The freedom with which the U.S. military used its Italian bases in the Iraq War is a case in point. As a start, the Italian government allowed U.S. forces to employ them even though their use for a war pursued outside the context of NATO may violate the terms of the 1954 basing agreement. A classified May 2003 cable sent by U.S. Ambassador to Italy Melvin Sembler and released by WikiLeaks shows that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government gave the Pentagon "virtually everything" it wanted. "We got what we asked for," wrote Sembler, "on base access, transit, and overflights, ensuring that forces... could flow smoothly through Italy to get to the fight."
For its part, Italy appears to have benefited directly from this cooperation. (Some say that shifting bases from Germany to Italy was also meant as a way to punish Germany for its lack of support for the Iraq War.) According to a 2010 report from Jane's Sentinel Security Assessment, "Italy's role in the war in Iraq, providing 3,000 troops to the U.S.-led effort, opened up Iraqi reconstruction contracts to Italian firms, as well as cementing relations between the two allies." Its role in the Afghan War surely offered similar benefits. Such opportunities came amid deepening economic troubles, and at a moment when the Italian government was turning to arms production as a major way to revive its economy. According to Jane's, Italian weapons manufacturers like Finmeccanica have aggressively tried to enter the U.S. and other markets. In 2009, Italian arms exports were up more than 60%.
In October 2008, the two countries renewed a Reciprocal Defense Procurement Memorandum of Understanding (a "most favored nation" agreement for military sales). It has been suggested that the Italian government may have turned Dal Molin over to the U.S. military -- for free -- in part to ensure itself a prominent role in the production of "the most expensive weapon ever built," the F-35 fighter jet, among other military deals. Another glowing 2009 cable, this time from the Rome embassy's Chargà © d'Affaires Elizabeth Dibble, called the countries' military cooperation "an enduring partnership." It noted pointedly how Finmeccanica (which is 30% state-owned) "sold USD 2.3 billion in defense equipment to the U.S. in 2008 [and] has a strong stake in the solidity of the U.S.-Italy relationship."
Of course, there's another relevant factor in the Pentagon's Italian build-up. For the same reasons American tourists flock to the country, U.S. troops have long enjoyed la dolce vita there. In addition to the comfortable living on suburban-style bases, around 40,000 military visitors a year from across Europe and beyond come to Camp Darby's military resort and "American beach" on the Italian Riviera, making the country even more attractive.
The Costs of the Pentagon's Pivots
Italy is not about to take Germany's place as the foundation of U.S. military power in Europe. Germany has long been deeply integrated into the U.S. military system, and military planners have designed it to stay that way. In fact, remember how the Pentagon convinced Congress to hand over $600 million for a new base and related construction in Vicenza? The Pentagon's justification for the new base was the Army's need to bring troops from Germany to Vicenza to consolidate the 173rd brigade in one place.
And then, last March, one week after getting access to the first completed building at Dal Molin and with construction nearly finished, the Army announced that it wouldn't be consolidating the brigade after all. One-third of the brigade would remain in Germany. At a time when budget cuts, unemployment, and economic stagnation for all but the wealthiest have left vast unmet needs in communities around the United States, for our $600 million investment, a mere 1,000 troops will move to Vicenza.
Even with those troops staying in Germany, Italy is fast becoming one of several new pivot points for U.S. warmaking powers globally. While much attention has been focused on President Obama's "Asia pivot," the Pentagon is concentrating its forces at bases that represent a series of pivots in places like Djibouti on the horn of Africa and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, Bahrain and Qatar in the Persian Gulf, Bulgaria and Romania in Eastern Europe, Australia, Guam, and Hawai'i in the Pacific, and Honduras in Central America.
Our bases in Italy are making it easier to pursue new wars and military interventions in conflicts about which we know little, from Africa to the Middle East. Unless we question why we still have bases in Italy and dozens more countries like it worldwide -- as, encouragingly, growing numbers of politicians, journalists, and others are doing -- those bases will help lead us, in the name of American "security," down a path of perpetual violence, perpetual war, and perpetual insecurity.
David Vine, a Tom Dispatch regular, is associate professor of anthropology at American University, in Washington, DC. He is the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. He has written for the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Guardian , and Mother Jones , among other places. He is currently completing a book about the effects of U.S. military bases located outside the United States. For more of his writing, visit www.davidvine.net.
Copyright 2013 David Vine
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