ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “The global context in which we move is evidently a growing and widespread instability. For Italy the enlarged Mediterranean is an area of priority and strategic interest. The Mediterranean in a strict sense is crucial for energy supply and commercial exchange. Immigration, energy security, supply of raw materials are not negligible. In this context, national resilience plays a key role, especially in the protection of critical infrastructure (ports, airports, logistic knots, pipelines, pipelines, submarine cables) vulnerable to hybrid and physical attacks”. Thus the Minister of Defence Guido Crosetto during the joint hearing of the Senate and Chamber defense committees on the Multiannual Programme Document for Defense for the three-year period 2025-2027.
“The intense armed confrontation between Iran and Israel has reiterated the irreplaceable role of up-to-date and performing defensive systems, today tested by the significant increase in the flow and speed of ballistic offensive carriers, which are increasingly insidious capacities made available by artificial intelligence,” he added. “It follows the need for a fast and constant cycle of adaptation whose pace and goodness depend on the accuracy and speed of gathering relevant information, to be immediately available to the operational, logistics and procurement chain.”.
“The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has reached its fourth year and continues with intense red attacks on energy infrastructure and civilian targets. Meanwhile, we see how this is a ‘war of drones’, characterized by an increasingly rapid cycle of technological innovation. Emerging and disruptive technologies play a key role in strategic, military and industrial dynamics and the increasing accessibility of new technologies also allows hostile subjects to acquire advanced tools at low cost, difficult to identify and contrast, such as drones and mini drones that can be used individually or in shamen”, he explained.
“With unprecedented investments, the United States is accelerating their ‘Golden Dome’. Europe and NATO more than ever include the third dimension from which to expect the physical threat and for which an integrated aerospace system is needed for an effective and technologically advanced and multi-layered ‘Integrated Air Missile Defence’, said the minister.
On cyberspace, Crosetto warned: “Increasing continuous threats and attacks arrive seamlessly in cyber domain, in the field of disinformation, cognitive and hybrid war to undermine the foundations of democratic institutions. Cyberspace is a ground of daily confrontation, now an integral part of modern conflicts with direct impacts on national security”.
“The challenges described require us to strengthen our ability to collate updated information on threats to ensure timeliness, accuracy and information continuity in support of logistics and procurement operations. All this by mastering disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computational tools that represent the key to ensuring continuous information and technology advantage. For decades we have not dealt with these things and now we have to run: it is a task that requires vision and responsibility,” Crosetto said.
Crosetto then continued: “The Budgetary Law 2025-27 takes note of the nondeferability of the renewal of the military instrument. In this context, NATO’s planning effort is an important reference, however subject to the priority protection of national defence interests. The pursuit of the Alliance’s capabilities is likely to focus mainly on threats from the east side: for this reason, while respecting NATO’s commitments, we have updated national planning by focusing on the need to guarantee Italy a military instrument consistent with our security and security priorities and the specificities of the south side, while ensuring full integration in the Alliance.”.
“The National Dome, which is not a single system, is a protective architecture that integrates aerospace superiority, missile defense and anti-drone perspective. It is a defence that we have never had and is no longer renunciable that absorbs total investments of approximately 4.4 billion,” concluded the Minister of Defense.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
