A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #460: Military spending creates poverty (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

According to SIPRI (Stuttgart International Peace Research Institute), 
global military spending has been steadily growing for ten years and in 
2024 it exceeded 2.4 trillion dollars. More than one hundred countries 
have increased military spending at the expense of social spending and 
the fight against poverty. The growth in military spending is most 
recorded in Europe and the Middle East in relation to the ongoing wars 
in Ukraine and Gaza. ---- Among the countries that have increased 
military spending are the United States of America, China, Russia, 
Germany, India.
It should be noted that after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, 
military spending in Europe has exceeded the levels recorded during the 
Cold War.

European military spending in 2024 increased by 17% reaching the figure 
of 693 billion euros. In 2024, Germany spent 88.5 billion euros on 
armaments, 28% more than in 2023.

In Europe, Germany is followed by France, Poland, and Italy.

Ukraine allocates all its tax revenues to support military spending, 
which reaches 34% of GDP.

In 2024, Russia committed 149 billion dollars to military spending, 38% 
more than in 2023, which represents 7.1% of GDP.

The Italian economy has also turned towards rearmament and support for 
war policies.

Spending on the military sector in Italy for 2025 will stand at 2% of 
GDP, approximately 45 billion euros, with a clear growth compared to 
2024. Over the last ten years, military spending has grown over 60%.

This wicked choice of the ruling and industrial class generates 
galloping inflation that is increasingly impoverishing the entire 
country and has pushed more than six million workers towards the poverty 
line (admission by President Mattarella himself). Frozen wages are 
unable to cover the essential needs of Italian families for a large mass 
of workers, poverty affects sectors that until a few years ago were 
considered guaranteed.

The war economy, while it takes away value from wages that are becoming 
increasingly lower, causes the increase in the price of essential goods 
for survival. The increases concern food expenditure, the cost of water, 
electricity and gas utilities (increased by up to 300%), transport.

The cut in public spending on health, schools, welfare, and the fight 
against poverty allows for crazy spending on rearmament. 2.8 billion 
euros for the purchase of new F35 aircraft, 6 billion euros for armored 
vehicles, 2.3 billion euros for warships, 13 billion euros for 
technological infrastructure and new armaments. Added to this are 1.3 
billion euros for the 40 Italian military missions abroad (Albania, 
Bosnia, Bulgaria, Chad, Djibouti, Persian Gulf, Iraq, Kosovo, Kuwait, 
Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Romania, Somalia, Hungary).

Those who benefit from the war climate are the military industry. In 
Italy, among the military giants in the front row, Fincantieri and 
Leonardo spa (formerly Finmeccanica) stand out, in addition to the 
consolidated war industrial groups of Fiocchi, Beretta and IVECO 
Defence. These industrial groups will absorb a large part of the manna 
of the 800 billion euros for continental rearmament put into play by the 
European Commission led by von der Leyen.

It is striking how in just a few weeks the shares of Leonardo spa have 
gone from 23 euros to a whopping 45.20 euros.

Leonardo spa stands among the world's largest industries for the 
production of tanks, armored vehicles, crawlers, armored cars, means of 
transport, helicopters, airplanes, cannons, drones, targeting systems, 
electronic systems, electronic security, aerospace

Leonardo spa in Italy employs 60,468 people in 129 factories. Production 
is increasingly oriented towards the war sector, marginalizing the 
civilian sector which is gradually being phased out. The instruments of 
destruction and death produced by Leonardo spa are used in the main 
theaters of war. Leonardo supplies instruments of death to Ukraine, to 
Israel which uses them against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West 
Bank, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and against Iran, to Turkey which uses 
them against the Kurdish people in Syria and Iraq. The instruments of 
death of Leonardo spa are used in the bloody wars in Sudan, in the Sahel 
and in many other armed conflicts. War generates billion-dollar profits 
that drip with blood.

Leonardo SpA closed 2024 with a revenue of 44.2 billion euros and a net 
profit of 17.8 billion euros.

The trend towards rearmament must be reversed. The policies of war and 
death must be stopped. The war industry must be converted into an 
industry of peace and well-being. The need for work cannot be used for 
the production of weapons. Producing for life, not for death.

Here in Sicily, the political and trade union initiative to convert the 
Leonardo spa factory in Guadagna, Palermo, which produces electronic 
components for war systems used in all wars, to civilian and peace use 
must be relaunched, and the idea of transforming the former Fiat in 
Termini Imerese into a factory for tanks and armored vehicles must be 
opposed.

The strategic choice of the movement against rearmament and war is the 
reconversion of the war industry to civilian use and to impose that the 
tens of billions destined for armaments and war be allocated to the 
fight against poverty, healthcare, public schools, and services.

Renato Franzitta

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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