Director of the Department of Intelligence-Strategic and Security Studies of the Link Campus of Malta, he is a ‘full Member’ of the International Institute for Strategic Studies London (IISS) and founder Member of the ‘Niccolò Machiavelli’ Italian Institute of Strategic Studies. He is the Project Manager for the Link Campus University of the RACAM Project – Development of a Risk Assessment and Countermeasure Audit Methodology for Potential Terrorist Attacks on Mass Transit System, conferred by the General European Directorate Commission of Justice, Liberty and Security. He is a component of the Observatory on the National Security (OSN), constituted by the Center of Higher Studies for Defence (CASD). For a number of years, he has held the post of Secretary General of the Center of Higher Studies for the fight against terrorism and political violence (Ce.A.S.). As a lecturer, he has collaborated with the University of Rome (La Sapienza) in the Forensic Sciences of Criminology-Investigation-Security & Intelligence’. “An analysis of the Italian social and economic situation cannot be made separate from its position within the European context. The fate of Italy now, more than in the past, is strictly tied to the course of the crisis in the other Countries of the Union and to the decisions which are taken by the Brussels Parliament in the sphere of the choices following the establishment of the common European currency, which sees an England not tied to the monetary Union (although participating in the capital of the European Central Bank) and a Germany imposing, in a less obvious way, its own monetary policy. The European currency, under pressure, in these days, due to the escalation of the crisis of the sovereign debt of the Member Countries of the Eurozone, has highlighted the scarce competitiveness of the weak economies of the average size European Countries, underlining – on the contrary – the more mature productive sectors Italy, in this context, after an enthusiastic post-war phase of economic growth, now finds itself in a substantial deadlock also due to a ruling class which has not known how or has not wanted to implement, over time, the indispensable reforms to maintain the Country at the top of the European structure, adapting it to the situation after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We have suffered a consistent loss in negotiating capacity and influence on the decisions deliberated by the other European Powers, remaining, at times, considerably exposed to the aggressive competition of the new economies. This loss of ‘clout’ has generated an unfavourable relapse, impeding the growth of an Italian leadership in the Mediterranean Basin. However, it is necessary to acknowledge certain points of excellence and some indisputable gains obtained by Italy in sectors where also the Public System registers successes which allow our Country to place itself as European leader in certain areas. The Armed Forces, for instance, are held as an example of proficiency and professionalism in the context of International missions. At an international level Italian diplomacy is seen as an unquestionable ability of mediation, and the fight against terrorism and organized crime conducted by the Italians has become “case history” and is an example followed by many international Police Forces. For the future, in order to regain the historical role which has demonstrated the National capabilities and capacity of Italy, it is indispensable to renegotiate our presence and function within the International Bodies also within a framework of a different and effective policy of economic development. In the meanwhile, it is necessary to define a new industrial strategy – traditionally, the victim of a lack of coordination between different participants – sustaining a strong infrastructural policy to support the economic and social development of Italy”.

Ours is a recently constituted Department, which has aroused keen interest and has demonstrated a notable capacity to attract young Italian and foreign researchers, experts and scholars. Over the last twenty years, the international system finds itself in a phase of profound although slow transformation. With the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, we have passed from a bipolar to a multipolar system, with a brief “unipolar” interlude, in which the relative power of the United States was dominant, also due to the lack of real strategic competitors on the international scene. The rise of the new powers, such as China, India and Brazil, a new assertiveness of Russia, as well as certain well-known problems in the Western field, are little by little, scaling down the power of the United States and Europe, founding the bases for a multipolar world.
An article published two years ago by a brilliant American analyst of Indian origin, Fareed Zakaria, might help us to understand the present moment in time. In simple terms, Zakaria speaks of “the rise of the others”, in which the “others” are those who, until a few decades ago, occupied a secondary position and who are now emerging, from both the economic and political aspects. The effects of this “rise of the others” in the economic-financial field are highlighted by two economists from Berkeley, Stephen Cohen and J. Bradford De Long, who, in their “The End of Influence”, show how today, the interrelations – not always mutually satisfactory – between China and the United States – represent the pivot around which the present international strategies develop.

