as well as building a force equipped with a large number of mobile and combat-ready forces, effectively organized and manned. I think that we will shortly meet this target. To elate, major changes have been carried out in the structure and personnel sectors. In the year 2001 only, over 1,000 new organizational provisions were adoplecl, i.e an Army Supreme Command was set up; the Privolzhskiy and Ural Military Districts were unified; a more streamlined structure was created, relying on a reduced number of Army large units and elements. Notwiths t anding this overall troop reduction, there was an increase in lhe number of large units and formations which were

combat-ready wi thou t applying wartime procedures. Given the results obtained so far-, we hope that most of the planned structural changes will be implemented in one or two years. ln this connection, I would like to recall that enhancing troops' capabilities and combat readiness is among the Army's most important objectives. Therefore, priority one should be given to attain personnel's better qualitative and quantitative standards. A radical and most appropriate solution is to man units with NCOs and troops recruited on a voluntary basis. This will be a long, complex and costly process, but there is no other choice. Preliminary s teps have already been taken in the legislative, experimentation and social sectors, by increasing the prestige of the military and enhancing their living conditions at material , cultural and social levels. Equipm.enl, technology and arrnaments are other important elements to improve the Army's combat power. To this end , besides updating, repairing and replenishing its existing fleet, the Army 56

is developing models to completely renew its arsenal. Automated Command and Communication systems, mainly at tactical group level, are most required, together with reconnaissance equipment, precision weaponry, attack helicopters, and anti-tank missile systems. Personnel training, both at individual and unit level, is given. great importance in order to boost rhe Arrnys combat power. 1n fact, it is very important to improve the proressional level of Officers and NCOs performing basic command functions, as well as enhance their educational capabilities. To maximise tl1e use of resources allocated to the training of troops, a constant effort is being made to fully exploit the techni cal equipment used during exercises. New combat techniques are developed, which take into account the lessons dravvn from the fight against international terrorism in a wide range of geographical environments and \Veather condil.ions. Joint operations are also carried out with other armed forces or with special military units belonging to the Ministries of Defence, Interior

and Security. Particular ernphasis has been placed on mobilizing the reserve component, establishing an infrastructure to meet all Army requirements, develo ping highly qualified officers and lower rank specialists and enhancing logistic units. In future wars and especially in the fight against international terrorism, joint actions will be increasingly required, with the participation of the .M inistries of Defense, Interior and Security. In ract , a wide range of highly demand ing tasks are to be ca1Tied out jointly. The Army's interaction

Left. "Ka" 50 fire support helicopte,:

Right. View of' the ciiy of SL . Peiersburg, also known as "the Venice o{ 1he lvorth ".

Below. "Tunguslca" a/a selfpropelled. gun.

with the Air Force is particularly important, as that with the Navy in coastal areas . Therefore it stands to reason that the issues relating to the

employ our forces, when an emergency response is required. Speaking of the Russian Army, we cannot but recall the Red Anny. Is today's Army still connected to the past and when did it first break Âˇwith it?

Army reorganization sbould be connected to those of the other Armed Forces. First of all, the command stmcture will be reformed. Military Districts (1) have been given the status of operational -strategic commands to exercise t}1e i r authority over large units and other elements deployed in Lheir area of responsibili ty. We will make an effort to connect all automated command and communication systems to the several levels of the chain of command. The stmcturnl changes carried out in the other Services (the

establishment of new Air Force groups, air defense systems, airborne forces, naval forces) have been tailo r-eel to the operational requirements of Army's large units, so as to ensure them an adequate support. Other reform measur-cs have been taken to unify military means and equiprncnt, as well as enhance both the infrastructure and technical and logistical systems. Joint measures have been carefully p lanned and implemented for the preparation of un its. This way, we \.Vill be a ble to execu te our- plans and promptly

Jn my op inion, there ,vas not a real break with the past. Today's Army was not born from scratch, but is the offspring of the Soviet Army which, in turn, inherited the traditions of the Reel Army in 1946. Today, it enrolls the children and grandchildren of those who fought during the 194 1-45 Great PaLriotic WarÂˇ to defend our country's honour and independence and free peoples from fascism. We still remember the courage, heroism and sacrifice of those so ldi ers, who have become role models for the youth who arc presently ser-ving their country. The strength of the Red Army was based on its high moral values and glorious traditions. Those tenets were stricLly li nked to the pre-cevolutionary experience, spanning from the great march of Svyatoslav, the Prince of Kviv, to the successful battles of Aleksanclr Nevskij, to the fight against the Mongolian -Tartar 57

invasion, to S uvorov's \Nork "The science or winning", to the patriotic war in J 81 2 and to other glorio us pa ges in the history of our country. T he Russian Army has profited from the achievements of the Red Army and still keeps its war flags , a s a symbo l of honat~ gal lantry and glory, and o ldest traditions. To give an exa mpl e of R uss ian so ldie rs' h ero ism a nd courage, we may recall the ir fight against internal a nd international ten-orism in th e No rth e rn Ca u cas us a nd the peacekeeping mi ss io ns carried out in the Commonwealth of Tndependent States (CJS) a nd other countries. Concepts such as patriotism, honour, gallantry, courage, bravery, sacrifice, solidarity, r e li ef in co rn bat , c a pabili ty of enduring <lire hards hip, trea ting defeated enemies humanely ai-e deeply ingrained in today's Army. T he Red /\rrny foug ht long a nd bloody battles aga inst the Nazi Army, a st ro ng ene my a t t ha t ti me, and s howed the clear su periority of its a rrnamcn ts, technical means, organization and m ilitary craftsmans hip . Th e expe ri e nce gained by the Reel Army in combat ,-vas so un ique a nd \vide-rangi ng th a t it can be use ful even tod ay, to ca rry ou t the pr·ese nt reorganizatio n, as well as military training a nd tasks. lls gu idelines are no t followcd verba tim, bu t adapted lo the present s ituation, characte ri zed by modern wad'ighting equipme nt, new politica l and m ilitar·y scenarios a nd n ew deve lo pme nts in mili ta ry concepts and actions. Th e Army has s ubsta 1// i a lly changed fro /// the ti/1/es of the Red Army. Du r ing th e period of the Great Patriotic, War Russia n sold ie rs c ov e re d th e d ista n c e be tween Moscow and Berli n o n foot. Today the Army is equipped with m od e rn a nd sophi s tica ted weapo ns, cons idered as the best in t he world. T he warmaking, mobilization a nd m aneuver capabili ties have been g rea tly deve loped, as well as person ne l's exper58

lise, cu ltural bac kground , professio nal ski lls, moral a nd psychological qualities. Another key elen,c nt charac terii ing today's Army is the prohibition for the m ilitary to join poli tical panics and po li Lically oriented associatio ns. The Arm ed Fo r·ces a re called upon to avert external attacks and clefend the integrity a nd in vio la b ility of th e f ederati o n's terri Lo ry, th us acting in the interest of the whole country a nd not of single socia l groups only.

In Au g ust I 998 the Government iss ued a fra m e work document stating the guidelines o f th e Fe deratio n 's mil i tary policy up to 2005. In line ·with t hat d ire ct i v e , what is the Army's role? T he g uid e li nes of th e Federatio n's m ili ta ry poli cy are illustrated by the Co n cept of Na tion a l Secu r ity and Military Doctrine rnli fied by Lhe Pres ident of the Federation in 2000. Based on those documents, the Arn1ed forces are key Lo the milita ry security of our na tio n. Most tasks are assigned to the Army, given our geographical pos ition and terr i toria l ext ens io n, ex cee d in g 22,500 km . One can appreciate the Army's role a nd importa nce in g uarantee ing the m ilitary security of our nation through the study or o u r mil itary history. Tn fact, lhe Army has always been the corne rs lone of the RL;ssian Armed Forces and was crucial in defeating the Nazi Ar my du r ing the Great Pa triotic Wa r. Moreover; the Army pla_vs a ve,y i111porla11f role and is tlze backbone of o u r strategic j cm.:es. Th ,rnks to its m ulLi-functional and versatile capa bilit ies, it takes the lead in ave r·ting possible e nemy a ttacks or defe nding our territori a l integrity and national interesLs, as well a s re pe llin g a l tac kers and identify ing a nd de fus in g a rm ed conflicts fough t alo ng the borders.

An artillery baltery carries exercise.

0 11I

a live

The Army is also respons ible fo r carrying out a w ide range of territorial defcnse tasks, includi ng the enforcement of the m artial la w, the t ra ining , preparati o n an d deployme nt of s tra teg ic reserve forces. Today, the role played by the Arm y has ga ine d inc re a s e d impo1iance, as trad itional attacks waged by hos tile coun tries have be co m e less t hr·e atenin g tha n c o n flic ts of diffe ren t int e nsity, mainly linked to international terrorism a nd other type of extrem is t actio ns . A case in poi nt were the counter-terrorism operations carr ied o u t in the No rth e r n Caucasus, where Arn1y units were pivota l in comba ting large armed gangs. During armed conflicts, the Army is called upon to identify and curb regio na l u p ris ings, de tect an d di sband outlawed

and ten-orists, as well as destroy their h ea dquarLers , train ing grounds, warehouses and communication networks. It is also tasked Lo guarantee the rule of law in emergency siLuaLions and defend the national heritage. The Army's important role is also highlighted by its implementation of Russia's international engagements and participation in peace-keeping missions.

1n fact, since 2001, peace-keeping missions have been solelv entrusted to the Army. Personnel ,{re engaged in the difficult task of separating the warring factions and guaranteeing the safety of civilians living in Abkhazia and in the Southern Ossetia region in Georgia , in the Pridnestrovie region in Moldavia (former Yugoslavia) and in other parts of Lhe world, to create the preconditions for a poliLicaJ solution of conGicts. Therefore, the Army plays a key role in guaranteeing our country's

rn il iLary security. Although it makes up only 40% of the Armed Forces' overall strength, the profess ionalism of its personnel, as well the struclure, combat rcacliness and warfighting power of its division s and units allow for countering all threats to our national interests. Nuclear weapons had a specific role and function in the Soviet Army, as their use was envisaged in the planning and conduct of both defensive and offensive operations .Has the Army modified its concepts on the use of nuclear weapons? T he FedernL ion c onsiders nuc lear \veapons as a security guarantee and a dete rrent against possible a ttacks to the nation and its allies. However, nuclear \Veapons are not the only means to pose a deterrent Lhreat or repel an attack. In fact, based on the new wording of th e Concept of

National Security, as ratified by the Presidential Dec ree of January 2000, today Russia can employ any means or force in its possession, nuclear weapons included, to repel an arm e d attack, on ly when all other measures have turned out to be ineffective to settle a crisis. Nuclear systems and forces at tactical and tactical -operational levels have ahvays played a major role in the Russian po licy o( nudear balance. While in the past the role of tactical and tacticaloperaLional weapons was mainly that of amplifying the power of traditional forces, now their political-military hmction is integrated into a general sys tem and has become more similar to that of strategic nuclear Âˇweapons. Today, Lhe resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons is a responsib ili ty of our country's higher political authority, in a contingency. Only al a Jater stage, nuclear attacks are planned and carried out. 59

... However, new measures have been taken in this sector to enhance security levels and rule out a possible unintended use of those weapons. As regards the Russian security policy, the stability of the former Soviet Republics is very important. What are the connections between the Russian Army and those of the Republics?Will these historical ties be further strengthened? The Armed Forces of the forrner Soviet Republics, today belonging to the Commonwealth of

cess which now is mainly linked to the protection of their mutua.1 interests. Military cooperation is multifaceted, i.e. there is unrestricted cooperation mainly in the sectors of peacekeeping and border and air space defense. Nations are also cooperating w ithin the framework of the Treaty on Collective Security . The Treaty is aimed at enhancing regional security, based on bilateral agreements dealing with issues of particular importance, as regards military infrastructure and security guarantees. A particularly important achievement

independent States (CIS), were born from the territorial breakup of the Soviet Army, which was once a powerful and unified military instrument. Consequently, as these states exert their authority over the same territory and share military means and armaments, rn iJitary security programs, force structures, as well as troop training and deployment systems, it \.Vould be impossible for them not to keep strong cooperation ties in the military sector. CollabonHion among CIS nations has been a gradual pro60

has been obtained in the sector of military security cooperat ion, when a single air defense system has been established for all C/S nations. This system allows nations to defend their airspace boundades, jointly contrnl the use of their airspace, have a centralized airspace information system and a unified command of a-ir defense forces and means, in case of an attack. There is wide cooperat ion at technical-military level, which also encompasses coordinated industrial plans and programs, mutual ma intenance and supply

of weapons and military equipment, development of scientific research and development, coordinated procurement of material and technical resources and joint modernization of military assets. This cooperation has boosted the mass production of military equipment, lowered production costs and eased the access to CIS nations' markets. Another important aspect of cooperation is the further development of peacekeeping act1v1ties aimed at defusing armed con_flicts broken out within CIS nations. This is a basic precondi-

--tively counter all types of challenges, risks and threats, while European and Asiatic regions are further stabilized. The Caucasus region has resumed its strategic role of crossroads between Europe, South-West Asia and the Middle East. Could you explain the Army's role within the activities canied out by the CIS to stabilize the Caucasus region?

Above. "BTR-80" transport and auack arm.oured v ehicle in s er v ice with motorized infant,y units. Left. "Mi-28A N" attack helicopter.

tion to guarantee regional seCLtrity and stability. Thus, the joint intervention of CIS peacekeeping forces succeeded in stopping t.he civil war in Tajikistan and laying the foundat ion for a political solution to the strife bet\veen Abkhazia and Georgia. Peacekeeping operations have taught us ho-w important it is to equip the Armed Forces of CIS nations with units specialized in these types of missions. A further development of our cooperation dforl in the peacekeeping sector will allow us to set up and train joint units with special tasks. The fight against international terrorism has recentlv becorne one of the main cause; for concern. To fight terrorist organiza tions , there is the need for a mutual exchange of information

about their composition, numbers, location and types of actions. Moreover, a cooperation effort is required to set up, train and equip counter-terrorism units with the most advanced \Veapon systems, munitions and military means to jointly carry out special operations in the [u tu.re. Th e Russian Army actively supports the Armed Forces of other CIS nations in organizing and modernizing theirÂˇ national forces, developing their military leadership, implementing joint measures to train units lo carry out operational and military tasks, coordinating the territorial allocation of military assets and establishing com rnon guidelines to set up an replenish stocks of means and matet"ials. I think that our relations in the military sector are based on a sound foundation which can be further enlarged in the future. This is mainly possible because integration in the military sector does not endanger the sovereignty of CIS nations, but allovvs them to cut costs and establish new political and econom ic Lies. Thanks to military cooperation, nations are better geared to effec-

The geopolitical features of the Caucasus have a particular bea ring on the present socio-political situation of the region and its developrnent trends. In fact, the Caucasus has ahvays been a geographical linchpin between Asia and Europe. Some countries considered the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ernergence of new sovereign states in the Trans-Caucasus as a historical opportunity to extend their power over that region and weaken the Russian grip on the area. There are other important factors ,vhich affect the situation in the region , such as historical disputes of economic, social. religious and inter-ethnic nature and territorial claims among the various populations residing in tha t area. The rash initiatives taken by some politicians exacerbate these rivalries at limes and create flash points of instability which may blow up at any time. These initiatives, stemming from Russia's weakened grip on the Trans-Caucasus region after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have brought about several armed conflicts which bave disrupted the stability of the area. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, which has lasted for ten years, is one of them. Other dispu.tes are (uellecl by nationalist tendencies in the Georgian regions or Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia . 61

Russian personnel serving in the peacekeeping mission in Tajikistan.

