When in 2006 US Navy engineers started thinking where they should place the four ground stations for their bright new communications system, in their minds Italy was one of the best spots. Sicily, where the US military has a strong presence, is closer to Tunis than Rome. The MUOS would cover not just the Middle East but also Africa where the lacking of communications coverage made AFRICOM particularly vulnerable in that sector.

At the time, Italy was a also one of the US greatest ally. The close relationship between George W. Bush and the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi made everything easier, smoother, as described in the Wikileaks cables. So the two governments signed a Memorandum to build the fourth ground station in Niscemi, where the US Navy had already a base. The then Ministry of Defense, Ignazio La Russa, acted as guarantor for the deal, although now he refuses to talk publicly about MUOS.

The US and Italian government didn’t expect  such a fierce opposition. NO MUOS activists they first stopped the work at the station and then started suing the government for a breach in the Italian laws.

I wrote about it for Quartz. And this is the link.  Enjoy

Since 2012 the U.S. has tried to put their feet in Syria. The CIA and the State Department had different ideas on how to approach the escalating conflict, and they pursued different paths. Nonetheless as the situation  evolved from a failed revolution to civil war, the U.S. didn’t have a reliable partner on the ground.

In 2014 the program “train and equip” was officialized by Congress and financed with $500 millions. The idea was to bring to Turkey some Free Syrian Army soldiers to train them and then bring them back to Syria. Each candidate, before entering the program, had to pass through a screening process. Most of the applicants were rejected because their ties with Islamic extremism or terrorism.

The American and Turkish trained rebels were defeated, kidnapped, and defected to more radical groups on the ground such as Al Nusra. None of the over 100 fighters trained was able to gain back territory from ISIS.

When talking about women on the frontlines there are always a lot of misconceptions. In the past year women fighters in Syria and Iraq have been praised by the Western media, but the reality is that the Kurds are not a monolithic people and they are divided in many different groups. Amongst those, women have different roles and they are not all in combat. I have tried to explain the differences in an article for War is Boring.

A couple of weeks ago Reuters opinion editor, Jason Fields, and War is Boring editor, Matthew Gault, called me on their podcast War College, to discuss the issue.

What kind of lives they have? What are they fighting for?  Those are amongst the questions they posed me. So if you have similar queries you should definitely listen to this!