Through military lenses. Perception of security threats and jointness in the Italian Air Force

Abstract

The article explores Italian Air Force (ITAF) officers’ perceptions of military transformation and of changes in the global security environment. While several studies have addressed the challenges faced by European armed forces in the last two decades, the methods used have been rather uniform, mostly relying on in-depth case studies through qualitative interviews and analysis of strategic documents and budgets. Using data from an original, and unique, survey conducted among ITAF captains (N = 286), this article focuses on servicemen’s attitudes towards the transformations of the global security environment and the changes occurring (and needed) within the Italian Air Force. After describing the “military view” on these topics, the article provides preliminary statistical evidence on the links between individual experiences, views, and change. The research aims to contribute to the broader debate on military transformation by adding a novel dimension of analysis and providing new insights on the micro-level aspects of learning.

Acknowledgements

The Authors would like to thank the Direzione Studi of the Istituto di Scienze Militari Aeronautiche of the Italian Air Force, and in particular Col. Cristiano Galli, Col. Salvatore Melillo and Col. Massimo Nardelli, as well as the participants to panels at the 2017 Annual Convention of the International Studies Association in Baltimore and at the 2017 Italian Political Science Association Conference in Milan for their comments. The mistakes remain, of course, our own.

Notes

1. The concept of “force transformation” has emerged more recently as an attempt to describe the changes that armed forces should undergo in response to technological change (Farrell et al. 2013).

2. For a comprehensive review of military innovation studies, which goes beyond the purpose of this article, see Norheim-Martinsen (2016), Griffin (2016), Grissom (2006) and Evangelista (1988).

3. Griffin (2016) criticizes such a cultural turn on the grounds of “theoretical conservatism” because culture has been rarely considered an independent driver of transformation.

4. For instance, Caforio (2013) has stressed role played by NATO in shaping comprehensive and counter-insurgency approaches during the operation ISAF in Afghanistan.

5. For a review of theories on military attitudes see, among others: Avant and Lebovic (2000).

6. Also for this reason, other scholars focused specifically on the role played by learning and military education. According to Griffin, military education can be “incredibly revealing” (Griffin 2016, p. 17) about learning cultures of militaries because it can highlight crucial features, but we “still don’t have empirical studies on bottom-up learning in peace”. Existing empirical analyses on military education are generally focused on the curriculum content (Foot 2002), the main outputs of the courses (Kennedy and Nielson 2002), the group interactions, the educational environment. For a comprehensive and updated review on “professional military education” see Paget (2016).

7. For instance, all European states abandoned conscription, downsize their armies, investing in new technology. See Meijer and Weiss (forthcoming).

8. For an exception see Caforio (2000).

9. Ministero della Difesa, Modello di difesa. Lineamenti di sviluppo delle FF.AA. negli anni '90 (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 1991).

10. Ministero della Difesa, Libro Bianco della Difesa (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 2002).

11. Ministero della Difesa, Libro Bianco della Difesa e della Sicurezza (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 2015).

12. It is worth noticing how ITAF played a primary role in some of the most relevant post-Cold War Italian operations, such as “Desert Storm” (Iraq, 1991), “Allied Force” (Kosovo, 1999), and “Unified Protector” (Libya, 2011).

13. See, among others, Nones and Marrone (2011).

14. Ministero della Difesa, Concetto Strategico del Capo di Stato Maggiore (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 2005).

15. Ministero della Difesa, Investire in Sicurezza (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 2005).

16. See, for instance, Ministero della Difesa, La Trasformazione Net-Centrica. Il Futuro dell’Interoperabilità Multinazionale e Interdisciplinare (Roma: Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 2005.

17. For a detailed analysis of the new institutions see Coticchia and Moro (2015).

18. A recent exception is Zapfe (2016).

19. For a broader analysis on interstate cooperation in defense see Pannier (2013).

20. For instance: Woodall (2000, p. 310). See Woodall also regarding the main obstacles to “joint interoperability”.

21. However, several crucial aspects, such as personnel management, still remained in the hands of each service. The most recent White Paper aims specifically at addressing such problems. See Locatelli et al. (2016).

22. For a critique, see, among others: Owens (1997).

23. For a different perspective (e.g. on how jointness could also inhibit military innovation) see Feaver (2003) and Gholz and Sapolsky (2000).

24. For a review see: Farrell, Rynning and Terriff (2013). For the case of Italy: Coticchia and Moro (2015).

25. See, for instance: Mukherjee (2016).

26. The "Corso normale” is a semester-long set of classes destined to officers who entered the ranks of ITAF through the Air Force Accademia (getting their Bachelor’s Degree there), while “Corso di perfezionamento” is 12-week endeavour destined to officers who joined the services with high school or university degrees obtained elsewhere.

27. As already mentioned, to assess the role played by technology we started by looking at the air force officers, given one would reasonably expect considerable importance to be attributed to technology by them. We made this choice in addition because the Italian air force, which has been rarely investigated by the literature in the post-Cold War era, has been affected by technological transformation “more than other services” (Locatelli 2015, p. 228). Thus, if the respondents do not attribute the expected relevance to technology, the role of this supposed driver of jointness could be reasonably excluded for all other services.

28. See, for a use of exploratory survey with snowball sampling methods: Mahnken and FitzSimonds (2003).

29. The five sections are: 1. General information; 2. The new international environment; 3. Technological change and armed forces; 4. Doctrinal evolution and learned lessons, and; 5. Adaptation and organizational change. The authors provide additional information on the survey as well as on the data-set codebook upon request.

30. Only one respondent did not answer to this question.

31. In 2005 Italy took the command of the Western Area of ISAF, with increasing tasks. However, a substantial continuity marked the role played by the Air Force within multinational operation(s) in Afghanistan.

32. For instance, the most recent Italian White Paper (2015) shares this perspective.

33. See, for instance, the “National Strategic Framework for Cyberspace and Security”, Presidency of the Council of Ministers (2003), available at: https://www.enisa.europa.eu/topics/national-cyber-security-strategies/ncss-map/IT_NCSS.pdf

34. The survey substantially replay the question posed by Mahnken and FitzSimonds (2003, p. 18, Figure 1): “Military forces employing information-age technology, doctrine, and organizations will enjoy a substantial edge over those that do not”.

35. See: https://www.sicurezzanazionale.gov.it/sisr.nsf/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/italian-national-strategic-framework-for-cyberspace-security.pdf

36. Also in this case, the survey follows the design adopted by Mahnken and FitzSimonds (2003, 56), who investigated “new technology, operational concepts, and organizations”.

37. As stated above, the survey is almost the first comprehensive assessment of Italian armed forces’ perceptions on security issues and military transformation. Thus, change is not assessed in comparison to former views and findings, but rather the paper aims at illustrating the perceived drivers of current and future transformation.

38. This variable, capturing the overall perception of the importance of “interforzizzazione”, is therefore a discrete variable that ranges from 3 (a respondent strongly disagreeing to all three questions: 1 + 1 + 1 = 3) to 15 (a respondent completely agreeing with all three statements: 5 + 5 + 5 = 15). The results obtained by employing separately the three variables do not differ substantially across models and remain particularly stable regarding the key finding. This confirms that using the aggregated variable is a parsimonious choice that does not conceal any meaningful variance.

39. It is worth observing that the current literature on post-Cold War Italian defence illustrates the relevance of jointness for all Italian military operations (for a review, Coticchia and Moro 2015).

40. See: Ignazi et al. (2012).