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| Table of contents no. 1/2009 |
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The recent Reform of the Intelligence
by Gianni LETTA
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Strategy and spontaneism
poles of new terrorism
by Emanuela C. DEL RE |
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Answers by: Evelin G. LINDNER, Debidatta AUROBINDA MAHAPATRA, Vincenzo PACE, Valeria FIORANI PIACENTINI
It was predictable that terrorism would have moved its frontiers always more in advance. On the other hand, the globalized world, as it is defined today, continually breaks down frontiers although, paradoxically, raising others. The result is that the concept of frontier in itself, changes in continuation, not only in meaning, but also in value, in the sense of the weight it has, not only on world politics, but also on the individual. The de-territorialization, which magically allows migrants, all over the world, to preserve strong roots with the Country of origin, through the so-called small media, softening the lacerating separation, at the same time, abolishes the borders of the propaganda, which rebounds undisturbed and with unpredictable effects from the satellites and informatics networks... (Photo Ansa) |
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| Essays and articles |
|  | For about a decade, Italy has had legislation on privacy, and an institution delegated to guarantee the protection of personal data. In the same ten years, enormously disproportionate technology and instrumentation has been developed, able to damage communication and store and preserve any type of information for absolutely indeterminable periods. The manifestation of devastating international conflicts and a new distribution of the populations favoured by globalization have suggested and, at times, imposed penetrating forms of control on the persons united in the construction of huge archives of data. Today, the possibility of disposing of a huge mass of data belongs also to the business world and to the private individual who operates in the civil society.
A threat to privacy also comes from possible misuses generated in the world of economic interests. Finally, to the phenomena of a global and structural type must be added episodes which have given rise to hypothesize on further pathologies... | | | |
|  | In this paper, Professor Pio Marconi deals with the debate on the security and the new fears developing in Italy and the West, and introduces some new elements of evaluation. The insecurity, according to the author, does not derive from a disproportionate explosion of pathologies, neither is it ascribable to the construction or manipulation of the media. The insecurity, according to the sociologist, Beck, derives also from the preoccupation for the type of public response to the emergence of new threats. In the face of the difficulty of matching the strategies of prevention to the social needs, in Europe and Italy, a plurality of self-defence proposals are emerging from the lower levels. The risk of spontaneous drives does not lie in the breakdown of the centralized conception of the prevention, but could lurk in the incompleteness, in the occasionality of the remedies...(Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | To speak of “Deterrence” or, as the French say, “”Dissuasion” might have seemed a reasonably clear concept during the Cold War, in the sense that the nuclear balance between the East and the West carried the fear of retaliation: today, it is all much more complicated. The analysis of Mario Rino Me, presents the question in its modern meaning, with all the facets that it implies and, above all, widens the vision and the dimension itself of the Deterrence. At the same pace, however, the levels of risk “proliferate”, which are no longer simply connected to the nuclear threat, but are extending to the economic “default” of entire countries, to international terrorism and to the presence of the great criminality, as well as to the area crises. The author gives us a new and more pertinent view of the idea of “Deterrence”. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | When the mafia becomes silent, it means that it is engrossed in business. If, in the Sicilian streets, the killings are not as they once were, If the season of attacks is finished, in short, if Cosa Nostra seems to have disappeared, with the exception of sporadic and ephemeral spurts of flame, this we owe to the actions of Magistrates, Police and Carabinieri, who have arrested the bigger bosses, hundred of “picciotti” (those in the bottom ranks of the mafia) and collectors of the “pizzo” (protection money), but it could also be the result of a strategic choice. The phenomenon of the present “submersion” of the mafia, of its capacity to adapt itself to the changing social, economic and political conditions is the theme that confronts Alfonso Sabella, Magistrate of the Anti-mafia District Direction, a man who has hunted down some of the most infamous and ferocious fugitives from justice. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | In the Italian Legal System the utilizable normative measures to attack and confiscate the illicit wealth accumulated by the organized crime are indeed numerous, with the consequent difficulties, however, at both the interpretive and applicative levels. In this contribution, the author analyzes – with qualified meticulousness – the most delicate and complex legislative aspects, also in light of the modifications introduced by the Law No. 125/2008. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | Last March 6th, a national daily newspaper reported news connected with the launching of a financial product, structured on the default of a basket of Countries, in which Italy represented the Country of the highest probability. The diffusion of this product was to have been accompanied by the diffusion of a confidential report, of negative content, on Italy. This situation represents an example of how one can speculate on the financial image of a Country, negatively influencing the expectations of solvency. The heavy internal debit position with respect to the GDP, in fact, exposes Italy, in a particular way, to the risk of credit (the Italian State represents the subject towards which there is the largest demand in the world of coverage from insolvency in the fulfilment of its obligations), but also stimulates the insider trading finalized to wager on its improbable default...(Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | The positions of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, on the Middle-East, have renewed relations with Israel and the Arab Countries, above all, those concerned in a conflict which, for sixty years has involved the entire area - without any sign of a solution. It is common belief that the American Administration intends to bring the armed confrontation to an end, with a compromise which should allow Israelis and Palestinians to realize their respective aspirations: security and an end to the threat to survival, for the former; the building of a homeland and a free and independent State for the latter. According to Fawaz A. Gerges, Professor in International Affairs and Middle-East Studies at the Sarah Lawrence College, an Arab-Israeli solution mediated by the United States would lessen the tension in the entire Region and, above all, diminish the appeal of the religious fanaticism, while opening the way to the solution of numerous other problems that involve Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
|  | Africa is a Continent “at risk”. The economic crisis and the consequent sharp fall in the prices of raw materials, coupled with the failure of market demand – consequence of the crisis of the technically advanced, so-called “developed” Countries – have provoke the loss of jobs and reduce large groups of the population to hunger.
