Very high human skills, cutting-edge technologies and collaboration with the world of research and industry. These are the ingredients for an effective military intelligence system according to Defense Minister Elisabetta Trenta, who today visited the Joint Intelligence Center in Rome, the beating heart of all the information activity of the Italian Armed Forces. Among other things, the visit comes at a delicate moment for national intelligence, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte who yesterday reported for the first time to Copasir (the Parliamentary Supervisory Committee) and who is still grappling with the difficult node of the appointments of the heads of the secret services (here an in-depth analysis by Formiche). Today, however, Minister Trenta’s attention was on the other intelligence, the military one.
AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM
“The Joint Intelligence Center is a real defense center of excellence,” said the minister. His men and women, he added, “play a role of primary importance for our Armed Forces, both at home and abroad”. In fact, “an effective intelligence system requires very high skills and competences in terms of human resources, systems for collecting and analyzing highly technological information; Well, today you represent all this: highly specialized men and women, distinguished by a strong joint character also supported by an important civil tax rate “.
THE INTERFORCE INTELLIGENCE CENTER
Dependent on the Defense Staff, the II Information and Security Department (commanded by AdmiralFabrizio Simoncini ) has its operational arm in the Joint Intelligence Center. The latter, introduced in 1998, absorbed the operational information and situation services (Sios) of each armed force (suppressed and merged) into the inter-force logic, giving the Defense a single center dedicated to military intelligence. With its personnel and its means, the Center, now commanded by General Giorgio Cipolloni , “participated – explains the Defense Staff – in all relevant operational activities to protect the garrisons and the activities of the Armed Forces abroad, favoring a valuable contribution in terms of information and security to our contingents in the operational theater and to multinational commands “. INTELLIGENCE
IN MILITARY OPERATIONS
“Today we cannot think of planning, conducting and completing a military action without the support of an effective intelligence system that is able to guarantee decision-makers, at all levels, the information necessary to take the appropriate decisions, both for the planning of the military instrument and for the conduct of operations and missions ”, explained Trenta. “Your work – he said addressing the staff of the Center – is the basis of the security of many of your colleagues engaged in operations that are often risky and of high strategic importance for international security and contributes to increasing the credibility of our Armed Forces abroad. and within the international community “.
ATTENTION TO THE STAFF
Then, thanks to the men and women of the Center, testifying to the attention to personnel that the minister has made one of the pillars of his department. “I am well aware that the 40 operations underway, 37 of which are international in 24 countries, require a particularly onerous commitment for you and your families,” he said. In this sense, “my thanks today are even more heartfelt for the work you carry out every day with passion, for the competence and professionalism that you are able to express in a sector that is so sensitive and delicate for the safety of the country”.
COLLABORATION WITH UNIVERSITY AND INDUSTRY
But intelligence work is also about collaboration with the world of research and industry. The system that equips itself with “a cooperation strategy with the scientific and university world, for the search for high-level skills that help develop the knowledge we need” is effective. Thus, promised the owner of Palazzo Baracchini, “what we will do in the next few years will certainly be represented by a constant growth of our specialist skills, and this will necessarily happen in symbiosis with the world of university research”. Furthermore, “dialogue with industry will also be important, that is, with those in the production world that will be able to innovate and develop new technologies, or new software, for which new needs will emerge”. Likewise,