CIS nations' and Russia's political authorities made every effort to curb the conflicts in those regions and bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. The Russian Army played a pivotal role in quelling the controversies in Georgia and restoring peace and stability. In fact, the Army is mandated by the CIS to prevent conflicts from escalating and guarantee Lhe safety of the civilian population. But the complete stabilization of the region solely depends on warring parties' willingness and resolve. The situation in the Northern Caucasus is different. Here the theory that Lhe Chechen people are fighting for their national independence has proved to be groundless. In fact, i [ that was the case, Crom 1996 tol 999 a local leadership could have been established, with the political support of Russia, and international-

ly recognized. But nothing of the sort happened. The Chechen territory has becorne the stronghold of international te tTOrism, from which to attack Russia, and . a fertile breeding ground fo r Wahabist theories. Wahabism is a very active, aggressive and radical movement within Islamic fundarnentalism Mercenaries, re.ligious zealots, as well as flows of weapons and drngs have poured into that region from all over the wodd. Slave trafficking is w id espread in the area . Hundreds of people have disappeared without trace or have been cruelly tortured. This situation was compounded by the onslaught of arrned terrods ts in nearby Daghestan and bomb attacks against civilian buildings in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buynaksk. , where innocent people werÂˇe ruthlessly killed. No country in the world could have left these actions unpunishecl. It should be noted that terrorist gangs, well organ ized and equipped with last generation weapons, carry out professional, cruel and

unpredictable actions . As things stand, it would have been impossible for law enforcement force s alone to have the upper hand on Lerrorists . T herefore, the Army init iall y gave fundam e n t al support to these operations. ln fact, thanks to its structure and capabilities, the Army is a multi -functional and versatile force, capable of carrying out all combat task s anywhere, against any enemy and under an y condition. Besides disbanding armed gangs, the Army was tasked with monitoring and clefending key positions, setting up road blocks and checkpoints, protecting and escorting convoys, as wel l as guaranteeing the rule of lavv and e nforcing other provisions. When those gangs were finally defeated, many tasks were han ded over to the Police, law enforcement and federal security forces. As a consequence, the number of large units was considerabl y downsized, together witb those elements directly involved in operations. At present, powerful criminal

Russian tank unit in action.

organizations are no longer present in Chechnya, but there are only small groups made up of 510 members and fe\v cells with up to 50 people . They mine roadways, carry out armed robberies at night and go back home at dawn j ust like innocent citizens. Therefore, law representatives, special authorities tasked with finding and apprehending criminals, together with Armed Forces' special units, are to be particularly efficient. T he Army has deployed one large unit in the area and a number o( special elements. It is worthwhile recalling that as militia forces' bases and hideouts were destroyed and the flows of \veapons and munitions from abroad were disrupted, terrorists' material s upplies and actions were greatly reduced and all attempts to unifv their forces u ncler a single c;mmand fai led.

Concurrently, the authorities of nearby Georgia have identified terrorists' bases and staging areas on their territory, precisely in the Pankissi gorge, and are determined to destroy them. As a consequence, the Chechen people are increasingly convinced that things would be better if terrorist actions stopped. They arc tired of war. Tn the next few years tbe rÂˇe wil l be a huge effort to restore normal conditions, by apprehending criminals still at large, resLoring the rule of law and reviving the economy and social institutions. The objectives set by the CFE ( Conventional forces in Europe) Treaty have been met.Has the Army encountered any problems in destroying so many tanks, infantry combat vehicles, artillery pieces and heJicopters, as envisaged by that Treaty? It is important to keep in mind that the CFE Treaty was signed in 1990 and before that date there had been a long preparation and

coordination work, which lasted many years . That Treaty radically changed the cleploymenL of forces in Europe. Neither the Organization of the Warsaw Pact nor the Soviet Union exist any longer, whi le the CFE na ti ons shifted frorn 22 to 30 and grouped with the forrner Soviet Republics . Many Eastern European countries have already become NATO members, or have applied for membership in that military organization wh ich continues to expand eastvvard. As regards the CFE Treaty, establishing the Army's disarmament leve ls, I can assure you that we did not encounter any problems . Thi s was due to the fact that when l}1e Treaty was signed, the Russian Federation's Military Doctr ine had already charted a defensive course, envisaging a drawdown of conventional forces. The risks of large armed conflicts involving the Federation had also receded. Actually, we encountered some difficulties in meeting the terms of the CFE Treaty regarding residual flank limits, which did not

..,

take into account the new politico-milita ry situa tion. When a crisis broke out in the Nort h ern Cauca s us , t he Federation did not have sufficient stocks of am1aments and combat systems in place to rapidly a nd effectively neutralize the armed conflict. The transfer of large units and milita ry elem e nts d e ployed in other parts of the Russian territory lo that region was very costly a nd p a rtially contravened the terms of the Treaty. Now t hings ha ve re turned to normality and s urplus mili tary assets and armaments have been withdrawn . However, we cannot rule out the possib ility that a situation reoccurs or that a new crisis breaks out in another area. Moreove1~ a mainte nance centre specialized in armoured vehicles has been deployed to the region . The tanks and armoured combat vehicles which are serviced in that workshop, as well as those in a good s tate o f repa ir, even if orga nically assigned to other units, arc counted in the arm amen t aggregate level s of t h a t 64

region. This creates some diffi culties in the rigorous implementatio n of the terms of the CFE Treaty. An "Ad a pted " CFE Tr eaty is under study, which will hopefully reconside rÂˇ present situa tion and solve present problems. Based on that agreement, conventional armam e nt le ve ls i n Europ e should be furt her reduced. Russia will not have a ny problems in imple me ntin g the "Adapted " Treaty, as the established annament and combat vehicle level has almost been reached . According to some military e xperts, high-intensity operations are extremely unlikely at present.There fore, w hat role will large heavy units play in the future?

I think it is roo early to say tha t the role a nd fu nctions of large heavy units ,,viii be less and less important in fut ure armed co nCli c ts. T he sup porters of th is theory maintain that modern anti-tank ,veapons will easily outdo traditi onal tanks in co rn-

bat. A weapon capable of piercing an armour pla te over 1 meLer thick already exists. La rge num bers of light a nd portable a/t weapons have recently been fielded, which cannot be easily detected and destroyed. Therefore, some experts think tha t both ta nks and other armoured vehicles are no more invincible and that their wide employm e nt in the battlefiel d will be ineffective, mainly in

closed areas. In my opinion, these views are unsubstantiated. The production of tanks at worldwide level proves that it is not yet clear whether the "shield" or the sword" ,.vill have the last word. New types of tanks have already been designed and defense systems are being refined with add-on ballistic protection and new materials. Active defense systems are also

large armoured and mechanized units have also been enlarged, as these forces can rely bn increased coverage by other troops or means. In particular, the basic concepts for the use of combat vehicles in the tank support role are being developed. They feature an add-on armour and can suppo1i. tanks or destroy enemy antitank vehicles. Another theory seems rather far-fetched, according to which large "heavy" units are unfit to operate in closed and inaccessible areas, ,,v here conflicts of different nature are most likely to take place at present. It solely depends on whether they are used in a flexible way or not. In fact, tanks, infantry armoured vehicles

employed, which can destroy missiles and a/t ammunition along their midcourse phases and an enhanced dynamic defense system will be shortly operational. Moreover, night vision sighting equipment, as well as communication, reconnaissance and filing systems are being updated, while maneuver and advance capabilities are being enhanced. The emp loyment options of

and personnel carriers are multirole equipment and can be used in the fire and support role to combat in built-up areas, break through reinforced areas and carry out mountains operations. In case of a breakthrough in a main line of d efense on open ground, large heavy units may be used to counterattack, whi le in case of deployment to an operational theatre, they are key to sue-

Left.

"Alexius II", Chief of the Orthodox Church, atlends a ceremony.

Below. Troops of the pontoon. engineers corps.

cess. Another reason why those who thin k that large units, both mechanized and armoured, have become of little use is that, at present, the main threat to civilized nations comes from international ten-orism and fundamentalism . To fight these groups , special units are required. This is partially true, but it would be rash to reorganize the Army based on that judgement. Today, there are many nations, especially in Central and Eastern Asia, where regular forces are mainly based on Groups including large armoured and mechanized units. No one can rule out the possibility of an armed conflict requiring their support . Special Units will be of little use, in the case of a war against those countries. In that case, the enemy will only be overcome by large-scale operations carried out with the support of heavy units. Moreover, armoured/mechanized units and elements may be successfully employed to fight terrorist organizations as well, especially if the latter are not equipped with effective a/t systems. A case in point are the fairly good results obtained by Israel by using tanks to fight Palestinian terrorists also in an urban environment. I thinl<. that those who are convinced that the Air Force can be successful even going it alone, are not completely right. Though the importance of this force is indisputable, we have learned from previous experience that it can be effectively employed against an enemy with a limited or no air defense system. As a rule, combat operations do not end by achieving "fire superiority", even if its effect will contribute to utterly destroying the enemy, seizing key areas and freeing occupied territories. It \vill be practicaJJy impossible to obtain such results without employing large armoures/mehcanized units and carrying out

Haapsalu Episcopal CaLhedral.

high inlensity combined arms operations. Therefore, in my opinion, large armoured and mechanized units are unlikely to play a secondary role in the future. Moreover; there is no reason to believe that large-scale combined arms operations will he slreamlined in the future . However, much wi ll depend on those who will choose the best way to employ large units in the field, train personnel and exploit armoured vehicles' techni cal and combat capabililies. The Red Army has mainly employed a wide range of mortars, howitzers, cannons, multiple rocket launchers and selfpropelled means. How will the Artillery be organized in the future?

The Arti ll erv, which has been further integ~ated wilh rnissiJe forces, has always played a decisive role in the history of Russian Armed Forces, given its firing

accuracy, effective preparation and rate of fire, in all geographical, weather and visibility conditions . T he vehicles used by missile and artillery forces can carry out quick movernents and maneuvres on the battlefield and adequately protect personnel. The experience gained in regional wars and arrn.ed conflicts (ought over this last decade proved that missile, artillery and air forces delivered about 80/90 % of the aggregate firepower. In close combat operations, artillery fire reached 50-80%. This testifies to the fact that the role and func tions of missile and artillery troops in achieving "fire superiority" \vill remain unchanged in Lhe near future, especially follO\ving Lhe adopt ion of high accuracy munitions. Moreover, enhanced air defense capabilities will inevitably lead to a limited use of air forces to provide direct fire support to units and elements operating in the field. As regards the future o{ missile and artille,y units, a possible solution seems that of setting up, within large units, reconnaissance

and fzring ele1nents, including air and space vehicles, missile systems at operational and tact ical levels, as well as rocket launchers, self-propelled artillery and EW systems, grouped under a same command. Reconnaissance systems will play a key roJe, as they will allow for collecting accurate and relia-

Left. St. Petersburg, Pushkin Royal Palace. Below. "T-90S" battle tank.

ble real-time data on the selecled targets , even in very disLant places and areas undetectable from surface points . Conneclions are provided by automated systems linking uni ts to Army Corps. Computer-based and command systems wil l be as important as reconnaissance and fire equi p ment, in obtaining both fi re and

radio-e lectronic superiority in a lmost rea l time, even over highly maneuverable enemy troops. Therefore, the rnain developments in Lhe field of automated systems will be applied to uniried multi -role command vehicles, ,,vhich will be fi elded to tacL ical and operational command

systems, tactical missile units and e lements, as well as to combal and combat su pport troops . The new gualilaLive standards of missile and artillery troops will allow for design ing and developing weapon systems with enhanced firing ranges and kill capabilities. These systems, together with new generation weapons equipped with automaLed sighting and Largeting devices, \.viii boost the effectiveness of combat un its and increase the number of their tasks. In sum, l would like to restate that missile and artillery assets are now, as in the past, the weapons of choice in any war and ,,vill play a leading role in fu ture armed conflicts. Therefore, the Army's fut urÂˇe capabilities and combat power will rnainly depend on the changes made in this sector. The Red Army's organizational structure comprised many special units. What is the role and nature of "Spetsnaz" in today's Army? Sp ec ia l uni Ls and e lements were set up at the beginning of the post-war pe riod. When the Armed Forces of the most powerful nations in the world resorted to a massive use of missiles and nuclear weapons to fight their enemies, o ur military authori ties decided to create new forces and reconnaissance means, to effectively identify enemy weapons and delivery systerns, as well as collect in format ion on possible enemy targets. As early as the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army paid special attention to the training of personnel specialized in reconnais67

sance-sabotage tasks. Our combat experien ce proved that those units, if adequately prepared and equipped, had both reconnaissance a nd kill capabili ties, and could destroy nuclear weapons, co m mand sites and other important enemy targets. Ther-efore, large units and elements with special tasks, together with their staff bodies, were set up within Military Distri c ts to carry out the above rnentionccl miss ions. The lessons learned from today's regional wars and armed conflicts taught us that special units can cffectivcly carry out combat operations, when a rapid reaction is required, e ither before the intervention of combined arms teams or after the onset of a conflict. Moreover, they collect information which cannot be obtained by other reconnaissance means and destroy or neu tra li :,,.e important enemy targets. Their actions include intercepting command a c tivities, disrup ti ng lo gis tic systems, cutting communication

lines and blocking the flow of rescr-ves and suppli es. Specia l units are ca pable of infiltrating enemy te1Titory to approach the targets they are reconno ite ring . Th is way, it is possible to identify their exact position an d collect relia bl e inform at io n, befo re d ata are released from other information so urces. As things stand, large units an d elemcn Ls with special tas ks may also carry out other important missions, such as research of rescue operations, in the case of aircraft or helicopter d isasters or incidents, or participate in peacekeeping missions and countcr'-terrorism ac tions. Thanks to their specialized training, these units proved to be particularly effective in fighting a rmed ga ngs in t he Northern Ca ucasus. They ma in ly carried out the following tasks: identification of the hid eo uts, bases , ca mps and traini ng cc nters of these gangs; destruction of weapon, ammunition and equi pment s torage s ites; ch ase and capture or neutralization of small groups

of combatants or terrorists and their s upporters. As a consequence, large units and elements with spec ial tasks a rc becom ing mo re and more importan t. The Russian Armed Forces' "Spelsnaz" has a long track rcco,-d of combat experiences and are key Lo guarantee the m ilitary security of our nation. Army personnel is mainly made up of young conscripts serving for 12 to 24 months, depending on their level o f instruction. What is the current develo pment sta ge of the Arm y's professionalization process, to be finalized by 2005?

As 1 have alrea d y said, the Army's s hift to a n all vo lunteer system is considered by our political leadership as fundamental to in c rÂˇease ou r s trength and co mbat power. T he Ministry of Defensc, together with the approp1iate federal agencies belonging to the executi ve po we rÂˇ, after analyzing all the issues relating Lo

Left. "BMP -3 " Infan1ry transport and attack vehicle.

Right. Tanks crossing a waterway.

the system of manning the military organization, has submitted proposals to speed up the transition to a voluntary army. These are the basic issues dealt with by the Government's proposal presented to the President of the Russian Federation in September 2001 . The President has endorsed that document and tasked governmental authorities with developing and testing the relative federal program by 2004. The shift from conscription to a system .in which personnel is enrolled on a contractual basis is not a simple change in status. On the contrary, it includes a series of provisions envisaging organic and stru ctural changes in units, as well as in the civil and military infrastructure and level of technical equipment. The allocation of large funds and material resoiu-ces is therefore necessary. To man only one division with con tracted persom1el, 2/2,5 billion rubles will be required and yearly maintenance costs will be much higher than those necessary to support an all conscript division. Therefore, the provisions for establishing this new enrolment system envisage three phases: a preparato,y phase Lo be completed by the end of 2004; an implementation phase frorn 2005 to 2010 and a follow -up phase, whose time-line wi 11 be es tablish e d based on the outcome of the oper ational phase and the ,vork completed. To implement these objectives, ad-hoe working groups have been established at the Interagency Commission fo,- militarv securitv of the Russian F ed~ratior/s Security Council, as well as at the appropriate governmenta l federal agencies. The ir work has

been organ ized fo ll ow ing th e di rec tives of the Federa tion's President a nd Government. As early as July 2002, the proposal Lo rnan military positions with contracted personnel was submiltecl to th e Federa tion's Government, while Lhe following federal program will be finalized in OclOber 2003. Unt il July 2003 , the new concep ts will be tested at the level of large units and elements, where it wi II be possible to ensure t he necessary conditions and infrastrncture, the required equipment level, th e good stale or a nnaments and military means and the performance of routine technical and combat training tasks. Non military operations will be carried out by civilian personne.1 or by a special contingent performing an allernalive service.

Moreover~ by the end of 2004, new changes ;viii be made to the Federation's laws and steps will be taken to give further luster to the military status. ln the implementation phase, in line ,vith the requireme nts satisfied, the number of military units and elements manned with contracted personnel vvill be gradu ally increase d. T h is ,vill mainly involve high-readiness unils , which arc an important foundation for the military secur ity of our nation. It is anticipated that the length of conscription will be shortened only when 50% of the positions covered by soldiers and NCOs are ass ig ned to contracted personnel. If th e provisions envisaged by the federal program are rapidly and totally funded, by 2010 it will

"Mi-8" helicopter hovering over a Russian compound.

be possible to man most soldier and NCO rolls wi th personnel contracted on a voluntary basis. Jn my opinion, this ne,,v system to man the Russian Arrned forces is both effect ive and tailored LO the futu,-e deve lo pment of our economy.

