Isis in metastasis and the Italian foreign strategy in industrial function

(by Massimiliano D'Elia) Many think that Isis was defeated in its state form after the battles, district by district in two key countries of the region. In Iraq and Syria, the campaign to overthrow the so-called caliphate project that Isis established in June 2014 has largely achieved its goal. After three and a half years, the international coalition has defeated and ousted the organization from at least 98% of the territory it had once conquered.

In practical terms, this means that the world no longer faces a threat on the same scale. The momentum that had enabled the organization to attract thousands of foreign fighters and their families has been cut off. The group's ability to expand and threaten other countries is severely diminished. Countries like Iraq and Syria, which once feared the ramifications of an evolving militant group, now have a breathing space to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Isis is currently undergoing an enormous effort to keep its existence and essence alive. The terrorist group has been in its weakest stage since summer 2014, in terms of manpower, finance and ability to attack or defend against attacks. As a result, its ideology and appeal have also been weakened. Those who have seen, firsthand, the group for what it is, or a ruthless organization famous for the ferocity of its militants who have shown the same malice towards the same Sunnis they claim to represent. The massacres of people that took place against the Shaytat tribe in Deir Ezzor, in eastern Syria, are terrifying.

The successes against ISIS represent an opportunity not only to kill the organization, but to prevent its resurrection. The organization was previously a "cancer" located in two countries, now it has turned into metastases, to use a medical syllogy, which can better express the state of the events taking place.

The ISIS in its official documents has always spoken of a long war, that is the will and the goal of feeding for a long time the war against the West, in any form. Although today the organization has been relegated to small areas of Syria and Iraq, it has been discovered that the same as a leopard shrub has branched into Libya, Somalia, Niger and so on. It has lost its local presence in two countries and has dispersed in many others. Likely it is even more dangerous now because it tends to destabilize more states. Although weak, the Isis has not been defeated at all. It is necessary to continue to operate to be able not to reorganize them under a single direction. More factions in different states and uncoordinated, would be the lesser evil.

The context of intervention by the West in African countries is very difficult because we are still moving according to national interests and without a common strategy. An example is France which in foreign policy does what it wants, does and undoes everything. In African countries, notoriously unstable, it is easy to make bilateral agreements, just give money in return, or promise huge gains and power over the territory. Nobody really cares about the population and what it is forced to suffer from the oppression of the various paramilitary factions. In this context, ISIS finds fertile ground because it manages to refine itself with the black market, the slave trade, the trafficking of human beings and so on.

North Africa represents, in many ways, the litmus test of the West's failure. The UN, NATO and the EU have demonstrated “non-strategy” on the Mediterranean emergency. They probably knowingly left the weight and the burden of the problem to the directly affected Western nations bordering the Mediterranean. France understood and immediately took this opportunity, often influencing the decisions of other countries such as Italy.

Today it will be decided to send 500 Italian soldiers to Niger, in fact.

Italy, therefore, will send hundreds of soldiers to the Niger desert to fight the traffickers who smuggle African migrants across the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea. In the coalition there will also be special forces units among the 470 Italian soldiers who will take up position about 100 kilometers south of the border with Libya and who will be quartered in Fort Madama, an outpost built by the French Foreign Legion in the 30s along the routes of the smuggling. In the first days of next year, an initial contingent of 120 soldiers and a hundred vehicles will fly to Gabon and then reach their destination 2.300 kilometers away by land. This intervention, writes the Times, reflects the Italian government's belief that the southern border of Libya has now become the frontier of Europe: a gateway for migrants that must be closed. The soldiers will help "defeat human traffickers and even terrorists" explained the Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni who at the beginning of December participated in the EU-Africa summit held in Paris with the participation of the leaders of Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania and in which joint efforts to fight jihadist terrorism in the African region of Sahel were discussed. The fact remains, notes the "Times", that the decision of the Italian government is rather surprising after years of conflicts with the French governments that began with the ousting of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, whose energy resources are disputed among state oil companies of Italy and France. The Italians, writes the Times columnist Tom Kington, are still very suspicious of the support the French give to General Khalifa Haftar, whose militias control Cyrenaica. "It is therefore ironic that Italy is now in Niger side by side with France", Gianandrea Gaiani, director of the online magazine Analysis Defense, told the Times, who also considers the statement by the head of Defense Staff, General Claudio Graziano, according to whom the mission in Niger does not foresee the use of Italian soldiers in combat. It will be difficult to counter the well-armed militias of traffickers and terrorists, he told the Times, only through training the Niger security forces and without ever being engaged on the battlefield. The latter eventuality alarms many in Italy: the mission will have to be approved by Parliament and not by the Council of Ministers and the oppositions are sharpening their weapons, especially the newly formed far-left coalition Liberi e Uguali.

Perhaps it escaped many that in 2018 Fincantieri and Stx France will decide the new perimeter of competences according to their industrial plans, for the civil part. For the military part it will take more time and the road map of the operation foresees the work of the study groups until 30 June next. In this long period, Italy will have to focus on the negotiating table with the Orizzonte Sistemi Navali Joint Venture, made up of 51% by Fincantieri and 49% by Leonardo.

It is therefore necessary to pay a price to bring Leonardo back into the Fincantieri-Stx France affair. Italy's participation in Niger could have the twofold utility: contributing to the fight against Isis by monitoring one of the gateways to Europe and pleasing the French, who would loosen their presence in that region, in view of the next industrial agreement in 2018. If this were really the case, Italy has shown that it knows how to interpret and reconcile opportunities, without waiting for the approval and / or resolutions of the EU, NATO and the UN.

Isis in metastasis and the Italian foreign strategy in industrial function