Exactly. A shift in the balance of the international powers – which has implications in all the strategic sectors, from industry, to research and culture.
For example, it clearly results from the publication of the UNESCO Science Report of 2010, that the new powers are investing very large resources in the fields of research and training. Investments that the ruling classes of the “new economies” perceive as highly strategic for the future.
Many important projects are under way in the emerging Countries. In Russia, for example, the Skolkovo Foundation has begun the Skolkovo Innograd Project for the research and commercialization of new technologies with the contribution of important subjects such as the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Vneshekonobank, the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, the Russian Venture Company and a fund of investment for the PMI in the scientific and technological areas. Analogous initiatives are also going ahead in India, China and Malaysia.
They are important decisions which, in the next decades, could contribute to shifting the barycentre of world government more and more towards the East.

As a whole, the old Continent, and specifically Italy, risk a process of marginalization in the medium-long term. In a world that is shifting the geopolitical and geo-economic barycentre from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, Europe could become periphery, undergoing an historical downgrading in rank.
In a multi-polar system, the competition in all sectors will always be fierce and with no holds barred. All Countries, but above all the Western ones, must equip themselves to support the level of the competition and not lose their role on the international scene. Strategic vision is needed and the capacity to analyze the present and the future realistically, in order to operate effectively. The academic world and that of research have an aggregating function.
From this viewpoint, for example, the Link Campus, together with a group of national and international researchers and experts, has taken the decision to constitute a study center, the “Nicolò Machiavelli” Italian Institute of Strategic Studies which, on the model of the Anglo-Saxon ‘think-tanks’ wishes to contribute to the rebirth of the strategic studies in Italy. Thanks to research, seminars, partnerships and inter-exchanges with other Italian and foreign research institutes, it is hoped that the Institute will become a cultural forum aggregation and study towards the production of a national strategic thinking.
At the present time a research project is starting up on the subject of International strategic scenarios, and the global impact of such scenarios. The scope of the research for which we are constituting an International study group, is that of elaborating one or more hypotheses of a “Grand Strategy” for national public debate.

The new geopolitical frame work, the unusual alliances, the new players on the International stage and also the present serious global economic crisis, have imposed a redefinition and a reinterpretation of the role of the United States in today’s global context.
The Great Powers of the Cold War seem to have exhausted the hegemonic role of control and management of the old alignments. The scenario at the beginning of the Century sees America in a phase of relative decline in influence and credibility; the strategic policy and the diplomatic conduct of Washington arouse certain perplexities, resulting in the obvious diversion of the American commercial interests towards Asia.
The result of this new definition is that America plays a different role to that of the 60’s and 70’s, transforming the “driving force” function of the West, into prudent management to resolve economic and social difficulties, which seemed to be only ghosts of the past: Washington, today, plays prevalently in defence, to the advantage of other players, among which, China and other emerging powers.
However, as Clausewitz claimed, the defence position is a strategically strong one, but intellectually weak, while the attack position, on the contrary, is strategically weak, but intellectually strong: the application of this principle to the diplomacy of the beginning of the millennium would be sufficient to explain the present partial loss of the ancient primacy of America, considering it protagonist of undisputed weaker military power from the viewpoint of the global diplomatic and political vision.
Furthermore, many analysts attribute the responsibility of the present economic crisis to the Americans. A crisis which exploded, thanks to the predictable crisis of the subprime mortgages on residential and commercial real estate in the USA and which – with the domino effect – infected all of the world economies.
It was caused by a condition of tension which weighed on the Atlantic balances and relationships, and was also fueled by the apparent lack of a Grand USA Strategy.
As Savona and Regola state in “Il Ritorno dello Stato Padrone” (“The Return of the Master State”), the United States finds itself obliged to consider a new global governance, namely: a pressure to modify the structures of global power and influence which have represented the cornerstone of the global strategy.
The financial crisis has upset the foundations that legitimized the supremacy of the United States in the Western financial-economic system, weakening, along with the credibility of its financial institutes (national and multi-lateral), a crucial component of the Washington soft power: the capacity to impose its economic-financial model as a reference point of inspiration for the other Countries.