When have women first entered the Russian Armed Forces? What positions do they cover? Though sold iering was considered as a typica l male acti vity in the past, women too served their county with devo tion. T h e ir names have long been written in the lisl of our national heroes. Many of Lhem have Laken part in several battles, s uch as PtÂˇi ncess Olga of Kyiv, Âˇw ho was at the head of one unit w hich gained several victories, Feodora P u 7h bol skaya and Daria Rostovskaya, who bravely fo u ght against th e Tartar

h ordes in the Kulikov area. Also in other historical periods, Russian women enrolled to fight and defend their n a Lion, when necessary. The first Russian fem.ale O fficer was adezhda And reevna Durova, who took part in the 181 2 Patriotic War with the ran k or Caval ry Capta in and became Knight of the Cross of Sr. George. The first female units date back to World War One. On June 29, 1917, the Military Council of the Supreme Command decided to o rganize volunteer women in to two Infantry battalions and four signal units. Women have always occupied key positions in the Soviet Army a nd, befo re thaL, in Lhe R e d Army. Thu s, during the G reat Patriotic War in 1941-45, more than 800,000 women were enrolled. They made up 41 % of medica l personn e l, 43% o f medi ca l assistants and 100% of nurses. More than 220,000 girls were sn ipers, belonged to signal un its or o Lher specia lti es. As regards the heroic deeds performed during

the war, 87 women obtained our highest national award, i.e. the titl e of Hero es of the Soviet Union, and more than 150,000 of them received many awards and medals. Today, a bout 10,000 serve in the army as Officers and Prapors hchiki (2) . Two women are Colonel, about 300 are Lt. Colonels and Majors, about 1,300 are junior Officers and P raporshchiki. Other 13, 000 women serve as Soldi ers and NCOs and make up about 35% of the contracted personnel. This ratio is higher than that of the other Armed Forces. Women cover 52 different positions. They are mainly rep resented in the medical, logistical and communication sectors and are part icu larly su ited to service and repair som e ty pes of m ili tary equip rnent. They are specialized personnel who ma inly carry out logistic t asks w ithin com bat units and elements. Undou btedly, fe male hands know better how to prepare a tasty meal and deliver med i-

cal aid. Sometimes, however, those who belong to the so-called "weaker sex" make up the whole crew of an air-defense or antimissile systeo/c In the last few years, in line with large cuts in personnel numbers, the streamlining of the organizational structure and the shift to a professional Army, the number of women in the Armed Forces has been reduced as well. What principles inspire the training and development of Russian soldiers?

To answer this question properly, we should take into account our historical background. The principles inspiring the training of all Russian soldiers are those established at the turn of the XVIII century by Emperor Peter the Great in organizing a regular army, as further ratified by the 1716 Military Decree. Those principles were subsequentJy developed by Alexandr Vasilevich Suvorov, a famous Russian strategist, and included in his renowned work "The science of winning". In the education sector, the main concepts to be explained to trainees are the superiority of spiritual values over material ones, the support of national pride and patriotism, as well as the allegiance to the homeland and its military traditions. Moreover, both soldiers and officers shou ld be convinced that dying in battle, they will sacrifice their lives for an ideal. i.e. the glory of their nation (a sacred gesture "We are Russians, God is on our side"). In the instruclion sector, not only troops receive formal lrai ning, but musl a lso understand what they are doing, i.e. the rationale behind each maneuver. They also learn how to take initiatives at bottom level and possibly push them to the top; how to be prudent in combat and al the same time show resolve in

operations (judgement at first unified training, both for military sight, promptness, stamina) and and civilian personnel. Therefore, how to exploit success to the very training and education take on a end (if a wood is not razed to the particular social and patriotic ground, it will grow again). They perspective, in line with national should learn to prefer quality over laws, present political trends quantity (victory is for a happy and military doctrine requirefew) and to obtain victory "with ments. The principle is based on the fact that military and profeslittle bloodshed". Peter the Great and A.V.Suvorov sional training are always linked established a particular system for to their moral and psychological foundation: a firm belief in the educating and training troops, based on their deep knowledge of importance and legitimacy of all military operations and Russian actions taken to defend national interests . As a consequence, the soldiers' psychology. Those two renowned Russian Army was imbued with deeply felt strategists showed great insight military feelings, which had been by into the national peculiarities of thoroughly analysed Russian soldiers: their capability A.V.Suvorov. Those trends are linked to the of scarifying themselves to the utmost, performing incredible principle that it is necessary to acts of courage and heroism and teach troops ve1y practical skills, combating for their beloved useful ro defend the country and its interests. Based on that princiCommander. The values underpinning that ple, troops' organization and traisystem, incredibly simi lar to ning are tailored to the requireRussian people's moral principles ments of modern wars, privileand culture, were immediately ging real world expe1iences. This understood and absorbed by is in line with Suvornv's assumpRussian soldiers. They were tions, according to which sol extremely advanced concepts at diers should never be caught that time, which had been faith- unprepar-ed in the battlefield, having faced simi lar situations in fully handed down in history. The Red Army drew the best peace time. That principle proteaching from the pre-revolutio- ved to be true by the experience nary Army, as regards soldiers' drawn from counter-terrorism training and education. As a con- operations carried out in the sequence, eternal and deeply felt Northern Caucasus, where traivalues were preserved, but at the ned units obtained very good same time new and advanced r-esults with a very low number of concepts were introduced into the casualties. Admittedly, lraining is more training of troops, high standards were reached in the teaching of effeclive when troops deeply warfighting capabilities and per- believe in the importance and sonnel spirits were kept high. practical relevance of soldiering T his way, the Red Atmy could and in what they are doing. defeat the Nazi troops, which had Therefore, another important conquered almost all Europe and principle is that of fostering trainees' awareness, inil iative and were considered as invincible. The values inspiring Peter the selfreliance. Troops are Lo be Great's and A.V.Suvorov's con- encouraged to take the initiative cepts about the training of and act, both during training and Russian soldiers are still valid. In in the field. The lessons learned fact, they reflect modern training teach us that self-reliance, the and educational principles, as wise implementation of new tactical methods, the assumption of regards Army personnel. There was a basic concept calculated risk should not only be among them, i.e. the principle of encouraged, but also considered 71

as a duty by all soldiers. In Peter the Great's times, that principle became one of the most important milestones of Lhe national school for the training and education of troops. Ils implementaLion is witnessed by Suvorov's famous guidelines, i.e. "soldiers should understand the rationale behind their maneu vers" and have the following capabilities "judgement at first sight, promptness, stamina". The principle of unified Lraining and education , both at individual and unit level aims at enhancing the effectiveness of the training and education process. This way, it is possible to foster both \Narfighters' individual capabilities and units' operntions . Military personnel can thus share the responsibility of carrying ouL operational tasks, learn how to deliver buddy aid and sacrifice their lives to attain a common goal. This method allows for teaching principles Russian soldiers have always believed in and al the same time taking into account soldiers' physical and psychological capabil ities in the assignment of tasks. The following principles are equally imporlant: systematic, consequential, complete, practical and accessible training; constant updating of knowledge, experiences and capabilities. Following these deeply rooted principles in personnel training and education, we will be capable of strengthening units' moral, spiritual and military resolve, as well as their readiness in facing any threat to the security of the ir nations. Since 1992, the Russian Army has taken part in peacekeeping operations in former Yugoslavia, initially under UNOFOR, then IFOR.JSOFR ( 1995) and KFOR (1999 onward). What lessons have been learned? Peacekeeping operaLions car72

ried out by multinational forces in the Balkans are a unique experience, as regards their scope , extension, preparation and conduct. Both the Federation's and CIS nations's .legislative and executive bodies have gained unparalleled experience in preparing and execuling those operations . ln fact, they have developed syslems and ways to prevent conflicts of that type, refined laws and regulations on peacekeeping and set up ad hoe strnctures, within governmental organizations, supervising peacekeeping operations. Moreover, based on the Yugoslav experience, the general principles governing the managern en t of armed conflicts and their inherent problems have been maxi rnised to develop a more effective national security strategy at national, regional and global level. The Russian peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo is presently made up of one brigade w ith about 2,000 men; 600 more troo-

ps are deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our peacekeepers are mainly tasked with guaranteeing the security of local populations and creating the conditions necessary to launch negotiations, as well as implementing olher measures to seek tl1e peaceful resolution of d isputes, enforce the rule of law and guarantee the

-Left.

"Smerch " multiple rocket launcher.

Right. • "BTR-90 " transport and allaclc armoured vehicle. ·

Below. "Msta-S" 152mm artillery self-propelled vehicle.

smooth functioning of social and state organizations. Army units earmarked to take part in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans have been already trained for that task and have already gained some experience on the CIS ten-itory. Therefore, I am convin ced tha t they will

distinguish thernselves in performing the assigned tasks in their respective areas of responsibility. Very useful lessons were drawn from the joint operntions carried out with the units of other countries taking part in KFOR. In fact, joint patrol and reconnaissancesearch operations, as well as activities to guarantee the safety of

local populations were carried oui. Tn each a1·ea of responsibility joint operations are also performed with the s upport of civil interm1tional organizations and activities are set in place to monitor the moves of warring parties' units. There is a mutual exchange of information and guarantees are

multilaterally granted, as regar·ds the conduct of peacekeeping operations. Russian peacekeepers are more experienced in the orga nization sector and in carrying out reconnaissance operations aimed at timely identifying and preventing possible incidents in their area of responsibility. To this end, they establish contact wi th the local population to gather the inforrnation required. They subsequently exploit it for peacekeeping purposes, for organizing and executing psychological operations or for· supporting the activities of those intenrntional organ izations which have been officially authorized to operate in the conflict area. The lessons learned in the peacekeep ing operations in the Balkans have been fully exploited to organize and prepare units earmarked for other s.im ilar opcrntions. More attention has been paid to the study of the histyory, c u stoms and traditions of the people Jiving in the conflict area . The possibility has been envisaged to sign an agreement between the ,.varring parties, based on the mandate and the UN Charte1~ The study of languages has been max i mised and prac tical manuals and booklets have been di s tri b uted to personnel. Local anthropic a nd geographic c ha -

racteristics have been taken into clue account and new types of actions have been devised by peacekeepers to prevent the fighting parties from massing their troops, to disrupt enemy deployments and defuse conflicts in their areas of responsibility. In my opinion, the lessons learned by units during international peacekeeping missions in former Yugoslavia will al low them to improve their readiness levels in executing similar tasks both in the CIS area and in other regions worldwide, if necessary. Since I 992, Russian troops have served in peacekeeping contingents on the CIS territory, in particular in the TransCaucasus and Moldavia. What is the difference with the peacekeeping operations carried out under the UN umbrellas?

The collapse of the Sovie t Union in 199 1 destabilized several regions and triggered a series of armed conflicts. As a consequence, right from the firsl months of the CTS establishment, great strides were made lo set

up a hody of rnles on peacekeeping. Basic documents \Vere developed and endorsed to regulate the preparation and conduct of peacekeep ing operations on the CJS territory.These documents reflect the provisions of the UN Charte1~ the guide]ines and rules established by international lmvs, in line with the decisions of the UN Security Council and OSCE documents. Thanks to the actions carried out by CIS joint peacekeeping forces, the civil Âˇwar in Tajikistan has been prevented and the armed conflicts in the Trans Caucasus and in the Pridncstrovie region in Moldavia have found a political solution. Today, peacekeeping contin gents have been withdrawn f-rom Tajikistan, but lhe 201 motorized Division, which is still in place, will be given the status of Russian military HQ. Our soldiers are still carrying out peacekeeping tasks in Georgia and Moldavia . In the conflict area between Georgia and Abkhazia there are few peacekeepers and their st rÂˇength, which is little more than a battalion, is not st

enough to solve the problems of that area. A small group with the same number of forces is deployed in Southern Ossetia. A small unit is still in the Priclnestrovie region in Moldavia. The main differences between. the peacekeeping operations carried out under rhe C!S and US umbrellas are in force levels and decision-making processes, as well as in the operational suhordination and cornm.ancl o{ peacekeeping contingents. As regards the UN, the decision to prepare and execute peacekeeping missions is taken by the

Left. "T-80U" battle Lank.

Below. St. Petersburg, WinLer Palace.

Security Council, a body where each decision can be vetoed by any of its permanent members. The Secretary General, with the consent of the Security Council, appoints the Chief o[ the Mission and the Commander of the military contingent orÂˇ the Chief Military Observer. The Chief of

CIS Ministers of Foreign Affairs to the Council of the Heads of States, which has lo ratify it. The OPCOM of the joint peacekeeping forces is exercised by the Council of Defense Ministers of through the General Staff coordinating the military cooperation within CIS, which supervises CIS-wide military cooperation. In between meetings of the Council of Defense Ministers, the OPCOM of the joint peacekeeping forces is assigned to the Deputy Chief of the Council of Defense Ministers, Chief of Staff responsible for coordinating military cooperation within ClS. As regards hosting and operating procedures of peacekeeping units, they do not differ from the operations performed under the auspices of the UN. In the former USSR, the armaments industry was strictly linked to the Anned Forces. As many companies have been privatized, what are today's relations between the Army and the armaments industry? Is there an effective connection between production plans and customer requirements?

the Mission is subordinated to the Secretary General who, in turn, is under the authority of the Security Council. Peacekeeping operations on the CIS territory are carried ou l based on the decisions of the Council of the CIS Heads of State of the (an operation of this kind is unclerway in Abkhazia), and also based on bilateral, trilateral and multilateral agreements (two operations of this kind are underway in Southern Ossetia and Moldavia). The mandate of each operation is submitted by the Council of

Since the early 90 's, the Federation has adopted a free markeL regime and the relations between the armaments industry and the A1Âˇmy have changed accordingly. This shift took place in the mid-nineties. Bas ed on these new relations, the follO\ving principle has been established: lhe design, production and delive1y of annaments and military means lo equip the Armed Forces are 1nainly carried out within the Defense procurement plans.

D 1 '

Journalist

Notes: (l) At Operational Theatre and joint Command levels (2) A category between Officers and NCOs

by Enrico Magnani*

Established in October 1953, FINABEL is the first concrete attempt to foster military cooperation among the land forces of the European Countries. Originally, the Committee was called FINBEL, an acronym deriving from the initials of the founding Nations (France-Italy- the Netherlands-Belgium-Luxembourg), and its task was to develop all forms of cooperation in the armaments sector. In 1956, with the admission of Germany, the name was changed into FINABEL. The United Kingdom joined in 1973, Spain in 1990, Greece and Portugal followed in 1996. This article completes the report published in a previous number of "Rivista Militare" and deals essentially with the meeting held in Rome in March 2001. 86

' The organization and operation of FINABEL are described in a Char ter signed by t be Chiefs of Staff o f t he Land Forces of Lhc me.rn ber Countries. The document is regularly revised, according to the changes that the Committee inLends to make. The last revision goes back to March 2000. The Organization consists of a Committee of Chiefs of Staff (CEM); a Committee of Ma in Military Experts (EMP) ; a Group of Deputy El\tlPs ; a Permanent Secretariat; Working Groups. The roles of CEM, EMPs, and Deputy EMPs have been thoroughly described in no. 3/2001 of "Rivista Militare" (Jt. Ed .). With this articl e, we wish to examine in particular the tasks of the Working Groups . At present there arc nine Working Groups, directly subordinate to the EMP Committee. They are: Force Employment, Logistics, Fire Support and antipersonnel defe nce, Engineers and chemical/biological defence, Air mobilit y, Information, Instruction and Training, Command and conduct of operations, General concepts and force developm e nt. The Groups meet twice a year, and each meeting takes place in turn in one of the various member Countries . Their purpose is to examine and discuss subjects of major military interest and to produce studies for a maxirnum possible cooperation, pursuing the necessary integration among the various Countries. All FINABEL Nations are represented in each \\forking Group by their own de legates . Derogations to this principle can be made, exceptionally and from year to year, througb specific agreements at EMP level. The work done by the various groups take concrete form, afte r approval by the Staffs of the member Countrie s and the

MEMBERS OF FINABEL • ':,

ITI

FRANCE

b) ( l ~ ~

ITALY THE NETHERLANDS GERMANY BELGIUM

LUXEMBOURG

THE UNITED KJNGDOM

SPAIN GREECE PORTUGAL

Chiefs of Sta ff Con1mittce, in three different types of docu ments: reports, convenL ions and agreements. "Reports" arc used for genernl and conceptual stud ies , as well

~ ~

as ror possible commo n expe r·imenta Lions ; "Conv entions" apply to general or specific nondoctrina l docume n Ls , such as. fo r· example. g lossaries, co llections of prncedures. catalogues, conventional signs, etc.;

ORGANIZATION CHART

MAIN MILITARY EXPERTS COMMITTEE (EMPs)

PERMANENT SECRETARIAT

9WORKING GROUPS

DEPUTY EMPs GROUP

COORDINATION COMMITTEE

"Agreeme nts" are inte nded for Lh e common d e fin it ion of t he m ilila ry charactel'istics of one or more materia ls . T h e above rn en t.ion ed documents can be rescinded , revised 0 J' 1110 d i I' i e cl On th e e X p I i C i t request of one or rn ore Genera l Sta ffs. or as proposed by the Working Gro ups; o th e rwise th ey keep th e i r va lidi ty over th e years . Tbe e la borati on, approval and official pu bi ica Li on of the s tu dies foll ow a well-d e fi ned p rocedure. T he Working Groups carry out th e elaboration and ha rrnonizaLion phase (stud y) . The na ti o nal Staffs re lease the on -principle agreemen t on t he stud y. The Chiefs of S ta ff Comrnittce gives its o fficia l approva l to l he document a nd, fin ally, t h e FJNABEL Secreta riat pro m u Igates a nd releases the studies.

