The Transformation of Italian Armed Forces in Comparative Perspective

Adapt, Improvise, Overcome?

Fabrizio Coticchia, Francesco N. Moro

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317013624
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Military Science & Technology
• Index: Technology & Engineering

European armed forces have undergone deep changes in the past two decades. Given the breadth of the debate and the size of transformations that took place, it is somewhat surprising that relatively few academic studies have directly dealt with changes in force structure of European militaries, and the Italian armed forces in particular. The focus of this book is the organizational dimension of the restructuring of armed forces through 3 different lenses: doctrine and strategic framework, budget and resource allocation, and force structure and deployment. The key issues addressed relate to how these factors interact in shaping transformation. Of particular interest is the theme of learning, which is how armed forces endogenize change in the short and long run. This study provides valuable insights into the extent to which armed forces manage to adapt to the emerging strategic and operational challenges they have to face and to illustrate the weight of institutional legacies, resource constraints and inter-organizational learning in shaping transformation. Focusing on the Italian case in comparative perspective and based on a large variety of military operations from airstrikes to peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, the book provides an innovative viewpoint on military transformation and significantly contributes to our understanding of contemporary security that is deeply shaped by the lessons learnt in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Libya.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Armed Forces in Europe after the Cold War: Activism and Transformation

‘Improvise, adapt, overcome’ so the Marine Corps’ mantra goes, as popularized by Sergeant Gunny Highway/Clint Eastwood when warning his soldiers about the mutable nature of real war. Preparation to face an extreme, and to some extent unpredictable, set of events is needed, and it is based on the ability to blend learning from the past with a vision of what might be new in the future. If this is difficult for a trained group of individuals, it is even more problematic for complex organizations like the modern military. Not surprisingly, therefore, the transformation of armed forces has been one of the most difficult tasks in human societies, where failure is frequent, problems are abundant, and no easy solutions exist. Accordingly, there is no grand theory of change that has been able to account for the diverse set of factors that drive change, or able to account for its success.

The Western armed forces that emerged from the Cold War had to face radical change in the strategic context, primarily the threats that they had been designed to face (Luttwak, 1996; Freedman, 2006). The process was further complicated by the lack of a clear new mission able to replace territorial defence and thus be the benchmark for strategic planning. First came the idea that the end of the Cold War had brought a ‘peace dividend’ that could lead to major reductions in personnel and overall budgets in the defence sector (Chan, 1995). As the idea gained ground, the era of humanitarian interventions, that is the use of military force to limit and bring to an end conflicts that caused massive civilian suffering, exhibited a new use of armed forces (Bradol, 2004; Kaldor and Salamon, 2006; Smith, 2006; Bellamy, 2009). The world – or at least the world with which the military must deal – changed again after September 11, when Western armed forces entered a period of full and continuous deployment. The interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least in a second phase, came to epitomize counterinsurgency as a key (possibly the key) mission that armed forces should perform (Nagl, 2005; Kilkullen, 2009). Now, with the sunset of counterinsurgency and the re-emergence of regional rivalries – from Eastern Europe to the South and North China seas – some commentators wonder whether the past twenty years and more of interventions and defence policies in the transatlantic alliance have been just a big ‘mistake’ driven by ‘flawed strategic assumptions’ (Brown, 2014).

No wonder that the transformation of armed forces followed a tortuous path, and often did not seem perfectly equipped to face the challenge du jour. After four decades of relative stability, the missions for the military have constantly changed in the past two decades. On both sides of the Atlantic, the debate on the direction and the depth of transformations has been animated. In the US, the matter is the subject of intense and constant discussion on the extent to which force structure, posture, and doctrine have changed (or should have changed), giving rise to a rich and eclectic body of literature (Cohen, 1996; Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1997; Biddle, 2004; Gray, 2007; Farrell, Rynning and Terriff, 2013).