The great emerging economies present at the conference table to discuss global financial governance are, on the whole, substantially against participating as accessory partners to international institutions constructed and historically dominated by Western powers, but are aware of having a new contractual strength which allows more favourable negotiation with an institutional system. In the medium term, this strengthened contractual power of the emerging economies offers to economic powers – by now, leader powers – (such as China and India), the possibility of having greater geopolitical aspirations.
India, the largest democracy in Asia, even with its enormous poverty problem together with their anachronistic maintaining of the caste division system, is open to the Western products and the respective international regulations which require respect for intellectual property and commercial patents.
The numbers are obviously different. China is de facto the “factory of the world” and the Chinese products have invaded the planet, proceeding rapidly to original creative projects, disproving the old cliché of being “excellent replicators of products” realized in mediocre quality: the extraordinary productive capacity of the Chinese is changing the national social framework.
It appears, however, that the Chinese economic boom will pay a very high price, above all, from an environmental point of view. A price which is still unknown in detail and which the entire international community could ultimately have to pay as a contribution to modernization.
According to our experts, India could be the preferred European partner towards which interest and the commercial and diplomatic efforts of Italy and Europe should be focused.

The discussion over Europe and the form of supranational government that it has wanted to give itself risks becoming fruitless if we just look at the mere list of the “non-positivity” that the Council of the European Union has generated or the level of the directives that the European Commission has been able to issue.
It is necessary to examine the work and the future of the Union on a prospective basis for the difficult challenges ahead, many of which can be faced only in synergic cohesion with the “natural” allies. In fact, there is no doubt whatsoever that some still see the European Union as a legislative body – endued with too much power, reluctant to recognize the specificity of the many and different regions which make-up Europe.
It is not a matter of sham or fiction, or legality, or commerce, or economy, but of an important opportunity of laboratory, of thinking and strategy, where agreed guidelines can be elaborated which shelter all the European Nations from potential economic-financial and terrorist threats: without the support of the allies, screwed into strategic-political autism, the single European Nations seem weak and earmarked for economic, commercial and diplomatic decline, with inestimable, inevitable damage to their respective productive fabrics and with the consequent peaks of unemployment and social hardship.
Notwithstanding, certain general strategic directions could be redesigned in light of the new events triggered by globalization, the fight against terrorism, and by the new energy needs. The need to adapt the European policy to the new challenges should be made priority within the huge mass of decisions and laws that the European decision makers adopt in Brussels.
The medium and small European Countries, in a broader policy making environment such as the G20, would appear the most exposed to the erosion of the national power in the decisional system and are, therefore, the most interested in the reinforcement of the “Community lever”. The real challenge in Europe will have its vital centre in the capacity of the European Countries to put themselves forward as credible interlocutors in relation to the emerging Countries.
For example, particular attention and a re-evaluation must be given on balances and agreements regarding the Mediterranean area, in which Italy deserves to play a leadership role and be a bridgehead between the Advanced West and vital economies for Europe.

Terrorism is a threat to everyone. Italy included. At this stage in time terrorist actions do not necessarily respond to a logic inspired from above, in a hierarchic and structured sense, but could be implemented by jihadist cells, which act on their own initiative in total absence of higher orders and, therefore, without necessarily following a univocal strategy – novices inspired by martyrdom as an extreme product of conversion.
It is necessary to recognize certain discriminating circumstances which place Italy on a different level from that of many of our allies. First of all, credit is due to our anti-terrorist forces and our Intelligence for their efficient work in identifying, analyzing and fighting the phenomenon. Investigations testify that Italy is prevalently still a territory of transit and a logistics base against which the terrorists, at least until now, do not intend to raise the level of confrontation. It is especially for these reasons that, according to our opinion, Italy, unlike Spain and England, have not suffered devastating attacks. However, there exists – as has been underlined many times – the possibility of the “lone wolf” who, in the absence of leadership could act autonomously, using, perhaps, homemade explosives.
In conclusion, fundamentalist terrorism represents a concrete threat against which Italy could offer a significant contribution of both knowledge and know-how.