It seems approp riate to spe c ify that, according to the spirit of the FINAB EL Charter, every possibl e effort shou ld be made Lo ensure t ha t the doc ument s b e approved wi th th e una ni mous co ns en t o f t he CEM Committee. THE WORKING METHOD The ac ti vitv of the Gro u ps is esse nti a ll y di vi d e d i nLo 4 disti nc t p hases, preceded b y a foca l moment . i n which th e objec t of the s tudy is se lected. The subject m ust be approve d by the E .M P Com mitt e e, and s ubmiU.ed Âˇwith a fiche de besoin d'e1ude (a paper on the a dvisability of the specific study) con taining some basic infonnation for s taning such as , fo r e xamp le , the stud/s purpose, justil'icatio n and description, as well as the li.r nits of the und ertakin g. The la tte r a r e fundamenta l in ord er to a void the unintentiona l

Above and right. The military ceremony held in Rome fo r FINABLL 011 IS and 16 March 200/.

e nlargement o[ the s tudy, losing sight of the objective. It is an all-i rn portan t docu ment for the develop1ne nt of the s tudy; in fact, it is the only reference that the dele gates have fo r carrying o u t their speci fie tasks . In short, ii' a fiche de mission (d e finit ion o f the j ob) is wel l st r uctured and clearly \vri Lten, th e e laboration work will b e simple, concrete and ce rtainly ex ha ustive . Phase 1 ta kes place during the first meeting held for a specifi c study. T.n this phase, under the aeg is of a pilo t Nation (i .e. the Country w hich will lead the deve lopment o f the st udy), the Working Group prepares a que-

stionnaire wh ich mus t contain a list of the subjec ts to be d iscussed in order to a ch ieve a ao od de fi n i tion of the matter i:, under study. . This is the first document and it mu s t be a n alytical. easy to read and able to give exhaustive answe rs about the argu ments u nd er d is c uss ion. Alre a dy i n this phase the delegates start to harmonize the study. B etween the firs t and t he second meeting, in the inte1-session pedod, the delegates send to the p i lot N a tio n the ir answers to the quest ionnaire, to ge ther with a first syn the tic report.

P h as e 2 s tart s durin g th e second m eeting . T he vario us national pos itions arc d iscussed and dec.isio ns arc made on the conte n ts of the study and o n the elements wh ich need further inv est igati o n . Th e del egates a lso proceed to d e te rmin e th e elements which need to be stressed du r i ng the pre- project stage . Between the 2 "路' an d 3"1 meetin g the d e legates continue to deve lo p t h e st u d y, in teracti n g among themselves and with the repres en tative of the pilot Nation. Ph ase 3 : a t th e Jrd meeting the nati o nal pos ition s are d is c ussed agai n, and all the elemen ts th a t are to b e inc luded in the final project are per fec te d. Fin a lly, th e har monization or the p roj ect is ca rded out, based o n th e various national positions. Belwec n the 3 "' a nd 4'" meeting, the p il o t Nati o n prepa re s the project and sends it to all the delegat es for any p oss ible comment and evalu a tion .

Ph ase 4 is the mos t del icate one an d takes place durin g the 4 ' h m ee tin g . Th e del egat e s inform t h e Grou p a b o u t t h e

PHASE 1 n a tional pos ition and th e n prepare Lhc fiche de presentation ( presentation document ) and t he fic he d e re11 se ignem e11ts biblio~raphiques (bibli ographic doCLt menl) fo r approva I b y CEM .

ln s h ort, t h e FINABEL \\'orking met h od , if well applied, throug h a rational use of the a vai labl e tim e (fou r meetings) permits Lo draft a clear, comple te and s u itab le docu ment. l n FINA.BEL a decisive rol e is played by the C ha irmen of t h e Workin g Group s. As a matte,路 of fa c t , tli e y a rc responsible for the acti\' i t~路 of their Grnu p and, in particular, for its operation and effi c ie n cy. Th e Chairman's be h a \路iour mus t be super partes and strictly neutral: during meetings and d e bates he shoul d not use his functional authority to infl u ence the position of the individ ual d e legates, b u t rather

act a s a m o dera to r of the di a1ec lic confrontat i o n of th e n ational representatives, so as t o man a ge a n d o r gan i z e t he Gr oup's work, bringin g it to a successrul conclus ion . Ita ly h a s b een a ssigned the cha ir ma n sh i p of W o rking Gro up "M IKE" , whic h deal s wi t h a su bject that needs a h igh de gre e o f E uropean cooperation, in p a rticula r in the informa ti on sector. In fact, the mandate of Grou p "MIKE" consists in studying the procedur es for the jo int train ing of th e land fo rces of the FINAB E L Countries, in order· to improve the u nits' in teroperab ili ty and reduce the worki ng c osts th r oug h th e c o m mon use , for i n stan c e, o f tra ini n g equ ip men t , syste ms and insta llaUons.

wh ich can be considered arch etypal, served to a s cer tain th e in di vidu a l Nations' willingnes s to put sc ho ols and training cen tres a t the ot her membe,·s' d isposal. T he study identified some sec -

ni ng a ctivities for psychologica l operations (PSO). The seco n d stu dy was identified as "Complementary M 1 lR". Its purpose was to find out no t o nly the m ere in tentions of coop era tion in the training sec to r, but a lso r e a listi c and concrete s olutio ns for the inte gration a mong the F I NABE L Natio ns. In s u bsta n c e , the doc um en t ncmi O£ ,8C5,101~ o· t:ruo« M..s..a (l ' t - 4 ' ITT.v.JF · p,_,<l ~ t has permitted to 1.nni, go b e y ond th e ~ le <ytlr 4·_,..........,,, do<""""' dr N ~ <'!'«•ll«vwl ilostUt««t dac-Uft,pts......,..«6< 1,......, ~ o concept u a l dnrni~c,,.~~« d " ~ Jirs."tn.(OOc~ <OOJ. a s p ec ts in o r d er 2. IIL"T VtnCJCT <.ur...inciw k", fQ]'I r tNAl!tU ,n..,,..,,... ... "" C')"(lir ..r'eef.NJ:~fll n t o arr ive at th e td.a,t.i(o •'"0:! b ~ a cAfo cHn ·r..t,, en , ,_ d"~ -« CS1111 ~ Cotia:nQIC d '(I'",~ e x ecutive phase. T h e Nations , in o-..~ k • ..nl<\k 1'C',."' -''~··•...:I .a,,.•'>,,d . , cn.:1',"Tn;,~ l-t, I"\" 1 :'. \tu: r'•'N'· .-:· -.... .-. ,a ••, ..,,. ,. , . .. J<, -n: n,........, .,., , <~·,• .. .,.,. .., .,.., ~ - .....-.~ ,.,,'< fact, gave t h e ir 11 ~ 1,,,__,eu.anc- ..a e1v.Jwf o..., ~ ,-..u a J M ~....r.-• ~ Ml<nnc,n c o n cre t e cont ri a.::tn·,tnd "n-cn:n.t,n-.c,-w., .S..,. \In ,·~ d '~ w . t.hs t'"'P' c, do ~ .a . • ot,< ,un10, o, l ' t ll tu buti o n , p roviding the ir Schools and Ce n t res for trainin g ac t i vi t i es .t.>. o.:..r,,r,.bi a n d c ourses. • b ~ ' U bc1'~1'N'1-~ t l l W ~«'I r,cy1 ~ / ~ \N <<M~ It ,-ytS-: d·m ~ do ac-1.,,.uc, ku: ,n ~ Th e Group ha s de to. ~ '~'°"""~ ~ ~ l'CC'\.-S.C.X.:i p a id part ic ular a ttention to : tra ir---.111 .ntl-.:,r,v k-w- f'C".-,>tC ,,..~.. n i ng for p eace ,. t .,1111.A.,<:11:a .\QI 'II ,1 t r. l J.n,cf..~.J & t'noJ< c.~,.,,- ...... Jt : ~ tli • : X•.,J sup p or t o p e rati o ns (PSO) ; com~ ....1........'\..., ·,V1.,.,.. ,.... ,...t..,· • , , ...... .. ., 1:..01 .:.c "' ,, ~,~' -" t.!, · n-e.,..a, , , ,S:~ , ,., .. ,,.,, b a t i n in hab i te d ... , ~--...n ......., !, b;(lt ;,illn!rh~ ..-:;.•,..: t •:r ..· ,..__,, (""'· .("I r,. .,"""' I 1, : <u .u.•,.. l areas ; e xplo si ve .. ((:::;~•: ;lf()':'•-._-.s,a1;u- ~~ iT••••t t ' ~!I b 'I.Hh&f\ Z ordnance d isposal (EO D); training o f ••., • ••, .. .. . 11:•· ., .. , ., .. ,. S ta ff pe rson nel. • l lJI f'-A110 ' f ' \ l'- \(,1, f' ,)<1-

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I n m o re general terms, th e Group's task c a n be descr-ibe d as aimed at I ct• ...J...: r-,r·.i .,•1.,, ""•' •, ~ i"•' t: .. "'"" 1 1, ,11 'r' •. ~v· ,! " ' "'·'•"':· 1.,. r ,- u,,, r ~v< ., ~·......... , v,, ~·.,,.. s in g l ing o ut the In t hi s c o n tex t, • - t;Rovn Dr. nu,... n. llt:SIGN£ a c t ions t ha t can Italy is the lead ing im p rove th e inteN a ti o n in EOD , g r a ti o n o f t he 'vvhe re th e units, e s pe c i ally E n gi n e e r S c hoo l w ilhin multin a tio in R o m e is consin a l operalion s . dered excellen t at In p a rticu lar, in international level. the las t two years A t the sam e t h e Gro up, as d ir e cte d by the tors of c o mmon in terest from time , t he Un ited K ingd o m h a s Chiefs of S taff, h a s tr ie d to rind the training vie\-vpo in t a nd s u i- assum e d t he le a d ing ro le i n o ut concrete fo r rns of coopera - t able fo r ex te nsive c oope ratio n. PS O trai n ing a n d France leads t io n in t h at s pe cific fie ld and , T he at ten t io n of t h e Gro u p t h e tr a inin g a c tivi ti es con c erw ith in t his framewor k, has pro- was parti c u larl y fo c u se d on ning co mba t in inhabited a reas. d uced three in Lerco n necte d stu - co m bat trainin g centres a nd o n The t h ird s tud y, n amed d ies . s i mulatio n , as we ll a s o n t h e "S u pplementary Ml lR", is realT he first s tudy, c a lled "M 11 R", develo pment o f common t r a.i - ly a t horough e xamina tion o f r l.,.n1( .. ...:: .. ..-. "".. ......., ... t!('

J 111"<1'';J'1 .. ,

......

the other two. The scrutiny has been very incisive and detailed. The Working Group, in fact, has produced two specific catalogues, one for Courses and one for Training Centres . They are very useful for determining the courses of interest, the availab.le training assets, the place they are to be held, the number of spaces offered and, finally, the cost of each training offer. With this action, "MIKE" has provided the Chiefs of Staff with an important document, easy to consult, which enables the national staffs in charge of training to make their own choices in this particular sector, according to their own requirements. It must be stressed that, through their delegates, all FINABEL Nations have done their utmost to acquire, at the end of their ,.vork, a number of efficient and concrete instruments, consistent with the objectives fixed for Group "MIKE" by the Chiefs of Staff.

Members of the working group.

mutual understanding and establishes a very useful network of contacts between the land Forces of the European Countries. Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to underline that, ou Lside the Organization, not many know its important resources; therefore the utmost should be done in order to publicize FINABEL and its great poten-

tial. In this sense, the Chiefs of Staff Committee has already made known the reference lines to be followed for a better use and diffusion of the studies . At the same time, the Committee has a lso expressed the wish to se t up more p romotional actions aimed at informing also the European civilian organi1.ations about all the activities carried out by Ll1e Cornmittee. The future of this Institution cou ld be even brighter, since there is a possibility lhat it could become a special advisory body of the EU for rn ii i la ry rnatters. lf thi s comes true, FINABEL could become a val uable reference point for the development of doctrinal concepts and principles aimed at the creation of a European defence, thus pl aying a very important role for the integration of the old Continent. L:

,Âˇ,colonel, Chief; Doctrine, Training and Regulations Office, Army General Staff

CONCLUSIONS In time, the FINABEL studies have heralded more and more conceptual, doctrinal and procedura l innovations which, in some cases, have become concrete undertakings. In particular, the effectiveness of the studies has constan tly been pursued, with continuity and good will, by all Working Groups, and their results can be noticed especially in the member Nations' determination to diligently search for forms of cooperation. Today, in the military environment, FINABEL is universally recognised as a high -value European forum because, through the meetings of its Groups , it promotes

Working Croup '?vfIKE".

llli'OM'EN ENR V~@ @~@~~®@®® @~ @~00@~

@~~@~~@@~~~@~

by Isabella Lo Castro ~-:

Two years ago hundreds of women first entered the Army. The did it with good reasons and enthusiasm. Women have been enrolled in all specializations and turned out to be an added value for the Italian Army in Italy and abroad thanks to their education and professionalism. The Italian Army is promoting a fast integration of women into the military without limits. The differences between genders have not been considered for discrimination but as positive factors. This deserves to be a case-study nationally and internationally. 92

ddressing human being fr om th e psych ologic al po int of view is not an easy job . And r realized it is even harder if you are part of t h e p rob lem. ln fact for the pu r-p ose of t h is article I am wearing three hats: I s h all be writing as an Army O fficer, as a P syc holo gis t and as a Woman, th e thr ee different r o les l am playing in my life today.