In Europe (especially continental Europe), however, the debate has assumed peculiar features. It has often focused on the integration of defence policies, which has for long been one of the objectives of the proponents of a more cohesive European Union. Since the failure of the EDC (European Defence Community) in the 1950s there has been a lively public debate, which intensified after the end of the Cold War, on how that process should proceed and why it was not going as planned (Bigo, 1996; Missiroli, 2005; Blockmans and Wessel, 2009). The inability to act decisively in the Balkans was clear evidence, the divisions on Iraq (but also, later, on Libya) almost definitive proof. This has continued in recent years, and while calls for European defence follow every crisis, real integration has not yet come about. In 2013 President of the European Council Van Rompuy has acknowledged this trend by pointing out that only a few European countries seize opportunities for military cooperation, despite the advantages ‘in terms of savings and sharing of best practices’ (EUCO, 2013). The European Council has accordingly called on the Member States ‘to deepen defence cooperation by improving the capacity to conduct missions and operations and by making full use of synergies in order to improve the development and availability of the required civilian and military capabilities’ (EU Council Conclusions, 2013).

Filling the Gap

Academic research has followed these developments closely, mostly focusing on the political level and on issues such as the creation of a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) or a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP); and the Europeanization of defence policy (Mérand, 2008) has featured heavily in the debate. From several standpoints, however, the seminal article by Christopher Hill on the ‘capabilities-expectations gap’ (1993) is still the key interpretative text on both practice and theory concerning ESDP/CSDP. Other works have focused on the political and grand strategic level, adapting mainstream IR theory to some puzzles in European defence (Posen, 2006; Davidson, 2011).

With a few notable exceptions concerning general (Vennesson et al., 2009; Farrell, Rynning and Terriff, 2013; Missiroli, 2013) or more specific operational issues (Farrell, 2010; Catignani, 2012), the changes undergone by single countries have been relatively unexplored. This is a quite interesting feature, given that the armed forces constitute the main agents of the process. An effective shift in European defence planning would in fact require more detailed assessment of the military transformation than has occurred in recent years, with careful consideration of national defence restructuring processes. Hence the transformation of European armed forces should be analysed also from the standpoint of how specific mission requirements and operational experiences have shifted adaptation from politico/strategic-level discourses to organizational change, especially in light of the profound changes that have occurred in the past two decades. This is all the more necessary because, in particular since 9/11, the armed forces of European countries (such as Italy, France and the UK) have been involved in a number of large-scale operations, which created strong pushes for transformation. The premise of the study is that, with access to other major resources (primarily financial) precluded, it is increasingly useful to focus on issues such as adaptation and organizational learning as crucial elements of transformation.

This book is about the change in Italian armed forces since 2001, a year which marked a watershed by ushering in an era of constant military interventions, starting with Afghanistan. The time-span considered into the analysis ends with Libya and its immediate aftermath.¹ Considering a larger period, spanning from the end of the Cold War, might have provided a more complete analysis. However, focusing on the after-2001 makes sense for especially three reasons. First, military interventions of the second period are qualitatively different from those of the Nineties. It is not just the number of troops, but the qualitative features of the missions, mostly due to the severe conflicts (with the possible exception of Lebanon) that were ongoing while Italian operations occurred. These operations were also, at least in the case of Afghanistan, considerably longer than any previously undertaken. This is also linked to interactions with allies, which were both deeper and more continuous. Second, because the overall change in this phase is so large, and as a large driver for this change is to be found in the missions themselves, focusing on a more restricted period of time allows for more economies of scale in the narrative.