This is a question that has been posed more than once by our Master students: according to us, the Intelligence plays a vital role. In a multipolar, globalized world, where the interpretation is fluid and highly competitive, the prior understanding and analysis of the events is the keystone for the strategies of any Country.
Knowledge is an essential element before a State can plan, react and defend itself. Probably the Intelligence has never been as indispensable as it is now. But before replying to your question, let me say something on behalf of the entire Studies Department which I have the honour to direct: contrary to the stereotype often touted around by a certain part of the media, the prevalent judgment on the work and on the men of our Intelligence Services manifested by the scientific community, which cooperates and collaborates with our University, is absolute appreciation. The Information System for security guarantees a primary constitutional value – the security of the Republic and the Democratic Institutions – and it is done through a highly qualified and complex activity, which merits and receives great esteem and respect, consideration and, above all, gratitude from the citizens. The Law N° 124, August 2007, has considerably extended the spaces of the national Intelligence, dedicating constant attention to the activities relative to the internal security – both at national and Community levels – attributing always more emphasis to the international and non-EC dimension.
The attacks of New York of the 11th September 2001 abbreviated reaction times allowed to the Intelligence in relation to the requests formulated by the political power and the decision makers, and increased the importance in the Intelligence Services of a greater offer of Intelligence analysis. “Holistic” paradigms have been affirmed, characterized by the overcoming of the compartmentalization typical of the NATO Doctrine between Analysis and Research, placing the one as an indispensable complement of the other.
In the new technological scenario, the need has grown for specialized personnel active on the digital information flow placed on the Web and in the digital circuits by criminal groups and terrorists.
The Reform Law has requested – above all, of the Intelligence Community – to consolidate a real presence in the National economic panorama, auxiliary to the Government policy in the activities to counter the International crisis, both in the financial sector and the infrastructural one. In the implementation of a Government competitive strategy, the Intelligence in the economy represents the most significant .
innovation, insofar as it is transversal and oriented to synthesize the contents necessary to the better realization of the different decisional phases in national financial and security matters.
To give a practical meaning to a policy of National security faced with external and domestic aggression, it is indispensable to be able to dispose of cultural and professional resources of the highest value. The objective is to acquire the capacity of individuating the useful information, to relate it and to render it usable.
Often, the Intelligence activities must be able to anticipate continuous demands and needs. For this reason, within the basins of reference and professionalism also the scientific-academic ambits of second level must be included, such as research graduates and the university schools of Master Degree specialization.
The importance of recruitment and procedure of selection is associated to the creativeness of the “information product”. If the analysis is inadequate, the information supplied is, at best, banal. If the analysts are trained and rewarded for the activity of collection and reporting rather than for the exploratory and predictive activities, the information support to the policy maker will be limited to furnish a synthesis of the intelligence without short-medium-long term guidelines.
The University can and must give its contribution, thereby helping the diffusion and the improvement of the security culture as Prefect Gianni De Gennaro authoritatively underlined in the Lectio Magistalis held on occasion of the inauguration of our Master in Studies of Intelligence and National Security, a specific course of studies in Italy, professional and with strong international characteristics being in constant contact with university Institutes in London, Washington, Paris and Tel Aviv.
We are convinced that the future Intelligence of the 21st Century will depend also on the capacity of involving, in a common effort, the Institutions, the academic and cultural world and the world of business – a synergy consolidated for years in other advanced Countries; not by chance is the role of the University and ‘think tank’ in the reform processes of the Intelligence of absolute relevance, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. Inspired by this model, also our Department is finalizing a comparative research on the paths of reform of the principal international Intelligence apparatuses.