MOTIVATIONS

A 10-ycar process f inall y allowed the Ital ian Army to open to wome n in September 2000 when they were first called to enrol! directly as Officers. As a result today Â·women play their roles in all ranks (see table). A University Degree - andior to be a chartered professional - is the basic requ irernent for \VOmen

QUANTITY

AVERAGE

AGE

Directly Appointed Officer

26-36

Cadet Officers

19-27

21-29

Short Term Volunteers

647

17-22

TOTAL

749

RANK

Cadet Marescialli

(NATO CODE ORS)

Update: June 2002

per sonal challenge, which goes well b eyon d the occ u p a ti on al reasons. Th e first cou rse for Al li e \ 1 Ma rescia ll i (O R B ca d ets) includ ing wo m e n started la st Novem b er. Candida tes were required to have an undergraduate degree but it is worth noting that one cadet had a degree and that half of them were gradua te students who passed successfull:,. a good n umber of exams. 25% ol can di dates were s h o rt t e rm volo u n teer s o r had had a previous military experience. Defing m o tiva ti ons for All ievi Marescia lli is not easy becau se women entered t he Ar my o nly recen Lly bu t they say they stron gly wan t a m ilitary edu ca t ion a nd a career in the mi li tary.

to take part in the offic ial examination to ente r the Army directly as an Officer. Today th e women enrolled d irectly as Officers have a Degree in one of the fo llo\\ing: Law, M edicin e, P sych ology, Soc io logy, Poli t ica l S cience, E ngineering. Usually these officers are comm itted to the Army Genera l Staff and to the Army Training Organization s becau se o f thefr education. Tn particu lar they work as medical doctors, rÂˇecruiters or Pu b li c I nfo r mation Office rs; they may be in charge of train ing and personne l, welfare and infrastructures. The enrolled officers decided to en ter the Army on the basis of their professio nal expectations , to face a 94

cha llen ge b ut al so b ecau se of the ir long lasti ng love for the milita ry. Today women are atte ndin g courses at the Mili tary Acade my (there are 37 of them i n t h e J8 2"d an d 23 in the 183 ''' cou rse) toget h er wi th a n umber o [ women colleagues from foreign cou n td es . Four o f the m had a previous m ilitary experience as short Le nn vo lunteers . ln terms of motivations it seems that t hese wom en h a d a dre a m to let come t h rough, cspecialy those who are a ttending th e fir s t cou n; e at t h e Academy. During a survey a ll the w o men ca d et office rs to ld they were fascinated by the m ilitary an d that they we re fac ing a

T h e majo rity o[ the enro lled women are sh ort te rm voJoun teers ( STV) . Three tr ai n in g cou rses have been se t up so fa r. \ 1\/omen attend ing sa id courses unde rwent a b asic train i ng in Asco l i P ice n o an d they a re study ing fo r a s p ecia li z ati on today or they are working at the un its in Italy a n d committed to out of area o pe rations. By law, Short Tenn Volounteers a r e re q u ired an inte rm ed i at e school edu ca tion although 70% have an und erg raduate d egree a nd 5% were graduate s tudents when they were enrolled. Women a re given equ al opportunities and ar e usu a lly com mitted to all specializat ions e nvisaged for the ran k, depending on the Army requirem en ts. In parti cular 60% of STV ar e comm itted to opera tional un its, 23% are comm itted to the tech nical-operation al branch and the re maining 17% to logistics a nd a dmi nistration . Mo t iva ti o n s fo r S TV co m e from a passion fo r the mili tary lifestyle and principles a nd from the dream women have to wear a unifo r m. I t is worth n oting th at t h e wom e n r unni ng for

STV live tl1e military experience as a challenge, want to emancipate from their families but also welcome the military as a job opportunity.

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WOMEN HAVE BECOME PART OF THE ARMY After this general introduction we can make the follmving considerations from the psychological point of view: • Women are in Arrny for very short lime and during this short experience they have been working in a completely new environment: they have been training to become soldiers \.vhile those enrolled directly as

•

Officers will integrate their education with the military in the future. There is a mutual relationship between Women and Armed Forces, they are part of the same process requiring mutual adjus tm ents ·that \,vill prompt the necessary changes . Introducing civilians to the military means the following: to accept the military stile of Ii fe, to follo\.v the principles of the military discipline, to become part of the military organization.

Newcomers must learn the meaning of their uniforms and interiorize the principles of the military discipline to integrate themselves with the military. And this is tr ue both for men and women, a lthough th e latter experience more typical features. In fact: • when they adjust to the new environment they look for a new balance or at least for no conflicts and react to new inputs. Individuals may either change their habits or try to modify the environment. Occasionally they manage to change both their habits and the environment • during the the first period of their career

it happens it w il l take a long ti m e . That is w hy wome n in the military must look for a new balance and change their attitudes. From our experience we lea·ned that the follovving h c·r, women adapt to the new m ilitary e nvironment: • information gh·en , in particular, by high er r a nks is necessa ry to understand the situ ation • awareness helps face eh~ new environmenl. To he a ware o f th e ava ila b le skills (w hi ch is eas ier fo r those having a degree) is a sort of tranquillizer • sharing exper iences wi th equ al rank s and kwnowi ng they are fc el i ng the same preven b women from isolatin g. th e m sel ves and he lp~ them fin d a new common balance

•

women - in pa rti cular today's p ioneers - receive un expect ed and unplanned inputs from the en vironment. In fact, althouth their d ream came through (see Motivations) they do not actually know the mili tary which w a s o nl y a product or thei r i magi nation so far women in the military are requested to behave differ en t I y fr om what th ey used to in the past and are to face the ne,,· reality with a new ap pro a ch . This causes a strong emotional impact during the first phase of their mili-

tary trainin g. From the physical poi nt of view the military life is d emand ing and life condit ions in general are very different fr om civilian s (e.g.: rooms and time to be shared with others, dependence o n higher ranks, etc.) . The first months of the mili tary life have a strong e m otional impact on women beca use they live in an u nprecedented effortta kin orea lity o- e,·erv 0 ., chane: ..... in .::, .. w hi le. Usuall y persons are expected to adjust to the env it-onment be caus e large organizat ions ha,-dly adjust to workers. And if

On the contrary, the foll owing facto r-s preven t women fr om adapting to the military em·i ronmcnt: • stiff rules, al thou gh necessary • expectations • r equest of male -type performances

In general this applys bo th to both genders and male readet·s should not wonder if they get in t o the abov e m en lioned <lescri p t ion. ln conclusion newcomers must be given tim e to adap t themselves to the new m ilitary life and find their ba lance a lso during lhe follow -up training. Again, alth ough th is applys to both g end ers w om e n do need more time, at least until the r eal military life and the i mage of the militarv life women have in their minds are the same. This helps newcomers interiorize the military principles and integrate th emselves with the Arm~·-

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THE POWER OF WOMEN'S FEELINGS

Finally I would like to focus on how men and women face and control their feelings. Relationships among human beings are based on feelings. Men and women have different feelings and react to feelings differently. Then it is obvious that feelings have an irnpact on relationships during training and operations. Usually men do not show their feelings and seem to be indifferent lo what happens around them . On the contrarv women do show their feelings ;nd share them with the others. This is how women usually face their

experiences their behaviour has been misunderstood by the mili tary, in particular during training when, for example, women smile ironically. Women require a different approach from unit comrnan ders. For example, during training men react lo the usual fee 1i ng of frustration differently f.rorn women: the former become angry and aggressive while women often cry or laugh when they are stressed. Both behaviours are tme depending on the situation. On the one hand sharing feelings with the others helps soldiers learn faster and easier; on the other hand we must say that during operations feelings must be under control.

We cannot say one behaviour is true while and the other is false. Both of them are true and each of them may be enhanced depending on the situation. ln conclusion this is the first lesson learned by women in Army: we must become aware of the differences between genders to understand what is best for the Army, for men and women. Natural diversity must be learned and taught. This will allow women really integrate themselves with the military.

D ( Âˇk) Second Lieutenant,

DAR Offtce, Army General Staff

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OF THE F X by Nicola Pignato *

A deeper analysis of the documents,

also of those that have only recently become available, shows the contradictions of a myth which has perhaps been created by his adversaries "Rommel judges and acts on impression and never lingers to analyse thoroughly the problem that from time to time faces him, so that what he says and asserts today is often denied by what he will think and do tomorrow. A good piece of news makes him euphoric, a bad one depresses him and makes to seem black what he had thought was white. Animated by a more than evident ambition, he is often driven by it and, as he is not supported by the experience of command of Major Units, he goes to extremes of which he does not understand the importance. It is certain that Rommel, whose proven courage and daring nobody denies, always keeps one worried that he will make reckless steps" ( General Ettore Bastico, High Commander of the Armed Forces in North Africa). 98

tanks or var iou s types and 46 Tiger ta nks , 4182 pieces of artil lery, 4 70 52 trucks, 871 7 a i rplanes, 1,22 7,000 tons of fue l, and so on. A certai nly nol negli g ib le amounl, if one considers that the German material was mostly of recent construction . Certainly, the consumption or a campa ign fought in an inhospitabl e environment is hi gh , but to say that the resources available we re a lways ins uffic ie nt is far from reality. Moreover many olher kinds of m a teria l were frequently taken from the Ita lian stock.

THE RISE

L is by novv time to examine ho w rn uch o f Rom me I's legend still stands a n objecti ve examinalion or his method or command, in the li g ht o f th e docume nts rccentlv ma de available and afte r the路 inn u merable, almost a lways ha g iogr-aph ic essays that. have been published starling from the fift ies. The q uestion is controversial: some hm路e judged him mo re o n the bas is of propaganda than o n his real quali ties or C 0111 m a nde r; others, instead, have based themselves on his al leged res istance against. Nazism (bur when it was already on the wane) or on his pasl poli tical inclinations. The o pinio ns of those who have kn ow n him

directly, and can therefore speak in full cogn ilion o f tbe facts, differ rrom those who have written abou L him by h earsay, amon g them manv journalists ,vho are i ntere s ted in h is to ry, p e r hap s with an incomplete specific autl1o rity. Despite the time e lapsed, his legend has endured, even if tliere arc now documenls of that pe r iod that seem to disprove ::1 part of what was wr ilten in hi s favorn~ From an unpublished lis t that we have found at the Historic Ofrice of th e Army, it tur ns ou t tha t the sol e Germ an Arme d Forces deployed in No rth ern Af'rica received , frnm February 1941 to May 1943, 1645

E xactly sixty years have ela psed si nee Lhe rousing days of June 1942 . The brief campaign, wh ich has undergone a lterna te phases but h as le d . t o Lh e c omplete reconquest of Cyrena ica, is concluded with the vic t ory or To bruk . The author of the victor:,1 is Erwin Rommel, the man who, a little later, will be a ppoin ted Fie ld Marshal. L'ntil 1940, when, fort ifi e d only by hi s offens ive d oc trine, he bas assumed the co mmand of the 7 th Div ision and led it Lo unhopecl for successes, he has been an a lmost unknown Officer. Tn 19 17, he is a lieute nant when he takes pan in the XII bar1le of the Isonzo and, on the Ma tajur, is awarded the decoration "Pour le Mcri te" , the l1ig he s t German recognition. I lis career proceeds s lowly d ur ing the di ffic u lt a fterwar times and only in 1933, after a period as ins tr路uctor of tactics in Dresden, he achieves the rank of Major. Per路haps because of simple fo rtuitousness he ge ls in to Hi tier's good graces a nd, while re maining in the infantry he goes on to the Polsdam Academy with the rank of Lieute nant Colo nel. In 193 8 , he is a t the General Hea dquarters of the Fuehrer. H e is by now 47 years old. H e does not participa te in Lhe Po lish campaign but studies its modalities.

Taking the words of the title or a book where he has assembled his experiences, "Jnfanterie greift an" (the infantry attacks), he applies his theories to tanks. He is convinced that what counts is speed: one must not stop in order to shoot, even if this entails a dreadful waste of ammunition. What is important is giving the enemy no respite. For the moment the logistic problems do not exist. At the head of his armoured un its he applies these dogmas literally. With the capture and destruction of an entire French army he is made Knight of the Order of the Iron Cross. l t is the beginning of an extraordinary renown, which causes him also envies and ill feelings . When, in 1941, the disaster of Marshal Grazia ni's Army opens the way to Tripoli to the B1-itish Army, ren1embering that in 1937 he has been a long time in Libya and Egypt, Rornmel is entrusted with reestablishing the si tu a lion . Needless to say that the decision of accepting the German help was taken long before. Unfortunately, for var ious rea sons , it has been delayed until lhe moment it a ppears indispensable. In Tripo li , Marshal Graziani has been replaced by General Garibaldi , a ,nan of a diametrically opposed character, who will soon be deprived of all power by Rommel. In vain, had Hitler recommended hi s general "Remember, Rommel, this in North Africa,il is an Italian war. With forces efficient but limited for him it is a theatre of secondary importance - you will have to preven t the British from making further progresses". But Rommel is not convinced that he should stay on the defensive with his arrest units (Sperrverbande) . The English do not expect it and he attacks them with relatively scarce forces : a light Division and t he Italian armoured Division "Ariete". The enemy will have to 100

be stopped on the threshold of the Sirte and not beyond it, at Buerat. He manages to convince Garibo ldi. There is no lime to waste because the Bri tish a r·e incr e a s ing their streng th. A wide-range attack is necessary, pressing on tovvards D e rna.

Armoured Division begins to arrive and is imrnediate ly lau nched against the Tohruk sLronghold , together with elements of the "Ariete " and " Bresc ia" Divisions. Here Romr:nel, for t he first time, finds something di fficult to chew. Still, d es pite t he

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Cyrenaica is re-conquered . But Tobruk remains, albeit besieged. Among the prisoners there is O' Connor, \Navell's General who has defeated Gra1. iani . Rommel has taken h irn by surprise in his Command tank, together with Gen. Neame, commander or the Australian troops, who had been the cruellest against the Itali ans, the prisoners in particular, regardless of the Geneva conventions. Rommel seizes the enemy Commander's vehicles which, renamed "Max" and "Moritz" and, even if marked by conspicuous German crosses , keep the original British camouflage paint. They replace the comfortable Command trucktrai ler given him by the Italians. Meanwhi le, the Gennan 15 '''

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fai lure of his attacks and the serious losses, his popu l arity among the troops continues to grow. He is promised another Major Unit, the 90th Light Di vision, vvhich soon ar-r-ives . Togethe r- with the firs t differences with the Italians. Garibold i is replaced by Bastico, but relations remain tense. The improvisation of the German General's moves and his fame of invulnerability (even a British a tte.r npt to kill him fails and Romme l, chivalrously has a \vreath laid on the tomb of his would-be murderer) begin to cause concerns . At the same time, the British launch a counteroffensive. Bastico intervenes and exhorts him to be prudent but, despite the fact that the new Chief of S taff, Gen

Cavallero, is also called ro Africa to ma k e hi m see r eason, Romm el takes no notice. He still hopes to s urrou nd t he e nem y but thi n gs don't go ,velt. T he logistic pro blen1s, wh ich he h a<l underestimat ed, force him to withd raw. Beng hazi is lost again

and Rommel must return more o r le ss ·whe r e h e was i n t h e spring. At Bir cl Gobi ._, ro,· the f'i rst tim e, t h e Bri ti s.h armour that can still do it turn their rear LO th e Itali a n ta n ks, b ut Lhi s is not enough and neither is Lhe resista nce of o ur yo ung volunteers, in the same place, some days later. Despite a ll thi s, eve n among our troops the confidence in the ''fox" d oes not run o u L. Ne\'Crtheless, higher up, some reservaLions s tart LO shovv up . J Iis innaLe qu a lities a re apprec iated: h e hig hly co nsiders the human factor, is an enthusi ast o f p hys ical fitness a lthough he does n ot spare h i m seH, personal ly he is ve1y frugal. Rommel has courage, initiative an d co nstancy, buL it can be easily seen that, inwardly and sometimes even openly, he has no liking for the Italians, Left. Tlie first M 13 enters Tobruk. ft was 1l1e third tank of the first pla /0011 of c, co111pa11y o{ the XI rank Battalion, 1V!t ich i11 April had bee11 trc1.11 sferred fi·om the "Li11orio " w the "Trieste" f)it •isio11.

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Below. E11gi11eers equipped with a 111i11e detector ope11i11g a passage through a 111i11e-

/1elcl.

of"Len sho\,·s thal he <locs not trus t them and very often t1·ea ls them with arrogance . A characteristic o f hi s, and certainly not a good poin l in a regular career office1~ is his scarce propensity to obed ience, and not only in hi s re latio ns wi th the Ital ian s uperiors a nd colleagu es . Hi s rel aLions ,.vi th Kessel ri ng are very bad, and Lhere is bad blood a lso between him and Guderian, the most la mo u s o r the "ta n k" Generals . The Generals of the Afrika Korps respect him w ithou t reserve but certainly do n ot wors hip him . AL the o nset of tl,e firs t problems they obscn·e that he tends to bl ame ot hers if things <l o not go the right way. Ignoring the e ffect iven es s of the B rit.i s h "u ltra" d ecoding system, for which th e Ital ia n and Ge rman codes had no secret, he openly accuses t he I talians of passing on information to the enemy. J ntoleram of criticism , he does not b e lieve in accurate plans, s ince he m a intains tha L, whe n an action begins, all previous arrange men ts become useless . Tt was written tliat Rommel wins, when he does, in conditions of numeri cal and mater ial inferiority, offset only by his own s p ecial energy, speed a nd dynamism. THE BATTLE OF GHAZALA

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We ha ve lef t the Ge rman Commander on the threshold of the Sirte. \l\lith a mas terly retrea t he has succeeded in saving hi s divisions but at the cost of considerable losses . As soon as these units begi n to receive n ew men and materials, lie prepares hi s revenge . He ta kes the initiaLi ve again , reoccupies ·w es tern Cyren a ica in a ve ry s.horl t ime and gets reorganized in front of Ghaza la . Th is time hi s superiors give him p1·ecisc s pace and time lim its . He musl not g o funher, acco rd ing to th e agreem enls of April 1941: occupy the Ghazala for lifie d a rea wi th ou t crossing the Egyp tian b order. The opera-

IOL

tions must not go beyond June 20, wh en th e air fo rces at his

temporary disposal will have to be employed fo r the conquest of lVlalta. As a firs t m easure, and causing Bast ico's reaction, Rommel advances the two Italian Corps m oving th e m aw a y from Benghazi and the via Balbia, with great disadvantage for supplies in order to have them closer to the forti fied e ne my lines; Lhe manoeuvre forces (the XX Italian Armoure d Co r ps and the Pan zergruppe A{rika, pompously renamed Panzerarmee Afrika) will fall on the enemy from the rear. The plan should be carried out after the conquest of Malta but unfortuna tely the Germans (and maybe Hitler himself, afraid after the serious losses suffered during the invasion of Crete) and some Italia n personc1lities insist for the postponement of the operation, with consequences that will be seen later.

LIBYA-EGYPT Distances Roads From Tripoli to the Egyptian border (Balbia coast-road ): 1652 km. Lateral road around Tobruk (S. dcll'Asse ) - from B.Meheriz (Balbia) to S. Bu Amud (Balbia): 100 km. From Ghazala to Tobruk: approx. 60 km. Tobruk-Egyptian border: 137 km Egyptian border-Marsa Matruh: 238 km Railroads. From Marsa .Matruh (Fukah) to Alexandria: 312 km. In 1941 the British forces prolonged it to Sidi Barrani and beyond. Tobruk-El Alamein (completed by the Italians): 500 km (20 h by train).

Bastico is not convinced: he fears a repetition of the mistakes of the baule of Marm arica or, even worse, a replica of the tragedy of Graz.iani's Army. Nevertheless, the green light is given. On May 20 , the Italians

advance to the north, e ngaging the e nemy despite thei r viol ent reaction and the moh ile forces hegin the manoeuvre that should lead to the surroundi ng of the adve rsary and whic h should be completed in three days. But the

Battle of Bir Hacheim - Tobruk Situation on May 26, 1942 Fortified perimeter 44444 of Tobruk

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British minefields

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France Libre

Indians

S.A. South Africans

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Rommel's intentions for May 27' 1942

·sectorial limits • x x x • between Corps Roads Tracks 0

102

30Km

experience of the preceding autumn has not been taken in by Rommel: the Axis' motorized troops, es pecia lly the _Italian ones, although in possession of greater fire - power, are not as mobile as the enemy's, which are able to d isengage more easi ly (see map). Nevertheless and despite the fact that the British defence is strongly organi7.ecl in a kind of four-sided sLronghold protected by a minefield, underestimated by Rommel, the persistence and fighting spirit of the Axis' troops have the better of it. One by one, also thanks to our dive-bomber·s, the strongholds are compelled to surrender, althou gh our troops cannot prevent the escape of part of the opponent's garrisons. The "Grant" tanks, whose presence in great numbers is a surprise for the German Commander, are less dangerous than expected; furthermore, our 75/18 se lf-propelled guns and new long-ran ge artillery, present on this front ror· the first time, give a good account of themselves . After the conquest of the quadrilateral and the destruction or retreat of the surviving units of the Ghazala line, Rommel orders to attack Tobruk. Also here, as in the conquest of Bir-Hakeim, heavy artillery and "Picchiatelli" (dive - bombers) are decisive, together with the ltalo-Gennan sappers who storm, one by one, the very tough posts. The .Italian troops distinguish themselves once rnore and have the great satisfaction of receiving the surrender of the fortress; other units reach the border in order Lo prevent poss ib le offensive returns. Gen. Bastico rnust put up with it, albei t relu ctantly, but notes that during the three-day logist ic crisis a serious Cai.lure has been risked. On April 12, jusL a little over a month before the beginning of the attack, in a letter· to the Chief of the Genera.I Staff, he has harshly criticized the allied General,

open ly d efin ing him "superficial, easily impressed by appearances, prone to reasoning by preconceptions, negligent and inaccurate in issuing orders, inlolerant of hi s colleagu es' advice and imrnoclerately ambitious". In conclusion, Bastico asks that a ll directives be sent to him through lhe Italian Supreme Command. Actually this will happen only very partially, since the Supreme Command leaves every evaluation to the North Africa Armed Forces 1-Iigh Command and chooses not to

Rommel direc1ing the operations by radio /1-om his halftraclced vehicle.

ber of ve h ic les captured is emphasized, disregarding the fact that they w ill s hortly become use less, du e to the difficul· Lies inherent to driving and maintaining materials little known to the Italo -Germans and the progressive d epleLion of the limited stock of spare parts. Similarly, the food supp li es vvhich have been seized are not always healthy for men used to a different diet. There are also perplexities a bout the stocks of \Vater and fuel. Nonetheless the German General, to whom - let's not forget it - the full responsibility of the troops has been entrusted, continues to act as he pleases ,

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intervene, in order to avoid any possible reason of contrast in such a delicate moment. But after Tobruk's reconquest a big problem m ust be solved. In the common opinion U1e enemy is now \.Veakened and it \Noulcl be a pp ro p riate to continue the chase inside Lh e Egyptian territory. There are discussions on what to do, but not a \.vord is sa id on the condition of our troops, after a battle that has lasted longer than a month, without a break. The large num-

without bothering too much aboul the limitations set to him, which indeed permit him a certain flexibility of behaviour. No one (besides Bastico, as we have seen), considering the results achieved on the field, mentions the risk run by Rornmel when he was almost completely out of supplies, and the daring encirclement thal could have turned into a disaster. In that predicarnent Rommel owed a .lot to luck and to the capability of his troops. ln particular to the Italian troops

THE DECLINE OF THE FOX

Felclrnarschall Erwin R.omrnel, the "DeserL Fox".

who, by opening a corridor for the supply of water, food, fuel and ammun iti on, eventually got him out of trouble. Rommel made another m istake when he decided not to \.vait for the arrival of the who le "Littorio"

104

armoured Division before carr-ying out his plan , since th is was the only fully equipped and well trained Italian Division. He co u ld have kept the "Ariete'' in reserve for other objectives, while waiting to reorganize i.t behind the lines. He did instead dismemberÂˇ the "Littorio" and, as soon as its components arrived, he assigned them to the "Ariete".

As we have seen , with th is re sc)l1nding success Rom iri e l regains the high repute he ha s earned du!'ing h is ea d y nwn ths in Africa . The English have even interest in emphasizing h is extraordinary rn iliwry qualit ies in order to justify their fai lures and LO obta in more resource s from the United States, particularly worried about the situation in the Mediterranean area . Gen. Marshall actually promises 390 new "Sherman" tanks and a h undred 105 mm self-propelled guns for the re -equipment of the armou red units of the Egyp t Army. They w il l leave for Suez o n July 10 and it will only be a q uestion of time. But the most important is tha t Rommel has rÂˇegainecl hi s Fuehrer's trust, even if he considers the African theatre of secondary irnportance. Th e Italians, on the other hand, are convinced thaL this victory, without Lhe neutralization of Malta, will prove shon-lived. This is confirrned by a lett er se n t to Hitler by our .Supreme Commander; where it is stressed that the conquest of the island and the consequent saving of fuel \.vill enable the Navy to ensure the s upplies to Libya and allow the Air Force to concentrate on the support of the unit s operaling in Egy p t. The letter also underlines that the operation should Lake pla ce no later than August or postponed until the fo llowing year: The German answer arrives two clays later and does not even take in to account the Italian request: Hitler has an abso lute trust in the power of the ItaloGerrn an armoured Arrny and regards th e Brit ish 8'" Army as completely destroyed. But - as we now today - Lhe s iluation is seen very differently by the enemy: Gen. Ne il M. Ritchie, shortly before being relieved from his command , is actually confi dent of stopping th~

Germans a t Ma 1Âˇsa Malruh, and Gen. Au chin leck, hi s Commander in Chief, approves. Neverthe less , the events prnve him wrong, s ince Rornmel' gives him no ,-espite (I) and on ly the scarce coordin ation or the Jtal oGermans, due LO the slower pace of the Ital ian formations and the wearing out of Lhe unils, saves t.he en ern y from total destruction. Matruh a nd Fukah will be Rommel's last successes: The crisis of the adverÂˇsary will e nd at El Alarne in. The decision of choosing this extreme position of resistance turns out to be cruc ial, s ince the area can only be out flank ed a t an extreme ly wide range . Th e position had already been s ingled out in 1941 an d th e wo rks o r forti f'i ca ti on according to the box system arc res u med immeclia rely. Th e German plan to over-take .it and then proc ee d tovvard s Alexandria (the front is Lo b e held by the ll al ians, the ou Lflankin g en truste d Lo th e Germans) is intercepte d by Ultra (2), as well as all the previo u s moves of t he German Commander. The fati gue of the troops and the inferior quality of the equipment. contribute to the failure or the operati on . The ru n stops, the British troop s coumeratlack violently and only by a mira cl e the mom e nt or truth is postponed by t hr ee months. Even w ithou t hinds ig h t , the fundam e nta l mistak e of th e whole campaign is clear: when in pursuit, the Commande r m ust have at its di sp osal a mo b ile resen re which, at the appropriate moment, enables him to overtake the u n i Ls engage d, in order to throw fresh troops into the fig ht and cont inu e to adv ance. Rommel is now a,-vare of this and asks for two motorized Divisions but h e does not get them.

Non e theles s, we can no te th a t from this momen t there is a real metamorphosis in the -German Commander's be haviour. Up t.o now he bas been cons idered a master of manoeuvres and improvisation o n the fie ld, in short. a "high ly talented attacke rÂˇ" who wins a - if and ,.vhen he does - in conditions of numerical and materia l inferiority~ offse t. by his very spec ia l energy, speed and dynamism; but now he seems resigned, not a domi nator of events anymore. There is no hope of rece iving large reinforcements and the supply situation is well known: with great difficul ty it is possible to send men and materials for the rec onstitu t ion of the exis Li ng units o n the new line . T he low sp irits, probably due to the uninterrupted prolongation of tension a nd combats , wh ic h lea d some units to throw down the ir arms without fighting, arc now spreading co the top. Rom mel himself falls victim to this: he mentions h is "deep discoui-age menl",

re ac ts only with words and , a lthoug h conv in ced that the enemy have resumed the initiative and time works aga in st him, he is well aware o r the fact that remaining on lhe defensive is as dan ge rous as at tcm pti ng a brea kthrou g h. Fun henn o rc , fro m August 15 he is faced by a new ad versary: Bernard Montgomery is the nevv Co mmand e r o f the 81" Army. He is not a tank expert but a methodical planner. He trusts his men, is we ll aware of the superiority of hi s forces and a priori excludes any possibility of retreat. Albeit with a differenL spirit as compared lo that or three rnonths before, the new Fe ldman;chall ge ts ready to repeat a Ghaza la- type opera.Lion: ma ke a brea kthroug h on the south an d surround the enemy behind the lines. The offensive, launched at the end of August, is ill -prepared, weak and i nsecu ,-e. On the contrary, the en e my is we ll informed of Rommel's plans and appears to be well organized, strong and

Italian 75118 self propelled g11ns shortly before rhe baule.

105

d et ei-m i n e d. The G erma n Co mma nder, despite having su ffered o n ly insig nific a nt losses, stops the attack on the pretext of a logis tic cri sis and , strangely, does no t seem to be trou bled by the setback. H e has already decid ed to go lo Berlin and Rome fo r consultations, b ut there he receives o nly some vag ue pro mises (3). H e is on the eve of the phys ical a nd psychological breakd own th at wi ll keep him away from the front just at the decisive moment. There are still so me conclusive remarks that we can make on the b asis o f t he ou tcom e of r ece nt researches which belie some o f the p ositive evalu ations that in post-war years coun ted Ro mmel a mong the greatest "condottieri" o f a ll times. For yea rs, the German General has been the object of an immense extoll ing litera ture, w h ic h generally c o nsid ers the Africa n situ ation from a vie\vpoint o fte n c oinci d ing wi th that o f his former adversa ries. In particular, we remember t he hagiographic essay by Gen . Desmond You ng - w ith a fo rew ord by Auchinleck - vvho li ved th ro u gh t h e b a ttle o f Ghazala, where he was taken prisoner. He is the first to receive fro m the Ma rsh al's \vife, a nd to incl ude them in his work as a n appendix, the famous "Ro m mel's papers", which will also appear in other p ub licat io ns . N evertheless, in Italy the British exaggerations are not totally shar ed: a lready in 1973, albeit in a popular \11.1ork (a little m o re than a short bio graphy ), we notice a re m a rkable r eco ns ide ration o f the strategic quali ties asc1i bed to the Ger man Commander. Equ ally superficial is t he e ss ay b y a nother j o urna list p ublished by the sam e House . More rece ntly, all aspects of the spring-su mmer cam paign of 1942 h ave been thoroughly examined to ge ther, o f cours e, ,vith R ommel's cond uct of the operati ons . He shou ld h ave fore seen, e ven if his info r m ation service 106

,vas rat her wanting, Lha t while the Italo -German Army was very u n like ly to r ec e ive su bsta n tia l r ei n forc ements, the o ther side \Vas going to get new units wit h very mo d er n equipment. F urthermore, m a ny rightly observed th at th e i n -depth a rra y of some artillery units, the also ind epth strengthening of the securi ty zone - in or der to wear o ut

f avo ur o f th e G erma ns , o verlooked unti l now, is that the fi rst "Sh e rma n" tanks a rmed w ith 7 5/37 g u ns \Vere in ferior to the t hirty mo d . 4 G e r ma n ta n ks armed w ith p rolonged gu ns, besid es be ing completely vulnerable to the sixty Aff 7 6 m m Ger m an self-propelled gu ns . H must be added t hat , si n ce t r ai ni ng is extre m ely i m portant in war a nd

A hero of the new Ita lian arm oured art ille ry: Lieu tenan t Aldo !Vfa ria Scalise, who was awarded the Cold A1edal fo r MiliLary Valou r shortly before falling near Bir Hacheim .

