livio caputo

Livio Caputo

The altered international situation and the new tasks the armed forces are required for impose everywhere they turn into professional's armies

The European Union's decision to equip itself with army corps of 50 thousands men to face the international crisis and to submit it

directly to the Council of Ministers is not only an historical pace forward political level but also a resolviang push to turn all armies into professional armies.
Almost all the great countries that must supply the backbone of the interventions forces have already oriented themselves this way: following the example of Great Britain, that has a professional army, very admired for its efficiency since 1956, now France, Spain and Italy too have launched or are to launch the reform of the corresponding defence models. If every thing will go on according to the established plans, within five years only German will have still the call-up service, but it does not concern a military choice but a political one. Lying over the history of the country the German governors indeed fair that a professional army can turn into, provided certain circumstances, a destabilizing element for democracy and so they prefer going involving their young in the tasks assigned to the Armed forces.
The passage to the new model was required since the radical change of the military tasks after the end of the bipolar system.
At the times of the cold war the Western Europe Countries first must deal with the defence of their own territory, menaced by the Pact of Warsaw, fitted with several armies, well trained and ready for operations following the second world war ones.
Nowadays the sets for the General Staffs are different.
The enlargement of the European Union to 27 members and the next incorporation into the Atlantic Alliance of other states of the East Europe, formerly serving under the enemy field will avert furthermore the possibility of big conflicts in our continent.
The events in the ex- Yugoslavia, and the existence of other potential clash centres in the Balkan area, make instead predict the necessity to make next years other 'surgery' interventions, humanitarian or not, to keep peace.
The experience of the Kosovo has strengthened the conviction of the European governments that radical innovations will be necessary, in order to deal with these problems.
Comparing these countries' with the United States Armed forces they have really made a poor thing (but the partial exception of the English).
Once aware of that, the choice could not be but the abolition by degrees of the call-up service, and also its unsatisfying costs/results ratio and the allocation of resources in better training of volunteers and the modernization of the material they must be equipped with.
On the report on October 8th 1999 attached to the bill concerning the suspension of the obligatory conscription in Italy (that must be restored only in case of war) it is made a detailed list of the “new operative requirements” our Armed forces must perform nowadays.
- Operative commitment agreed inside the Atlantic Alliance and the Western European Union
- Increasing participation to peace operations under the shield of the UNO and the Organization For Security And Cooperation In Europe
- Contribution to the European multinational forces: the EUROFOR and the EUROMARFOR along with Spain, Portugal and France; the Air Eurogroup along with France and United Kingdom; the Italian-Spanish Amphibious Force; the multinational Land Forces along with Slovenia and Hungary; the multinational Peace Force of the European South-East (MPFSEE) along with Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and Macedonia; the European Force of Peace, the SHIRBIG, on UNO's disposal
- National commitment for the defence of the territory and the contribution to safeguard the free institutions and the national collectivity in cases of public disasters.
It seems very meaningful, even if a little striking, that in an official document of the government “the defence of the territory", formerly the main target of the Armed forces in any country, is the last item.
But already the trend is this, and the list attached in the Italian DDL is worthy for everyone even if with greater or minor emphasis on the several items.

The passage from a conscript's army to a volunteer's army places a whole of new problems, not helping either other's experiences.
The first one in naturally the recruitment problem. In our welfare societies, where the sense of duty toward the country is not anymore very developed and phenomena as pacifism and conscientious objection are instead ever more common, finding every year 10-20.000 young available to enlist for three, five nine years is everything but easy.
Very good health, intelligence, at least the average one and a certain inclination to use ever more technological and sophisticated weapons: these the requirements.
How appeal these elements? In the United Kingdom the Armed forces constituted real recruitment units, going around in the country and participating to feasts, fairs and meetings where they illustrate the advantages of the military life “on field”.
These operations are supported by an intensive and often imaginative advertising campaign, founding on posters, radio and television spots, newspapers advertising addressing time by time to the will of security in employment or to the spirit of adventure of the applicants. Another mean very employed, mainly in the States is that of the “fringe benefits”: that is, it's given great importance to the possibility to carry out one's own instruction (and professional training) in sight of the reintegration into civil life by the means of privileged channels at the end of the service.
Then, naturally there's the chapter of pays: the law of market imposes that if the demand is scarce, the offer must be improved, that is a period of voluntary service in the Armed forces involves pays that are competitive as regard to other equivalent “professions”.
The jump of the pay represents one of the main problems in Italy that since ever expends for defence a little more than the half its allies spend.
To understand the difference it's enough to say that an Italian military costs in average 75 millions a year, training, maintenance and equipment enclosed while a Britain “professional” costs 200. It's evident that to achieve the fixed target of a voluntary service army with 190.000 men, instead of the current 270.000 men, our country must do a remarkable financial effort, and bring within five years the percentage of the DGP allocated for the defence from the current 1,16 to 1,8-1,9.
The passage to the professional army must indeed be accompanied by a renewal of the logistic structures.
Notwithstanding the optimism the government puts in planning the greater expenditures and the savings related to the new defence model, it cannot hide the trend, already in act since years and very pleasant for the centre-left majority, to a reduction of the military allocation that very soon must be upset.
At least in part the problems concerning the conversion are stressed (not only in Italy) by the bad publicity the armies of professionals have by public opinion. They evoke in many people images of repression, coups d'état, or at best of arrogant interventions in civil life.
Think about the scandal, exaggerated at all, arouse from some episodes f violence happened during the expedition to Somalia, or the periodical “trials” the “Folgore” must undergo for facts marginal the same and that is identified as the quintessence of Rambo's behaviour. That's why the announced suspension of the obligatory conscription, besides arousing the enthusiasm of the young that will gain a year of life, to say it this way, has also aroused so many doubts and critics, crossing the political alignment.
Theoretically a call-up army must be “left” a voluntary service army “right”. Really it is not like that.
There's someone as the military ordinary archbishop monsignor Marra, is worried about the entry in the Armed forces of groups of young fond of war and naturally inclined to violence. We will see.
By now, we can only state the end of an epoch, started with the Napoleonic wars and ended with the coming of the new world order, even if a very unstable arrangement.