At the moment a strong explosion of conflict is taking place within the universities and institutes. It is necessary to reflect on the features of the cultural and professional future of our youth. Apart from the forms of violent protest.
In the present political and economic framework, it appears glaringly evident that the role of the University should return to be that of “thought and intellectual guidance”, able to inspire and advise also the future economic and strategic choices of the Country.
The University should return to be of excellence and based on meritocracy; an objective that can be reached through a greater participation in the universities by the companies, also with the help of interactivity.

Unfortunately, it is a frequent opinion that almost the total of the OSINT activities is carried out by drawing on resources available on the Internet. Sometimes, the OSINT analysis is also erroneously considered similar to activities which, while necessary, are of a lower profile, such as web surfing or the mere gathering of information from the network. The OSINT, on the contrary, is not limited to the simply collation and cataloguing of the digital information, but provides for a series of analytical methods, systems (also organizational), technologies working in an all-source context, which qualifies it as an authentic analytical discipline.
The concept of open source information should not, in any way, be confused with
the same given gratuitously and not even – on the other hand – with the fact that the most part of the contents available on Internet (mostly invalidated) can be enjoyed free of charge and without further formalities, such as, for example, the authentication of the user: an open source which requires an authentication for access and, perhaps the payment of a certain sum in money is, and will always remain an open source, precisely as in the case of certain on-line editions of daily newspapers and periodicals.

Certainly.
According to our researchers, the nature “open” (or not) of an information source should not be seen as a feature in itself, but rather as a comprehensive formal ontology of the concept of source. In other words, the source is an entity – more or less abstract – carrier of a certain information content (or payload) in which the formal structure, among the other features, evidences a certain degree of openness, i.e. the “natural level of availability and accessibility (or “participation”) to the source system by an external system”.
Internet is a repository of sources and information. But neither Internet, nor the information contained in it are sufficient to define the real nature of the OSINT (even if, in a certain way, they compete to do it). It is, instead, the source, its structure and its particular qualities; before all else, the degree of accessibility and the modalities of “open” availability which define the OSINT.
This, among other things, is one of the basic reasons why one refers to the OSINT as intelligence “OF THE open sources”, rather than intelligence “of the information” (therefore, FROM THE open sources). In fact, the characterizing element of the OSINT, compared to the conventional intelligence, is the so-called “unbalanced leaning on the sources”. If the (open) source defines the nature of the OSINT, its applicative domain is defined by the body of open sources existing in a given context: the so-called network of the sources.
OSINT owes Internet, on one side, the great impetus given to the experimentation and implementation of highly specific technologies as, for example, the automatic comprehension of the text (text mining) and on the other, a certain “visibility” (as a discipline) due to the social pervasiveness of the global network; although precisely for this pervasiveness, it is a cliché to consider it an “easier” intelligence, less demanding, for everybody, and sometimes less “invasive” than the conventional intelligence. Fundamental, furthermore, is the contribution given by the technological systems for OSINT in situations characterized by a multilingualism drive – an always more frequent situation nowadays – without which the analyses would be limited solely to the European languages (very recent and significant technological innovations have been made in the automatic comprehension of Arabic and some Asian languages).
On the other hand, the strategic analysis finds in the OSINT both a useful instrument – among other things – for the rapid preliminary definition of the general context (or “domain”) of a strategic problem, and a particularly effective analytical technique in the prompt discovery and extraction of “significant information”, especially in situations characterized by the presence of a lot of (non- structured) textual information and, in any event, in situations in which the rapidity and immediacy of the use of the information are factors of fundamental importance for maximum efficiency of the decisional function..