the new US-built tanks were delivered sho rtly before the a ttack, i I is noL certain that a ll crews were ca p ab le of fully expl o iti ng th e capabi lities of the new weapons. More serious a nd tragic is the la c k of ai r s u per iori ty. T h e Ameri c an a i rcra ft , from he a vy fo ur-e ngine bo mbers to fighters. reverse the s i tuation . Romm el 's absence at the d ecisive moment does the rest. As r eg a r ds E r wi n Ro m m e l's m er its and shortco m ing s , w e

the allacke,- before the fi n al clas h - and t h e d ep l o y ment of th e arm ou red reserve uni ts more to the back - so that they would be a l lo wed more mano euvring space - w ould have favoured the defens ive a ct ion . Anothe r fac t or i n

wish to mention a recen t British essay w hich tries to scruti nize the actual capabili ties shown by h im in al mos t t wo yea rs o f African ca mpaign. We certainly agree that th e m ost discu ssed decisions were not taken by him alone bu t we re e ndorsed by his superiors. Probably his bellicose ar dour urge d him to plan and organize the manoeuvre, to the point of making him superficial; pl anning ,vas not his forte (admittedly, some of his sensational successes in the desert seem achieved with "very little or nonexistent margins of logistic security"); ma ny o r his ambitious initiatives are taken at a moment wh e n they a pp ear su i ta ble or necessary. \l\lhen it comes to considering him as the only chivalrous fig hter (u nli ke Kess e lring and m a n y Gen erals o n ot her fronts, often accused of a trocities against civ.i lians , in harsh retaliati on for snipe iÂˇs' attacks) we do n ot kn ow h ow he would have behaved in similar c ircumstances. It wa s observed that Rommel learned by experie nce but, al the same time, we sec a sharp decline (a nd n o t only p.h ysica l) when, a fter advancing for hundreds of kilometres wi thout too many problems, he is faced by an organized resis tance and see ms Lo lose the "sixth sense" which had assisted him on so many occasions. In Tunisia - in March 1943, before handing over his command to Gen. von Arnirn - we se e him starting a strong offensive against the Americans al the Kasserine Pass, o nly to suspe nd it for no apparent reason. Later, h e cuts an o t her neg a t i ve fig ure a t .Medelin . By now, also the Ita lia ns have lost their confidence in him, especially afte r Tripoli was abandoned without fighting. The study a lso hints a t the fact that he was agai nst sacrificing other irreplaceable forces, inclu ding a good portion of the available air transport, just to continue a useless res istance for a rew m onths . Anyway he did nothing

to prevent it. One could add that with the smTender of t}1e German Army without even attempting an evacuation (as the British Co rces had done in D unkerque and Crete) the best veterans \Vere lost while, had they been repatriated, they co u lei .h ave b een valid instructors for the new recruits. F rom the political viewpoint , and for what d irectly concerns th e Italian s ituation, the n on exploitation of the time ga ined in Tunisi a , in view of a pass i hi e political solution of the conflict, wo uld ha ve very serious co nsequences. Pietro Maravigna, in his im medi ate post-war essay, point ed th is o u L: "A res ista n ce i n Tunisia could have been understandable only if we had been prep a red to carry out an effective action against the air and naval power in Sicily". The last volume pub lished this year on the Afrika Korps (and therefo re on Romme l) does not indulge in tactical a nd strategic co n sid erati o ns: it is mainly a photogra p hic history of the German en gage m ent in No rth Africa. lt is interesting for some unp ublished pictures of the campaign but does not add a nything rea lly importa nt. In general, Rommel's responsibilities are those alread y po inted out: he attempted a di fficull exp loi tati on o f the s u cce s s a ch ieved, bei ng fu lly aware that h e lacked the means to reac h Suez and con fiding on ly in th e demoraliza tion of the enemy; he insisted that the High Comm and c ance l the landing in Malta, compro misi ng once a nd for all t he s a fety of the convoys and th e survival of hi s Ar my, with the sole purpose of keeping the air s upport for the land operations . Finally, even knowing the sca rce capacity of the ports in Cyrenaica and western Egypt, h e e xte nded hi s s uppl y line s excessive ly (about 20 00 km), thus thwarting any poss ibility of regular prov is ion ing for th e entire theatre.

As a consequence, the shons uc cess of Tobruk will be the premise of a disaster already h e r a ld e d by t he fa iled breakthrough of Lhe improvised Ala mein lin e , a ttem pted w ith utterly exhausted forces . To a ll thi s we mu st a d d th e su spe nsion of th e offensive at Ala m H a ifa, s tarted a t t he en cl of the following Augu st, a nd th e qu esti o n ab le de plo ym e nt ad opted i n vi ew o f t h e bat tl e of El Alame in t h at w ill Lake place two mo nth s l a Ler. It i s a s eq u ence of errors ,.v ilhout jus tifica tion : o ne canno t and should not cou nt exclusively on b o ldn es s a nd luck w hen th e prestige of an Army, and of a whole Nation , is a t sta ke. Nor can the numerous heroic deeds performed by our soldiers tr ansform a bitter defeat into an epic to be cel ebrated. 1ived

D Âˇ:,Milita,y analyst and historian. NOTES ( 1) Gen. Auchi nlek was also concern-

ed a bou t Rommel's charis ma, which influenced even his own men. He adm its ha ving issued a circular to his Commanders and Chiefs of Staff on "the danger that our friend Rommel becomes a ki nd of wizard or bogeyman for o u r troops, who talk too much about him ( ... 1J ask you to eradicate, in every possible way, Lhe idea that Rommel .is any thing more Lhan a normal German General" . (2) Thanks LO this decoding system, already in 1940-41 the Italo-Gerrnan plans wer e known by the enemy, together with Lhe ro utes and departures of the supply convoys, which were generally a ttacked and often s unk . (3) In Ge rmany, Rom mel is shown the "Tiizer" Lank a n d the "Nebel we~fe r" mul t ibar-re l r oc ke t.launcher, both to be shonly dispatched to Africa. He .is also told that, owing to the ir limited weig ht (500 kg), the latter can be transported by ai r, but perhaps Rommel is not in fom1ed that every 15cm rocket weighs 35 kg a nd m ust be trnns ponecl wo. A veiled h in t is a lso rnade a bou t a nuclear weapon being prepared.

107

The brave Roman soldiers knew that, in case of need, in peace and war, the Legion would provide them with the best cures available at the time, since if had at its disposal the best doctors of the known world. Also animals could benefit from the most modem scientific knowledge and were thoro ughly treated. For the ancient Romans, preventive medicine was very important, to the point that it became a life discipline. Doctors and medics, veterinarians and pharmacists were m embers of a first class organization which, with its very high efficiency, guaranteed and supported the conquest and preservation of an immense territory. Roman medicines, cures and treating methods still retain a surprising validity. In many cases, they should indeed be rediscovered. h e Romans make sure t heir Legio nari es get Lhc best poss ible medical assistance. They a re al ready a ware of the fac t th at man is the fu lcrum of every Army: i l is man, the soldier with his professi onalism , that makes the d iffere nce between an Army a nd a s imple arm ed band. The refore a ,,,vounded sold ier m ust rece ive t he appropria te medical care, s ince his traini n g and educa tio n a re an invesLmen t in ter ms or time and resources w hic h must be pro tec te d to th e utm os t, a ls o because (leaving aside the moral conside ratio ns) it is cheaper Lo cure a n inj u red so ld ier Lh a n train a nothe r one . Ma king the most of the experi e n ce gain ed i n th e various mili tary campaigns, the Rom ans m ove fr om th e rudi m e nta ry medical assistance o f th e early Republica n years to the com plex service rea li ze d du r in g th e Empire.

Left. A milita1y doctor relievi11g 1/te wo1111ded on the battle field (bas-relief /iÂˇom Tra.jan's Colw n.11.). Right. Picking up of' the wounded (Tra.jan 's colu11111).

Often the cogni tions acquired in th e mi) i La ry m edical servi ce a re app lied to civili a n life by th e mi li tary d octors themse lves who, du ring their time w ith th e Leg ions, have ga ined practical knowl edge and experience . Military campaig ns, then as now, are al so the occasion for ne,v discoveries and cogn iti ons in the me<li cal field: for example, <luring the campaign of 16 A.D.,

A Roma11 gladi11s o( the earlv F.mpire (reco11struc1io11).

t.b e R o man do c tors of Germanicus' Legions learn from their Fr isian enemies hov.1 to use a medicinal pla nt called rwnex obwsifolius for the preparation of Lhe so-ca lled "barba rian poulti ce". The ancient mili tarv treatises give very little space l; me<li ci ne s ince, al tha t time , those ,.v ho did not deal \Vith the traditi onal a ct ivit ies typ ica l of a fi gh t ing force were considered insignificant . Ne ve rt he les s , military m edicin e is ve ry important and this is proved by the fact tha l the fir s t d o c tor c ited in Roma n history is a military man: Ma rius P c rusinus, a fr iend or At ilius Reg u lus' , mentione d by Si liu s 109

Italicus (25 - 101 A.D. ) in h is work "Punicas", on the battle of Lake Trasimeno (2 17 B.C.).

Above. Roman surgical. instruments. (1v!Ltseum o( Roman A 11, Merida, ~'pain).

THE MEDICAL SERVICE IN THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD

Below. Details of a Roman. building: inlet o f the aqueduct and 1,valer canalization (Merida, Spain).

Dur ing t he Republic there is n ot an organ i zed medical service within the Roman Ar my : the historical sou rces barely refer to the wounded or the ill. Possibly this is due to the in0uence of the Hellenic Army, where there is not a specific service. Sti11, the fact that th ere is not a n o rganized m il itary medica l s ervi ce does not mean that there are no doctors: high ranking Officers, Consuls and Praetors h ave their pers on al civilian doctors who fo ll ow them on the ba ttl efi el d. The tools used by the doctors in the c a m p aigns ar e t h e sa me employed in c ivilian life: surgica l i n strumen ts a n d drugs widely used in Roman medicine. The soc ial status o[ the doctor working for a Consul or Praetor is rather low: they are generally slaves or freed men and belong to the Gen eral's fa milia. As a rule t hey are not Roman citizens and starting from the 2nd Century B.C., many a re Greeks, captured d uring t he c a m p ai g ns in M ac e d on i a a n d Greece. I t is Caesar - a shr ewd politician, an excellent lead er, and one who knows the value of things, \vho grants the Roman c itizensh ip lo the doc tors practicing in Rome a nd to t hose w h o follo\v the Comma nders of his Legions.

Oriemal archers of a Rornan auxilia,y unit. (Traja n.'s Column).

110

As we said, in the Republican peri od soldiers cannot count on a p rom pt medical assistance in case of illness or injury. In battles, in case of victory, the losses arc usu a lly limited, but in case of defeat the number of casual-

ties is enorm ous and often reac hes co n si d erable n u mbe r s, m a inly because tac tics do not y et e nvi sag e the c omp ac t employ ment of the Legions, b ut they are still employed in maniples. After a bloody battle, hundreds of wou n ded men remai n on the field , waiting for a h elp whic h is la te in coming an d m a ny a time comes to o lat e . Frequently, a fter a defeat, the Roman wou n ded are killed bv th e e n emy out o f a m ixture oÂˇf cruelty and compassion, as was the case of the battle of Can nae ( 2 16 B. C.) . There is no re a son t o d oubt that t h e R o m an s a c ted in the sa m e way whe n victory was on thei r side. During, or after, a battle, the u ninj ured men collect their \-VOunded comrades. Those wh o are Jess s eriously injured cure themselves. The others st a y i n their own tents and a,-e attended to by the u n hurt comrades in arms, w ho use the content of the "indi vi d ua l k i t" carrie d by every legionary. It con ta ins banda ges, hae most at ic and c ic a triz ing herbs , and prob ab ly drugs

against pa in . It is rather common for the Commanders to lend the ir doclors and surgeo ns to the medics, in order to have them c oop e ra te in the c,~r e 01 the wounded. The soldi ers suffering from very seriow; injuries are moved behind the lines . When battles are still fo ugh t nea r Rome , the wounded are carried ins ide the City, and successively inside the allied tm.vns that Rome is acquiring. The wounded sol diers are received in private houses and look ed after by the host families until they are healed . If the recovered legionaries cannot be reemp loyed by their units beca use they were destroyed or no more operational, they form a vex.illatio (detail) and reach a locatio n decided by the Legion .

rnakes radical changes in society, in the ins ti.t u Lion s and in the Army. Between 30 and 13 B.C. he curtails the huge Army inherited from the civil wars, in accordance with the needs and the budget of the State. Octavi.an (Augustus fro rn 27 B.C.) crea tes a pennanent Army with an effic ient fftedical service. The Emperor, as supreme Commander~ just as the Generals of the Republic, is compelled to g ua rantee the medical

THE MEDICAL SER\t1CE DURING THE EMPIRE

During the 1'' Century B.C. the written sources begin to mention mili tary doctors . This prefigures the military medica l organ i1.ation of t he Im perial period . Caesar, in h is carnpa igns, s hows con cern for the c ure 01 his h i ll and \.Votm d ed soldiers: and si nee th at period we note a progress ive sp ecia li zat ion or the m ilitary doctors and a series of rn ed ical categories is es ta blished , each with well-defined l.un ct ions. Dur in g the Empire, almosl all doctors co nt inue to be of Hellenic origin, despite the progress made by the Roman medicine. Afler the social upheavals caused by the long civil wars of the 1" Century B .C., the medical service takes a lo ng step fo nvard . Octavian, after coming to power in 3 1 B. C. w ith the bat tle of Ac tium agains t M.ark An tony ,

The keeper of' a Legion 's livesloclc (Traja n 's Colu, n, 1.).

ass istance through the inc lus ion of the doctors in the Cadres of the Legion, making them cl inx tly subo1Âˇdinate to the Commanders. The developrnent o r the medical service is gradual. going from the presence of one or more physicians to co rnposi le learns of med ical assistance. Apparendy, only lhe Roman wounded deserved the atte n tion o I: l h e me cl i c a I servi c e ,

since h isto 1Âˇ ians do n o t men t ion th e injured e n emies . Proba b ly, a part from exceptional cases, th e Roman Leg ionaries follovv Hannibal's policy: "finis h the ene mies t o a v oid c uring them ... and rneanw h il e shorten their sufferings" . Th e death rate in a R oman Legion du r ing a campaign is high, mving to the comb ination of the effects of wounds, diseases, physical deb ilitation, very bad h ygienic conditions and , in some occasions, lack of supplies. Whal happens to a w ounded Rornan Leg ionary during the Empire is not di fferent, at le as t as regards first aid, frorn what happens in the Re pub lican p e r iod. After the fi rs t rudimental treatm ent of th e wo unds on the battlefield, wh ich often the Legionary does by hiff1self, using his individual ki t and fo llowin g t he first-a id instructions, the wounded man is moved to a te mporary encampment , th e n se nt to a friend ly town and housed in a private home, or to t he permanent camp of th e Legion where , i r his physical conditions per-mits it, sits in hi s tent, looked after by his comrades and periodically exa rn ined by one of the Legion's doctor s . Tho se w ho n eed an intensi ve trea tment are taken to the valetuclinarium, (hospita l) which is an in legral part of the Legion's camp . There, the wo unded a re ass iste d by m em bers of the medical service and, once out or danger, can use the rac ili ties o f the hospital (porticoes, garde ns, inner yards) for the first period of the convalescence. If the docto rs d eem i l convenient for a ras ter rehabilitation, in order to speed the re covery he may be 111

A cuirass with glaclius and decom tions. (Bas-relief on a funera ry stone. Rome, Via. Laure 11ti11a., I mperia l period, I Legio ''Jralica"J.

sent to a spa: Sulis (today's Balh, England) for Lh e Legions garrisoned i n B ritannia; Aquae Granni , Aquae an d Aquae MalLiacorum (today's Aa c he n, Baden Baden and Wiesbaden , Germany) for the Legions of the Rhine and Danube, Aquae Iasae (to da y's Verazdin s ke Topli ce, Hungary) for the Pann onia n Legion s. The convalesce nts of the Leg ions stationed in Egypt are sent lo the Mediterranean coast. Once restored to h ealth , the Leg ion aries return to their garrisons and start training, in order to recover their full physical efficiency and be reemployed in active duty, as was customary already in Caesar's times. As we 112

mentioned before, star ling from the reorganizatio n of the Army ca r ried out by Au gustus, the Legion's medical service is regular ized and organized by establishi ng an efCec tive sys tem of rehabilitation and assistance o f the wounded a nd ill (even consid ering the limitations of those tim es). ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITARY MEDICAL SERVICE DURING THE EMPIRE

Th e medical service of a Roman Legion comes under the Praefectus caslrorwn, who is the third Officer, in order of importance, with in the Legion's chain

of command , after the Le~at us Legionis and the nÂˇibunus laticlavius. He is the first pro fessional soldier, since for the two officials who precede him the service in the Army is part of the ir cursus honorum . The Praefectus caslro n1m is respon s ible for logi sti cs an d medical organization and when the Legion is at its permanen t camp he .is the highest supervisor and manager of the valeLUdinarium and its resources. He is responsible for the medical and veterinarian serv ices. The laler is as important as the medical service, in that il safeguar ds the health of the an imals, be they employed for work or for com bat (c avalry) or used as foo d . The veterinarians, helped by the pecuarii (l ivestock keepers) , attend to the animals, seeing to it that those empl oyed for daily duty as well as th ose destined for feedi ng and sacrificing to the gods are kept in their best cond itions. Veterinari ans and pecuarii are u nder a chief veterinarian who, in his turn, is subordinate to the Praefectus castrorum. Responsible fo r the Legion's medical service is the m edicus castrensis (or castrorum), a name which in itia lly referred to those who normally lived with the troops bu t later assumed the meaning of Chief of the Legio n's doctors. His function is to coordinate a ll medical aspects of the unit's life: The personnel under his orders are divided in tv,10 sec ti ons: medicine and pharmacy. The former employs m.edici cohonis, niedici clinici, m edici ordinarii an d "specialists". The medici cohortis a r e assigned according to the troops' needs, at th e rate of one for e very cohort, and are equated to noncom mission ecl officers . Eac h

Organization of the Medical Service in a Roman Legion of the Early Empire

MEDICAL SERVICE

Auxlllaiy Penonnel

Modlcal penonnel

Capsarius

Dlscentes Capsariorum

Medlcu1 Oculllris (?)

