Parliamentary Service (1996–present)
Guido Crosetto was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1996, representing the Cuneo constituency in Piedmont — the area where he was born and where his family has deep roots. That initial election began a parliamentary career spanning approximately thirty years and seven separate electoral mandates, making him one of the most experienced members of Italy's political class in matters of defence and security.
His Cuneo base reflects a broader truth about his political identity: despite spending much of his professional life in Rome and in national policy circles, Crosetto has remained anchored to a specific territorial constituency and its concerns. Piedmont's industrial and agricultural economy shaped his understanding of the relationship between security, industry, and economic development.
Over three decades of parliamentary work, Crosetto served on committees dealing with defence, budgetary matters, and industry. He built expertise gradually, moving from back-bench legislator to a recognised authority on defence procurement, military organisation, and Italy's strategic commitments. This accumulation of specialised knowledge proved decisive when he was called upon to lead the ministry itself.
His parliamentary career has spanned multiple party formations — from the early centre-right coalition structures of the 1990s through to the founding of Fratelli d'Italia in December 2012 alongside Giorgia Meloni and Ignazio La Russa. