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Manlio Dinucci
It takes place in London, The 4 December, the North Atlantic Council of Heads of State and Government which celebrates the 70th anniversary of NATO, defined by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg "the most successful alliance in history".
An undeniable "success". Since the war demolished the Yugoslav Federation in 1999, NATO has expanded since 16 A 29 countries (30 if it now incorporates Macedonia), expanding eastwards close to Russia. "For the first time in our history - underlines Stoltenberg - we have combat-ready troops in the East of our Alliance". But the North Atlantic Treaty Organization went further, extending its war operations to the Afghan mountains and across the African and Middle Eastern deserts.
Now the Grand Alliance aims higher. At the London Summit - Stoltenberg announces - the leaders of the 29 member countries "will recognize space as our fifth operational field", which is added to the terrestrial ones, maritime, air and cyberspace. "Space is essential for the success of our operations", underlines the secretary general, suggesting that NATO will develop a military space program. It obviously does not provide details, informing, however, that NATO has signed a first contract from 1 billion dollars to modernize yours 14 Awacs aircraft. They are not mere radar aircraft but flying command centers, produced by the US company Boeing, for battle management across space systems.
Certainly hardly any of the European leaders (Prime Minister Conte for Italy), That the 4 December "they will recognize space as our fifth operational field", knows the NATO military space program, prepared by the Pentagon and by restricted European military leaders together with the major aerospace industries. Nor do the parliaments know it, like the Italian one, they accept any decision made by NATO under US command, without worrying about its politico-military and economic implications.
NATO is launched into space in the wake of the new Space Command created by the Pentagon last August with the purpose, declared by President Trump, to "ensure that American dominance in space is never threatened". Trump then announced the subsequent establishment of the United States Space Force, with the task of «defending vital American interests in space, the next battlefield of the war ". Russia and China accuse the US of opening the way to the militarization of space, warning of having the ability to respond. All this increases the danger of nuclear war.
Even if the NATO military space program is not yet known, One thing is certain: it will be extremely expensive. At the Summit Trump will press on European allies to bring their military spending to 2% or more than GDP. So far they have 8 countries: Bulgaria (which led her to the 3,25%, slightly below the 3,42% of the USA), Greece, Great Britain, Estonia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. The others, while remaining below the 2%, they are committed to increasing it.
Driven by huge US spending - 730 billions of dollars in 2019, beyond 10 times that of Russia - NATO's annual military expenditure, according to official data, surpasses i 1.000 billions of dollars. In reality it is higher than that indicated by NATO, since it does not include various items of a military nature: for example that of US nuclear weapons, registered in the budget not of the Pentagon but of the Department of Energy.
The Italian military expenditure, climbed from 13th to 11th place in the world, amounts in real terms to approx 25 billions of euros a year on the rise. Last June the Conte I government added 7.2 billion euros to it, also provided by the Ministry for Economic Development for the purchase of weapon systems. In October, in the meeting with the Secretary General of NATO, the Conte II government has undertaken to increase it permanently by about 7 billions of euros per year starting from 2020 (The print, 11 October 2019).
At the London Summit, another billions in public money will be requested from Italy to finance NATO's military operations in space, while there is no money to keep and rebuild the collapsing viaducts.
(the poster, 3 December 2019)