To speak of Facebook today no longer means to discuss an “album of memories” where one meets old school friends by now “faraway”, but rather to speak of the largest database of personal data (verified and/or verifiable) presently in existence.
The Facebook platform, however, in its present state, boasts a number of about 550 million users all over the world, and aside from putting on the plate legal problems tied to the personal data, to direct marketing, to the profiling of users etc., it certainly represents an always less “virtual” place where the adolescents “live”, meet, grow and learn. In this respect, the feasible criminal offences such as soliciting minors, child pornography and the like, must be the object of careful and in-depth analysis, otherwise, we risk losing control of the situation.
As far as the adult world is concerned, an excessive use of the social networks, Facebook ahead of all the others, could result in a reduction of the perceptual stimulus to the written expression alone, thereby depriving the interpersonal relationships of all those sensorial components (such as the somatic traits, facial expressions etc.,) and environmental, which characterize the “object”, non-virtual interpersonal relationship.

The continuous and imperative necessity of inter-connection of all the systems, informative and not, has required for some years now a serious assessment of the threats that come from it, the more so when placed under the lens of the National security and the solidity of the critical infrastructures. Recent events like the infection caused by the Stuxnet worm, i.e. the diversion of 15% of the Internet traffic to Chinese systems, or the very recent “Cablegate” of Wikileaks, have suddenly demonstrated to the world how the cyber war threat is not only consistent, but above all, real and “easily” implementable.
Before being able to speak of a conflict conductible on a relatively new battlefield, represented by the Internet network and already named the “fifth element” (after land, sea, air and space), we find ourselves having to “fight” a war of simple words on the meaning itself of the term cyber war.
This term, in fact, is certainly legitimate, but to use it, it is necessary that the finalized actions utilizing computer instruments have adverse implications also in the real world, which means “offline”. This is the reason why, up to now, for the majority of the cases which have soared into the headlines, it is certainly more opportune to speak of mere actions of cyber warfare.
Certainly more complex, but not for this less probable or implementable, is the question on the moment in which we should hypothesize real and authentic acts of cyber war; in other words, of acts carried out – more or less blatantly – by persons who have as objectives: 1) the computers, the computer networks or the electronic systems which to them are comparable to a “rival” State; 2) as scope, the precise intent to cause damage in the real world. Similar acts, as the researchers of our Department maintain, are certainly possible and implementable at the present state: it is sufficient to think of the real damage which the violation of the networks delegated to the management of the critical infrastructures can cause (for example, airports and the control of civil and military air traffic, of the Defence, of supplies etc.,) also directly to the lives of the citizens.
All this implies two directions of reasoning: 1. as a matter of fact, a psycho-cyber war is not currently feasible, given that we accept the (real) possibility that the violation of these networks may come to involve direct damage to the citizens; 2. from the psychological point of view, a possible psycho-cyber war could be hypothesized only in the case in which we place ourselves in the position of the Decider. Actually, from this viewpoint, the risk of evaluating every electronic instrument/system as a possible “vehicle of attack” on the National security, could lead to the very complex and dangerous psychological loop, which could have – as a consequence – an attempt on the part of the Decider (political or military) to try to constrict beyond any acceptable limit by the community, also the constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Our Institute is presently carrying out a very detailed research on this delicate subject and, in particular, on the International doctrines of cyber warfare. With regard to what has been analyzed up to now, it is logical to deduce that an electronic war is much more likely and perhaps more affordable than what one might expect. A cyber war, in fact, puts even the smallest States – those normally unable to compete both militarily and economically with the other international powers – in a position to strike the critical systems of any State target, thanks to an excellent cost-benefit ratio. In fact, using technical competences and know-how, which in 90% of cases are obtainable at zero cost online, as well as taking advantage of the present scarce capacity/possibility of defence on this “battlefield” on the part of all those Countries (America in the lead) which are excessively dependent on the technological systems, it is possible to easily wage a war in any part of the world, with very little cost and the highest probabilities of results.
Besides, it must be pointed out that for this characteristic alone the poorly computerized Countries have, at the same time, a significant force and an insuperable defence strategy against possible informatics counterattacks from high “digitalization” Countries, provoking a form of “generalized self-deterrence” to waging a real cyber war and/or the use of cyber warfare acts.