This choice also allows maximizing the theoretical value of this research. Theoretically, in fact, the aim of this work is neither to provide a grand theory of what drives military innovation nor to assess all theories that might affect transformation of armed forces – and more broadly defence policy. Others have been already dealing with Italian foreign policy-making and the nexus between domestic and international politics (Brighi, 2013), the interaction among strategic narratives, public opinion and military operations abroad (Coticchia and De Simone, 2014), the Parliament role in defence policy and civil-military relations (D’Amore, 2001). As we show further in Chapter 2, discussion on European defence and security policy already plays an important role in academic literature on defence in Europe. Here, we aim to contribute to the analysis of how complex processes such as defence transformation unfold (Farrell, Rynning and Terriff, 2013). The book attempts to identify the key-elements with which to describe where Italian armed forces (and, to some extent, the French and British ones) stand after more than a decade of intense activity. To this end, the manuscript focuses on new empirical evidence of how the Italian armed forces, compared and contrasted with the French and British ones, have devised their doctrines, their force structure, and their budgets. In particular, it wonders how and to what extent factors such as doctrine and strategic framework, budget and resource allocation, force structure and deployment interact in shaping transformation. The book addresses the challenges that these forces have encountered when deployed; how doctrine and assets available were coherent with mission requirements, how they have adapted in the course of missions; the lessons that they have taken (or sent) home. A complex view on how learning happens becomes all the more important for organizations if they are to adapt to new challenges. Recognition of the complexity of the phenomenon should not discard an attempt to provide theoretically-relevant insights. Here, we move into three major directions. First, we show the importance of looking at bottom-up sources of military learning at least in order to better grasp the mechanisms of adaptation (Grissom, 2006). Second, we hint at the importance of mechanisms of inter-organizational learning, as – although the push for change comes from operational experience – the specific paths decided depend not only on solutions provided internally but also on the adoption of practices that come from the experience of allies (the US and NATO to begin with). In other words, to assess transformation from more than a decade of continuous deployment also looking at the continuous interaction with partners allows making a contribution to the theories of military innovation by analysing a somewhat overlooked element. Third, we want to show how important organizational feedback is. By this we mean in particular to look at institutionalization of lessons learned, that is how military organizations recast their institutional design to address the challenges coming from operational experience.

Italy in Comparative Perspective

One of the key features of change in Italian, British and French armed forces is the interaction between two competing pressures. On one hand, there is the above-mentioned activism, with military forces constantly deployed in different theatres. After 2001, Italian armed forces intervened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Libya. The French ones avoided Iraq, and the British ones Lebanon but both engaged in missions elsewhere. On the other hand, this did not happen in a situation of increasing resources devoted to defence. It is true that these missions received funding beyond the conventional defence budget, but the latter had already been considerably decreased in the previous decades (in relative terms) in the three countries. Budget constraints in previous years, more so than after 2001, had determined the structure of forces under this constant pressure to act.

Limited resources have had several consequences. Growing financial constraints gradually affected the sustainability of the military commitment in operations. The capacity to deploy a large number of troops around the world naturally requires an adequate amount of resources, especially for training and equipment. After 2011, the overall number of Italian military personnel deployed abroad was considerably reduced: from 9,000 in 2001 to less than 5,000 in 2013.² Tight budget constraints was a crucial determinant of this decline. Moreover, public opinion was increasingly in favour of a reduction in global military engagement amid a context of financial crisis (IAI-CIRCaP, 2014).

Second, the downsizing of financial resources has deeply influenced Italy’s unbalanced defence budget. In fact, a decrease in overall resources has worsened the asymmetric relationships among different budget items (personnel, operations and investments). Expenditure on personnel, which accounts for the bulk of the budget (around 65 per cent in recent years), has increased in correspondence with a general reduction of other entries because of its different degree of elasticity.

In France and UK, the pattern has not been particularly different. Well after the financial crisis had affected state budgets and led to thorough revision of defence policy, important military missions were undertaken by choice. Thus, at the same time when important weapons acquisition programmes were being either cut or delayed, for instance in the sector of fighter jets, a mission involving the extensive use of air power was launched in Libya. France’s mission in Mali demonstrated its desire to play a role in Africa also through the use of force, notwithstanding the concurrent adoption of austerity measures at home. These factors combine to make military transformation in Europe interesting from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint. Why, more specifically, Italy? The rationale for this choice is two-fold. First, Italy has been long neglected, and little information and analysis are available. This contrasts with the activism of Italian foreign and security policy in terms of participation in military operations abroad (Ignazi, Giacomello and Coticchia, 2012): Italy was the only major European country to take part in all the major operations mentioned above. In the first half of 2014, Italy had 5,000 troops deployed in thirty-three missions around the globe. However, since 2000, its overall troop strength has varied from 6,500 to almost 10,000, with an average of 8,000 units employed abroad. Since 1989, Italy’s armed forces have participated in more operations than in the previous 40 years (Coticchia, 2014b). Moreover, Italy is one of the principal contributors to the UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations: in 2012 Italy was the twentieth country in terms of military and police forces deployed in UN PKOs, and the number one European contributor.³ Overall, post-bipolar military dynamism has transformed the static approach adopted by Italy during the Cold War. Often times, the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano argued that the armed forces are today the main instrument of Italian foreign policy. As stated by Brighi:

