AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

By Gianandrea Gaiani (translated by L. Pavese) Every western government has expressed satisfaction, and the non-governmental organizations even expressed their enthusiasm, after the seal, by the General Assembly of the United Nations, of the new international treaty on the sale of conventional weapons, the ATT. It seems like nobody has noticed the curious paradox of this treaty, considering that it was promoted by the major Western exporters of weaponry. First among them the United States, who alone sells more than half of all the weapons that are exported in the world, followed by Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. In concrete terms, the plan won’t have much of a chance to be actually implemented, because it is partially contradictory and many of its clauses are really unenforceable, or are subject to interpretation; especially in view of the fact that most of the on-going wars are being fought by rebel movements opposing states and regular armies. The t...

The most important part of this July 16 article (while the war in Gaza is raging), which I translated from the Italian on-line defense magazine Analisi Difesa , are the last two lines. They reveal what should be clear to anyone who can count, and possesses a little knowledge of military technology; that is, the fact that the terrorist organization Hamas, that controls Gaza (hopefully not for long), actually has a certain strategic advantage over Israel. Hamas is capable of producing large quantities of inexpensive low-technology rocket projectiles (or modifying existing ones), and now also simple unmanned aircraft, that can be launched into Israeli territory. The Israeli military is forced to respond to the threat by developing and fielding anti-missiles systems (like Iron Dome and Patriot), which are much more expensive, and can be "saturated," for example by salvos of multiple rockets, fired simultaneously. A system like Iron Dome won't be able to follow and ...

Italian F-35's over Venice. Illustration by  Roberto Zanella During the final phase of the second world war, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters were a thorn in the side of the Italian Royal Air Force, and later the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana. Today, in a very contested election campaign, an aircraft by the same name, the F-35 Lightning II, has become a thorny political issue. The following is a translation of an article by Gianandrea Gaiani, which I am able to publish by courtesy of the author and the editors of the online daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana in which it originally appeared. Many thanks to J.J.P for reviewing the English text. Your comments will be greatly appreciated. Leonardo Pavese Who needs the F-35, really? by Gianandrea Gaiani How many votes does defense spending really bring? The easy answer to this question seems to have stimulated Italian politicians to look for consensus, confronting in a populist and simp...