The web is bouncing this piece of news: Italian warships, included the amphibious vessel San Giorgio, left Italy and are now moving toward Libya.

Theoretically speaking, the purpose is to carry out a military exercise known as operation Mare Aperto, which has been performed since early ‘90es. 

It could be argued that some kind of “shadow objective” is to simply “show the muscles” given the chaotic situation in Libya, quite a common practice as proved, for example, by NATO’s drills in the Baltic republics, by Russian exercises behind Ukrainian border and by Turkish or Greek exercises in the Aegean Sea.