WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria: A natural aircraft carrier in the "enlarged Mediterranean" (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 For some time now there seems to be a renewed interest in the role that Sicily

will be able to play in the coming years in the eventful geopolitical framework
which sees the Mediterranean as a crucial junction of opposing interests between
world powers. To make this centrality clear, a new term has been coined:
Mediocean. That maritime (and also terrestrial) space which, since the opening of
the Suez Canal in 1869 and even more so with its doubling in 2015, connects the
Atlantic and Indo-Pacific routes, precisely where the game for hegemony between
USA and China. But the Italian Ministry of Defense prefers this term to that of
the enlarged Mediterranean, "A Region that includes areas immediately contiguous
to the Mediterranean "in the strict sense", incorporating the Middle East and the
Arabian Gulf and passing through the sub-Sahara belt, which from the Horn of
Africa, through the Sahel, it extends to the Gulf of Guinea: strategic quadrants
which, not incidentally, are the priority place of the international projection
(missions and operations) of the Armed Forces and the main object of our
cooperation plans", thus as defined in the document Defense and security strategy
for the Mediterranean, signed in May 2022 by the then minister Guerini, with the
aim of setting the political-military guidelines and identifying the resources
and tools for a strong presence and stability of Italy in this area.

Limes magazine insists a lot and on several occasions on the centrality of the
Mediterranean in world geopolitics and on the fact that Italy must adequately
equip itself to play a non-marginal role, which has dedicated two issues to this
theme: the first in February 2021 from title Italy at the front of chaos and a
second in August 2022 entitled The Italian sea and the war. In the editorial of
this last issue, the need for the Italian presence is argued as follows: "The
three generations born and lived in the privileges enjoyed for having snatched
the Second World War from the side of the lucky ones have evacuated history. And
war, a tragedy that threatens every community at irregular intervals. Caught
between oblivion of the past, unconsciousness of the present and inertia towards
the future, there are three probable outcomes: abandoning oneself to the destiny
that does not exist, tearing oneself apart in terror or sticking one's head in
the sand. Removal cultivated by the exhausted Europeanist pedagogy, which wants
us to be vegans in a world of omnivores. And he invites us to glory in it, almost
enjoying a superior dispensation from the noise of arms. We hope to re-educate
ourselves to reality before reality has us". And the stark reality for the
editors of Limes is that of war, which we must equip ourselves with, if we don't
want to end up overwhelmed by events. The Ministry of Defense responds to these
concerns in the aforementioned document: "The «Enlarged Mediterranean» is the
strategic dimension of reference for our nation, within which the State exercises
priority, but not exclusive, action in order to pursue the interests national
strategies. These include the set of actions, projects, ambitions and objectives
of the nation that contribute directly or indirectly to the prosperity and
success of the country system, i.e. those fundamental interests for our value,
political, economic, cultural and military system".

And it's not clear who influences who.

That a new centrality of the Mediterranean is actually confirmed by some economic
indicators. 20% of the world's maritime traffic passes through its routes, gas
pipelines, oil pipelines and telecommunications system cables linking Africa and
Europe are located in its depths, even more relevant today following the
Ukrainian war. For this reason, conferences and meetings promoted by institutions
and associations have recently been held. The most recent was held in Palermo on
21 December entitled Noi, il Mediterraneo, which was attended, albeit remotely,
by ministers Salvini and Musumeci. The president of the port system authority of
the western Sicilian sea Pasqualino Monti, who promoted the conference, hoped
that Sicily would become the hub of Europe. Another conference, to which we will
return later, took place in Syracuse from 27 to 29 October last. But a real
programmatic document for the economic development of the island - and what
development! - had already been drawn up by The European House-Ambrosetti which,
in collaboration with the Region of Sicily, conducted a study which culminated in
a Final Report , the "Act Tank Sicily - Political strategies for a Sicily - at
the center of the Mediterranean - open, attractive, connected".  The report was
presented on 25 March 2022 at Palazzo Belmonte Riso in Palermo and identifies
four areas of intervention: Environment and energy: industrialize the water
sector, build two waste-to-energy plants, reconvert contaminated industrial
sites, develop technologies for green and blue hydrogen , new investments in wind
and photovoltaic plants; Agrifood and large-scale retail trade, here everything
is aimed at making large-scale distribution grow with strong operators who expand
outside the region; Tourism and culture, the usual refrain of the "Sicily brand"
is repeated and the need to attract large national and international groups in
the hospitality sector; finally Infrastructural equipment, ranging from the
high-speed Messina-Catania-Palermo railway line, to the expansion of the ports of
Augusta - commercial - and of Catania - tourist -, to the arrangement of the
motorways, the bridge over the Strait is missing.

But let us return, in closing, to the Syracuse conference organized by the
Incontri a Siracusa association and entitled Sicily, the Mediterranean, Europe:
the challenges of energy and security. In the conference brochure, which was
attended by Defense Minister Crosetto, Romano Prodi, Joscka Fischer, Calogero
Mannino, members or former members of the Armed Forces and journalists, the
problem is posed without going around it: "From the Trinacria you can control the
Strait of Sicily from which the routes that connect the Atlantic to the
Indo-Pacific pass. Control of Sicily is, and will remain, central to the match
between the United States, China, India and Turkey." We are warned, there is no
escaping the destiny of colony and military outpost. In one of the appointments
of the conference, reasoning with Paolo Valentino, editorialist for Corriere
della Sera, Calogero Mannino, minister several times between the 1980s and 1990s,
supported the thesis of a Sicily hub, an important energy and military platform,
but which at the moment it remains "passive", not integrated, as according to him
happened for Friuli with the Aviano base, in a system in which political forces
and military forces collaborate and support each other to start a virtuous path
of development. In the vision of the old former long-time parliamentarian, even
the arrangement of the motorways would be necessary, not so much and not only for
their commercial importance, but more for military movements on an island so
important in the Atlantic defense system.

Beyond the ravings of the eighty-year-old Mannino, this is precisely the future
envisaged by the national and international ruling classes: an increasingly armed
island, at the service of big capital as well as the aspirations of hegemony of
an Italy, which dreams of a of a small regional power, perhaps imagining who
knows a new Libyan campaign against Turkey, no longer Ottoman.

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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