Yemen, Lithuania, Gaza. Italy is not at war, but wars are affecting Italy

Isolating oneself from a world in flames in the hope of being ignored by the world’s flames may work when trying to escape reality by constructing parallel metaverses, not necessarily with artificial intelligence. However, the strategy becomes far more difficult when the world from which one has clumsily tried to distance oneself draws closer, deciding to take charge of one's freedom, wellbeing, and safety, without regard for the fleeting desire to erect a few walls to avoid being touched by the flames. The Iranian raid on Saudi Arabia, which struck an Italian F-2000 aircraft, coincided with the deployment of two Italian fighter jets sent by NATO to the skies over Lithuania to monitor the incursion of two Russian jets; it also coincided with the dispatch of an Italian Navy vessel to the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb to protect Italian ships from attacks by Houthi terrorists in Yemen – in open defiance of thethe inaction of the European Aspides mission; at the same time as two other Italian fighter jets neutralised a Russian drone, again in the skies over Lithuania; and at the same time as it was confirmed that the Italian Carabinieri will lead the mission to support the work of the Palestinian police in Gaza. However much one might try, in every possible way and with various shades of hypocrisy, to turn a blind eye to global turmoil, when that turmoil begins to turn its attention to you, it should become clear what far too many refuse to see: preaching neutrality in the face of the world’s conflicts is not a means of positively influencing our security, but a means of negatively exacerbating our vulnerability. Conjuring up scenarios of neutrality, disengagement, disarmament and desertion—while pandering to the worst autarkic impulses—does not mean doing everything possible to avoid provoking the sponsors of terror. It means being exposed. It means standing still. It means wanting to delegate our protection to someone else, who will then present us with the bill.

When political coalitions reveal deep rifts over foreign policy, splitting along a clear divide between those who argue that we cannot turn a blind eye to the world because, sooner or later, the world will take an interest in us, and those who maintain that distancing ourselves from the world, its conflicts and its problems is the only way to protect our citizens, these divisions do not merely concern abstract ideals, such as the defence of our freedom, but they concern concrete, real, everyday issues, which one can only try to ignore by escaping from reality. Italy is not at war, fortunately, but wars affect Italy not because it is part of a lobby of agents provocateurs but because Italy is part of the European Union (if an Iranian drone reaches Cyprus, that drone also concerns Italy), because Italy is a member of NATO (and if a NATO country is threatened by Russia, that threat also concerns Italy), because Italy sources its oil from the Gulf (and if the Iranians strike supply routes other than those through the Strait of Hormuz, the problem also concerns Italy).

The party of bogus pacifism tends to label politicians who seek to protect their own interests, even by force, as ‘warmongers’. It might perhaps be worth turning the tables and throwing a necessary – though hard to swallow – truth in the faces of these fake pacifists: the real warmongers are not those who rely on armed security to protect their interests, but those who pass off vulnerability as neutrality by preaching the rhetoric of the white flag, which, under the illusion of shielding us from danger, actually strengthens those who threaten our freedom by force. The real defection we need is not from the defence of our security, but from the camp of bogus pacifism which, by peddling the illusion of easy peace, does nothing but encourage the sponsors of terror to continue their atrocities. It is time to unmask them.