Since the 1990s the country has raised its profile in European affairs, in transatlantic relations and in various arenas of the globe, with its troops, interests and its resources [ … ] Though never an easy or straightforward partner, Italy is a necessary and inescapable one – a country that simply cannot be taken for granted in contemporary international affairs’. (2013, p. 6)

Second, as mentioned above, Italy had to undertake large defence budget cuts earlier and more thoroughly than other European countries. As the impact of the recent economic crisis on defence is still unfolding, focusing on Italy can provide insights into mechanisms that drive resource allocation and the outcomes of specific choices. The need to renovate the armed forces has gradually come to be considered a shared urgent need. Although other European countries are facing the same problems, the Italian crisis is particularly severe. In addition, ‘bipolar inefficiencies’ still affect the composition of Italy’s armed forces, and the sustainability of the entire military instrument is widely perceived to be at risk.

Both financial constraints and the challenges raised by regional crises (from Libya to Sahel, from the Horn of Africa to Eastern Europe) have induced Italian governments to re-think national defence, after years of very limited strategic reflection. In 2014 the cabinet finally announced that a new Libro Bianco (White Paper) would be drafted before the end of the year (Coticchia and Moro, 2014). The debate on Italian defence is more needed than ever, as the issues concerning transformation of the national military instrument are politically very significant.

Empirically, the analysis is based on the extensive use of primary sources, starting with interviews with experts, practitioners and military officers mostly conducted in the period from Winter 2013 to Summer 2014. We also relied on archival documents, oral and written accounts of relevant military figures, doctrine manuals, and professional military periodicals. In particular, information on Italy derives from interviews and informal discussions with several senior military officers (including Generals) from the main Brigades involved in military operations abroad (Folgore Paratroopers, Pinerolo mechanized infantry and Taurinense Alpine), staff officers of the General Staff of the Army, officers from Air Force and Navy, staff officers at NATO. Italian official documents from the past 20 years (with a focus on those produced after 2001) have been examined, together with publications of the single services with reference to specific aspects of missions or changes occurring in doctrine, assets, structure. Interviewees also provided grey literature that was useful in reconstructing specific aspects of transformation. A complete list of interviews as well of other material used in the book can be found in the Appendix.

Finally, a note on why we taking into account France and the UK too. This is not a classical comparative analysis designed for standard theory testing. We believe, however, that the introduction of two extra cases is useful for at least two reasons. First, looking at the two major military powers in Europe allows for a clearer picture of where Italy stands. This is specifically the objective of Chapters 3 and 4. Other European powers such as Germany or Spain do not have similar patterns in military activism, for instance, and would not have had the same illustrative function. We believe that such a comparison also allows for some theoretically relevant insight. Though they are very different in terms of historical trajectories and overall resources, in fact, the three countries show similar pressures. This is especially true with reference to the constraints in terms of available funding and to the requirements coming from constant deployment. A comparison will show how, though differences in several fields remain (from the attitude towards autonomous development of doctrine to communication and strategic narratives), some elements indicate how isomorphic pressures also led to a certain convergence, if not in the outcomes at least in the mechanisms that underpin innovation processes. Further research might certainly better grasp causal mechanisms in comparative perspective, perhaps taking into account a wider number of countries within NATO.

Plan of the Book

The next chapter reviews the existing literature and provides the theoretical framework for the book. It sets out the methodological premise of the study, arguing that more in-depth analysis of interaction between macro and meso-level variables is needed, and that a qualitative analysis that includes interviews and analysis of primary sources is required. The chapter lays the bo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Military Transformation: The Quest for Coherence and Adjustment
• 3 Force Transformation: Italy in Comparative Perspective
• 4 Force Deployment and Field Experience from Afghanistan to Libya
• 5 Patterns of Learning and Change
• 6 Conclusions
• References
• Appendix
• Index