DISINFO: The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of militarisation of Italian society
SUMMARY
A year of the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of the militarisation of Italy’s society, economy and its response to the pandemic. A global strategy is being implemented to strengthen authoritarian governance and the armed forces have become a cultural model to govern the transition from the pandemic crisis to “normalcy”
The Recovery Fund itself will be used as a resource-tool to legitimise the excessive power of the national and international military-industrial-financial complex. Military exercises, such as the NATO Dynamic Manta naval exercise, can also serve to convey false images of the military’s “efficiency” to justify the suffocating presence of the military in almost all public spheres.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and one of the common pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about a Deep State or global elites secretly ruling the world, that are exploiting the pandemic to establish authoritarian regimes in Western countries and around the world.
This article claims that there is a “global strategy” to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic in order to strengthen authoritarianism in the West, including Italy, which is allegedly being “militarised” in the interest of the global “military-industrial-financial complex”.
The article provides no evidence to support these claims. European states’ armed forces are being used for civil support to the fight the pandemic in three main ways: to provide additional medical capacity, for transport and to some extent for internal security. This obviously does NOT imply that European societies and economies are being militarised and that military dictatorships or other types of authoritarian regimes have been established.
Italy, as in other European states, has mobilised the armed forces to support efforts to control the pandemic. Italy bore the initial brunt of the first wave of COVID-19 infections in Europe, with the government turning to the military to supplement civil healthcare and to provide transport and logistics support. It is a pattern that is now being repeated across Europe.
There is no evidence, however, that Italian society and its economy are being “militarised”, nor that there is a “suffocating presence” of the military in all spheres of public life, nor that Italy’s liberal-democratic system been replaced by an authoritarian regime.
Futhermore, NATO’s anti-submarine-warfare (ASW) exercise Dynamic Manta takes place every year and it is not related to the pandemic, as the article suggests.
The exercise will allow participating nations to train with each other in complex and challenging warfare. The personnel can enhance interoperability and improve ASW and anti-surface warfare skills. Read here for more information about NATO advanced anti-submarine warfare exercise Dynamic Manta in Italy.
Read similar cases claiming that the pandemic is an operation to forward the interests of the global elites and that as a result of the pandemic liberal democracies will be replaced by harsh military-medical dictatorships.