Defence, Crosetto: called upon to build protection adherent to current risks. 'Space shield indispensable'

"We are called to build a protection for our nation, a defence more in line with the current risks". This was said by Defence Minister, Guido Crosetto, in a hearing before the Defence Committees of the House and Senate, as part of the examination of the multiannual defence planning document for the three-year period 2025-2027.

"The need is clear," he explained, "to build an instrument that is capable of operating in what is called the 'multi-domain', to operate where it is needed, in the cities, on the sea, in the seabed, in our skies, in space, in sub-space, in the hybrid, maintaining a balance in the delicate alchemy between conventional forces and other technologies. The latter 'must characterise our weapon systems and represent the only possible advantage over potential competitors,' he said. Finding the difficult balance between this alchemy is one of the aims of the policy document. Technology does not replace man, but it does amplify the possibility of strength'.

"The global context in which we move marks a growing and widespread instability. The Wider Mediterranean is an area of priority while the Mediterranean in the strict sense is crucial for energy supply and trade interchange," according to Crosetto for whom "thenational resilience assumes a fundamental role especially in the protection of critical infrastructures vulnerable to hybrid and physical attacks".

The Ukrainian conflict has become 'a 'war of drones' characterised by an increasingly rapid cycle of technological innovation'. For the minister, illustrating the multi-year defence policy document, 'emerging and disruptive technologies play a key role in strategic and military industrial dynamics, and the increasing accessibility of new technologies enables even hostile actors to acquire low-cost advanced tools that are difficult to identify and counter, such as drones and minidrones'.

The national 'dome', the shield, "is a multi-layered protective architecture that includes space, missile and anti-drone defence. A defence that we have never had and can no longer be renounced, which absorbs annual investments of around 4.4 billion euro'. These were the words of Defence Minister Guido Crosetto to the joint Senate and Chamber of Deputies Defence Committees. These are, Crosetto explained, 'space systems for missile warning, advanced radar, air defence aircraft such as the Gcap, the sixth-generation fighter, the Samp-T next-generation battery, and anti-drone systems. An interoperable multilevel system,' he added, 'capable of guaranteeing protection and defence for our territory in the future, unfortunately not now. It is something that stems from what we have seen happen in Israel and what we see every day in Ukraine