To feel the effects are, principally, the inhabitants of the “mobile villages”, the agglomerates of dwellings that rise close to the mining areas and move gradually as the mining advances. If the mine closes, then it is hunger for all. And while the West in crisis reduces aid, new projects arrive from Asia to exploit the African resources, and China, every day, signs new treaties of bi-lateral cooperation. The economic disaster of Countries like Zimbabwe and Zambia create areas of tension, while the democratization becomes more distant, the short cuts increase for the political crises, which fuel the impulse of revolt. But this crisis could represent, according to certain analysts, as Franz Gustincich explains, also the occasion for liberation from the ‘external’ dependence and start an ‘African via’ to the market economy. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
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| Surveys |
HISTORY
From the Archives
 | |  | The documents in the Columns section, dated 1912, take us back to the dawn of the last Century when the States of Europe – radically different in history, culture and traditions – pursued common expansionist yearnings, which frequently soured reciprocal relations.
Recourse to military force was considered, therefore, the only way to cope with the growing hotbeds of instability although more or less declared hostilities, did not impede concrete and effective forms of collaboration.The strategic-military affiliation of Countries, such as Russia and Italy, to diametrically opposed alliances did not hinder, for example, ‘secret collaboration’ on the front of the fight against terrorism...(Photo Ansa) | | | |
| Facts, Anecdotes and Legends | |  | The perfect spy is, apparently, a person without many qualities, but able to speak and listen and then compose the mosaic of the correct information, putting together tesserae, apparently, all mixed up. For eight years, a handsome, cultured man, a great speaker and impassioned Nazi, between 1933 and 1941 animated the fashionable clubs of Tokyo. He fascinated wives of ambassadors and military men, conversed amiably with financiers and industrialists, wrote brilliant and informative articles for the Frankfurt Zeitung. He revealed to Stalin that on the 22nd of June, the Germans would attack Russia. They did not believe him. On the 27th Anniversary of the October Revolution, he died by hanging in a gloomy prison in Tokyo. His name was Richard Sorge, one of the greatest Soviet secret agents. One of the many victims of the “syndrome of Cassandra”: to predict the future and not be believed. (Photo by lemil.blog.hu/2008/11/02/kemek_es_hirszerzok_sorge) | | | |
CULTURE
Studies of Intelligence | |  | This new Column intends to indicate certain ‘studies’ on the world of the Intelligence, elaborated by Universities, Think Tanks and Research Centres, both national and internal, with the purpose of facilitating the comprehension of the history, the methodologies and functions of such a delicate and complex sector as that which is in charge of the Security. A contribution to the ‘Culture of the Intelligence’ also to debunk myths and trite banalities.
Professor Nicola Pedde proposes, therefore, beginning with this number, a concise list of the principal studies of the sector published in the quarterly and a brief descriptive presentation of one of them*, so as to offer to the readers the opportunity of a more thorough knowledge. | | | |
| Reviews | |  | The commerce of arms belongs to a particular category that combines business, politics, strategy and morals. For a long time, Italy has had a legislation which, with reference to Article 11 of the Constitution, implies a certain type of behaviour in the international transfer of assets and military technology. Carlo Mastelloni, Magistrate, and Carmine Lopez, General of the Guardia di Finanza (Military Corp dealing with customs, excise and tax crimes), have made a thorough study on the subject (published by Rubbettino), underlining the importance of the actions of control and intelligence to combat the illegalities in the sector. Control and intelligence that concern a totally different reality, but not less interesting for their implications on life and in the economy, not only of Calabria, but of all Italy: the ‘ndrangheta. It is the work of a collection of authors, managed by Mario Caligiuri, published by the University of Calabria, structured in four contributions that examine different and connected aspects of the Calabrian Mafia. | | | |
CHRONOLOGY
Organized crime
|  | IWe present the chronological file of the most significant arrests of the organized crime
During the last three months, followed by an evocative and colourful description of one of them. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
TERRORISM
|  | It is understood that an act of terrorism is a violent action, politically motivated, intended to strike objectives of symbolic value and destined also to intimidate a ‘targeted audience’ socially or politically connected to the primary objective.
The act of terrorism, unlike that of ‘political violence’ (carried out by individuals or groups acting ‘in the open’)and that of the ‘guerrilla ’(carried out with instruments and paramilitary logistics) is usually performed by individuals or groups who operate in secrecy or undercover, or in any event, under disguised conditions within the threatened societies”. (Photo Ansa) | | | |
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The complete version of issue no. 4/2012 will be online in July 2013.
AISI will have exclusive and preserved competence of the logo
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