QulA,pls

frlalOSunt

Legi on is s ubdivided in to I 0 coh orts, therefore we can assume t ha t there were 10 m.edici . Under them we see the milites medici, or soldier doctors , who are not real doctors but simple Legionaries, who for their aptitude or knowledge show a special skill in assisting the wounded and an elementary experience in basic surgery. The medici clinici are doctors (we don't know their exact number) who serve in the valetudinarium, the legionary hospital. The medici ordinarii, whose number is also not known, follow the Legion in its movements and, during the battles, help the sick and the slightly wounded who, as we have seen, remain in their own tents. Among the "specialists" we can mention the medicus chirurgicus (surgeon), the medicus clinicus, (sp ecialist i n internal medicine), the medicus ocularis

(oculist) and the medicus a.uricularis (ear, nose and throat specialist). All medici are helped by assistants called qu i a.egris praesto sunt (those who care for the sick) . Th e pharmaceuti cal section elaborates t he necessary drugs and medicaments . We know of at least two roles played by the chemists: the seplasarius, in charge of the mixtures necessary for producing ointments and salves, and the marsus, whose miss ion is to look for an tidotes to coun teract the bites of snakes and the sting of scorpions and poisonous insects. The Praefectus castrorum is also in charge of a number of persons \vho carry out the auxiliary work n ecessary to r elieve the medical personnel of nons pe cific sanitary tas ks. F irs t among these is the optio valetudinarii, who deals with the administration of the valetudinarium.

Another auxilia ry fig ure is the capsarius, who is tasked \Vith the storage and distribution of bandages, gauze a nd other med ical material. The discentes capsariorum are in charge of bed clothes. The archivist an d clerk (to use known terms) who deals with the "office files" is called librarius. The condition of the medical personnel depends on whether they are real doct ors o r j ust medical assistants. As regards the duration of their service, while the medical ass istant is bound to the n orms and the customary pay of the legionary of the Imperial period (20-year service, with prohibition to ge t married during that time), doctors carry out an undetermined period o f service, so metimes very short and sometimes for the ir e ntire life, thus making m ilitary medicine their p rofession. Another difference is their 11 3

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Plan of the Roman milita1y hospital al Casti·a Vetera.

I-e ntra nce; 2-guard room; 3-exami nation room : 4-kitc hens; 5-s tore ro o m ;'" 6-baths; 7-co rp s c d epos itory : 8-la t r i nes: 9-residcnc es fo r doc tors on du ty: 10 -p ha r macy: 11 -s ick ruorns: 12-ope rat ing roo ms; 13-c ourtya rd.

possibility of getting married du ,·ing the period of service. The military ranks vary: doct ors, beca use of their specific s kills and r esponsibiliti es, arc Officers with a status similar to that of a cenlurion . Med ica l ass istants are equated to s pecialist non-comm iss ioned officers, no t a very high rank in the Legions . They we ar the normal legionary uniform, wiLh lhe emblem of their rank and position, a nd are armed ; the ir pay is higher than 114

thaLof the fighting Legionary: as a rnaLLer of fact, they belong to the category of the duplicarii, i.e. those who draw twice the normal sa la ry.

ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT AND ANCIENT HOSPITAL STRUCTURES The activity of military doctors does not regard onl y the treatment of wounds and d iseases: it s Larts with the enlistment.

Before subscribing to his enl istrnent, the aspirant Legion a rv must get through an accu ra t~ medica l examinat ion, duri ncr which Lhe Leo-ion's doctors. recr~ 0 s ter his height, weight, phys ical strength (a real anamnesis) a nd draw up a "psyc hological" rcpo n on the candidate , in o r·der to determin e his capability of adapti ng to military life (the eva luation includes previous occupa tion, intelligence, character an d aptitude for legionary life). After the examinatio n, the candida te , if passe d fit, attends a fourmonth bas ic training cycle , during which the Legion's doctors fo ll ow his evo lu tion wi th periodic physical and psych ic tests: ge tting through Lhe rn is a necessary a nd s ufficient cond ition for his definitive e nlistment. During th e ir 20-ye ar duty, tb e Legi onaries undergo occasional examina Li ons, with a frequency proportionate lo the number of years spen t on duty. If they don't get through th e tests, they may be assig ned to less \Vearing tasks or discharged . The Legion's doctors control the situation of the most serious ly ill and, if they are not fi t for duty, give t hem the causaria rn.issio (infirmi Ly discharge), tog e ther with a reward for their sacrifices and a "tes t imonial" of the duties performed . Prevention is another importan t task of military doctors: teaching tbe Legionaries that th e hasis o f a good h ea lth is an accura Le personal hygiene. Obv iously the pos ition of the perma ne nt encamp ments is an important elernent (their selection must be endorsed by th e Legion's doctor) and t hey are always distant from unh ealthy and s,varnpy areas . As we have seen, the d octors control the quality of food, in collaboration with the veterinar ians; beverages are a lso checked. Training, albeit hard and severe, should not be so excessive as to have dan gerous effects on the soldiers' body t':'

A stationmy ballisw (reco11s1mc1io11).

and on the dfi c ien cy of the whole Leg ion; th e s helt e rs employed against extreme win ter and/or s umrn e r ternperatures should b e s uitable. The t raining of th e mi lit ary doctors is satis fac tory: il der ivcs from daily experience and generall y la cks d ee p th eo reti c al kn owled ge, ap ar t fr o rn some fundam ental notion s of ana tomy. The " n ovice" doctor ca n only learn by imitation and ... on the pa ti ent's skin. Many doctors, also in view o f con ti nui ng their activity in civilian life, e nlist in ord er lo expe rim e nt anev/' therapies or to perform auto psies on th e corpses o r the e ne mies. Prevent ion concerns first of aJI the environme nt. in w hich the soldi er l ives: the fort ifi e d encampm e nt. The stopping (o r marc h) ca mps , bein g u sed for shor t perio ds, do not represent sel'ious pro b lems , since the min imum hyg ie nic con diti ons (passa bly healthy areas and a good wate r s u pp ly) are ea s il y attainab le. Th e prob lem s cro p up in t he border camps, whi c h easily beco me per m ane nt an d can turn into rÂˇcceptacles of dis eases, due to pre cari o us ,.._1atcr-storage conditio ns and to th e g reat number of ope n latri nes. Tberefore, togethc 1Âˇ with the cons tructi on of effective fortifications, the Leg io naries endeavour to crea te th e bes L poss ible h ygien ic environment: conduits for a su fri c ien t wate r s uppl y; drai nage or rainwater; deep sep tic tank s c onn ec ted with the la trines. As r ega rds persona l hygiene, therrnac-stylc baths are

realized and m ust be used a fier the t hree m o nthl y forced marches. Moreover, when th e vveath e r is r ea lly fo ul, suitable s hel tered a re as fo r indi vidu a l training are arranged . Wh e n th e Leg io n is o n t h e march, the medica l perso nn e l trave ls on ,Naggons trans rorting ever y lhing n ec essary to s he lter the wounded and sick in t h e ir o wn te nts . The rnedici cohortis can-y with them small b rnnze mÂˇ ivory t runks containing the surg ical too ls, vessels a nd medici nes indispensa ble for emergenc ies and fi r st aid. Wh e n th e rnarc h is o ver and the encamp-

m en l. is set up, the tents of the fi e ld hos pital, a sm a ller- scale imitation o f the valetudinariu111 of the pe rmanent camp, arc also pitc hed in s uch a way as to form a sq uare, or rectangle, \\'ith a lalf"ine nearby. In the la rge m arch -encam pmen ts, where up to 5 or 6 Legions co uld cam p to ge ther, the valetudinarium is installed close to the praetoriunz (the Co m mand er's r e sid e nce) and watc hed by two cohorts. When the fro nti ers of the Empire b ecome stabl e, the bo rd er camps and their valellldi1,aria turn into p ermanen t installat ions . In s ide th e en campm ents

lnsl r 1.1.n1e11 ts {011 11d in a s ur,~e o n 's

grave: medicine c h es L, prohe case, small spoon, spatula, tivee:.ers, scalpel and 11eedle. (Musew11 of Roman Art, 1vlerida,Spain ).

115

A Legionary of the 4''' Century A. D. (reconstruction).

installed near the praetorium in order to protect the patients in case of siege and generally consist of a square building with a large internal courtyard s u r rounded by open galleries. THE CURING TECHNIQUES

the quality of life of the Legionar ies improves, in particular as concerns the injured or sick men; therefore tents make way for buildings of wood, and later of stone, with "special" baths, separate kitchen, direct water supply and their own water tanks , located in good positions for a good ventilation. The structural characteristics of the valetudinaria can be appr eciated, for example, at the excavations of Inchtuthill, Scotland, where one can see the rectangu116

lar plan with a central corridor flanked by hous es, a space between the corridor and the houses , perfectly built latrines, and the whole construction covered by a double -sloping roof. Also the valetudinarium a t Castra Vetera, in Germany, built during Nero's r eign and whose design was preserved, is built in stone , Âˇwith a square structure around a yard . The hospitals of the permanent e ncampment s, as is the case wi th th e march camps, are

Aurelius Cornelius Celsus testifies the high quality of military doctors and their therapies in his work "De Medicina" dwelling upon the various techn iques. In case of injuries, they stop haemorrhages o r trea t in fl ammations with gauze soaked in vinegar~ and cauterise Âˇwounds with red-hot instruments. To stitch cuts, after cleaning them they use threads made of animals' intestine (or fibulae , a kind of clamps). A curative poultice is then applied to the wound. It is called "barbarian" since it was learned from the enemies. The wound is bandaged with cloth strips, tight enough as to avoid gangrene. Another problem is to extract "projectiles" from the wounded men's body. Arrows, for instance, must be pulled out with a scalpel, paying great attention not to cut nerves, veins or arteries. For a legionary doctor it is very com mon to proceed to amputations in case of gangrene. This causes a high mortality rate, due to the lack of aseptic environments. The wounded soldier is constantly looked after, his lesions are kept under strict control and he is strengthened with a diet of cereals , legumes, vegetables, lar d, cheese, fresh fruit and wine (a luxury for those limes) to help his recovery. The Roman militar-y physicians have a solid, if empiric knowledge of pharmacology, and use medicines that usually derive from basic chemical compounds. Also the salutary pro-

perties of some herbs arc u tilize d. The r e main s o f se ve ra l medicina l p lan ts hav e b ee n fo und in excavat ions at Novae si um , in S o u.the r n Germany: centaurea mino,~ used t o c lean the wo un ds and quicken the ir h eal ing, in eye diseases as well as an a ntid o te against the bite of poi s onous snake s; hyoscyamus albus, hypnotic and sedative; plantago major, used aga in st bleeding and dyse nt ery; trigonella fo e numgraecum, employe d as a laxative in enemas and in some emollient compresses. Soda is used as a corrosive "an d a caustic. Seve ral vegetables su ch as peas, lentils and figs are used as tonics; furth e rm ore the latte r, applied on infected ,vounds and abscesses, favo ur lhe di scha rge of pu s and coagu lated blood. Pliny the Elder descr ibes the anti -scurvy propert ies of the r oot ca lle d radix brita1mica . Wine is used against cliaf!'hoea. Once the properties of herbs and plan ts are learned, the doctors, besides looking for them around the en ca mp m ents and durin g marc hes , also try to grow them in plots adjoining the hospitals. As regards medical tools, a t Novae si u m hav e been fou n d some kinds of probes, spatul as, spoons, pliers, curved and straight needles, chise ls, clamps for suturing and a crate full of objects, pots for ointm ents and healing oils. Many ins truments have also been fo und at the excavations made at Pomp eii and at Aqu incum in Pa nnonia : forked s calp e ls , divari cators, dental forceps, hooks, needles, scissors, splints for lower limbs, scales, small mixing shovels and a medical case.

D ,.,lieutenant Colonel, Headquarters, Join t Suh Regional Co.,,nmand S outh West, Madrid

NOTES (1) T itus Livius , in his work "Ab

Urbe Condi ta", reports that, during l'he S eco nd Samni te War, after the

Battle o f Sutrium there were more deaths clue tt1 lack o f medical ass is tance than on the battlefield . (2) T here are sources assening that, starting from th e l Century B.C. , every e ncampment is equ ipped with tents assigned to the sick a nd wo unded . (3) These fam ili es are later com pensated for the costs sustained. (4) The first rnention is to be fou nd in Cicero's "Tusculanae Disputationes". (5) This does not p revent the Comm a nders of the Legions from keeping their own doctors, as was c ustomary .in Rep ubli ca n ti me s.

Rornan soldiers of the end of' the 2"" Century B.C. during 1he lusiratiu censoria a solemn sacrifice oflered at Elie end of' a c enslls. (De tail f'ro,n Domilius E11obarbL1s' al1ar, 115 B. C. ).

For ex am ple: the future E m peror Tiberius keeps a personal physician du rin g the Da l matian P annon ian ca m pa ign of the years 6 - 9 A. D ., and Augustus himself se n ds hi s person<~ d oc to r to hi s nephew Germanicus in 14 A .D. , w h en this la tter commands t he Legio ns on the Rhine. (6) Jn the period of Emperor Dom itian (8 1-96 A. D. ) the military 117

The Empero,~ s wTou11ded by his S1aJJ; receil'es a l,egionan·. ( Traja n 's Co/1mm) .

BIBLIOGR..\FY A. Libcrnti e F. Silverio: «V ita e cosuim i dci Roma ni antichi», eel. Quasar. Roma, 1988. J. Le Ga lle e 1'vl. Le Gia:,-·: «El Trnperio romano», ed. Aklai s.a ., Madrid , 1995. E. Ghul e \V. Kone r: « Los Romanos: su \·id a v costumbres», ed. Edinart L ibros s .;., JVladrid, 2001 . Julio Ro d dguez Gonzalez: «H isto r ia de )a s L e !! io n es rom anas » . ed. Signifer Lih;:os, Mad rid , 200 I. · J. Ivl. Ro lda n: «H ispan.i a y el E je rc ito romano », C.S.I.C., Salamanca, 1974 . Peter Connolh ·: « Las Le!!iones r oman a:; » , e d . Es.p a sa- Calpe, .IV\ adrid, 1986. F. M a rline,. Sauria : «La medicina ro man a », ed. fnstit u to Saniclad Linivers ida d Carlos 111 , Ma d rid, 1997 . Ai\. VV. : R ivista «La Ave nlu ra de la Histo ria», ed . Arlanza Edicio nes S.A. , Madrid , 2002, n . 44. J. Carde nas Arevalo: «La m arm·illosa historia de la rncdicina», ed. T rnj illo, Per11 , 200 I . P . Fo n t Que r : «Plan tas Medicinales, cl Diosc6rides Renovado» , e d . La bor s.a ., Madrid, 1973 . doc to r s were paid 300 clenari i per ve a r, whi l e al t h e time o f Septimius S everns (193 -2 1 1 A.D.) thev received 500 clena,-i i. Aft e r t heir expe r ie n c e 111 a Legion 's med i ca l s e rvi ce , s ome doc tor s write tn:atises o n medicine like, for example, P e d a ni us Dioscurides, who w r ote "Jvlnte ria Medica" . (8 ) T h e s urgica l i ns u-ume n ls arc commonly m ade from co p pe r· o ,- it:; alloy s , ( b ro nze and brass) a nd ar·e p roduced by e xcelle nt crafts m en . When the smiths suc ceed in o bta ini n g steel t h r o ug h iron-w o rki ng, the surgica l in s tr u ments a r e a lso m a de ou L of t h is allov . 1\ilan v o f these ins tru m e n ts will h e co p ie,cl in the s uccessive epochs .

An ante{LX w i1h th e emble111 of the XX Le~i o n " Vale r ia V ic trix''. Fou11d a l Holl, b ul destined to Lhe let ionary camp at Dev a, Chester.

118