The Price of Prestige

64 chapter three

excess, the potential disconnect between actual capabilities and symbolic

value grew further, enabling and encouraging the procurement of vessels

such as the Vasa, Bismarck, and Tirpitz.

The Italian naval experience during the interwar years can further il-

luminate this discussion.

From Versailles to Munich and beyond, the Italian Navy made Mussolini’s Italy

a great power in the Mediterranean. For two decades, in crises large and small,

the Italian Navy, with its beautiful ships and poorly trained gun crews, more

than earned its keep as it enabled Mussolini to have his way in Yugoslavia,

Greece, Turkey, Spain, Ethiopia, and Albania. It was not only that the British

did not want to fight, even in a war that they could win, but rather that they (like

other observers) mistook form for substance. Year after year, the Italian Navy

budget was pre- empted by highly visible new ship acquisitions at the expense

of such trifles as gunnery training, maintenance, and non- visible (e.g., commu-

nications) equipment. The visible capabilities may have been spurious, but the

political leverage that the Italian Navy secured for its master was all too real. It

was not until 1940 that war provided the ultimate test of viability, exposing the

basic weakness of the Italian Navy. Until then even the British admiralty had

been deceived together with the Mediterranean powers, large and small, which

chose to conciliate an Italy whose navy was as impressive as it was ineffectual.

(Luttwak 1974 , 40 )^8

It would be erroneous to view the Italian interwar navy as a product of

an elaborate and intentional Machiavellian scheme. The Italians were prob-

ably as astonished and dismayed as anyone when their grand navy collapsed

so rapidly. Similarly, it would be erroneous to regard the British misper-

ception as a product of poor intelligence, naivety, or spinelessness. Instead,

following the Veblenian logic, these actors were showing a predictable pref-

erence for conspicuousness, the same preference that makes the aircraft

carrier such an effective symbol of power nowadays. The Italians preferred

a conspicuous navy, forgoing investments in less visible components such

as training or improved communications in favor of the purchase of addi-

tional “beautiful ships.” The ultimate ineptness of the “grand” Italian navy

emphasizes the extent to which a strong preference for conspicuousness is

often linked to inefficiency. Like the Vasa, the Italian case provides a col-

orful example of an international Gatsby effect, where overinvestment in

conspicuous consumption ultimately leads to ruin. Like Gatsby, the invest-

ment in the conspicuous allowed Italy to buy prestige for a while. However,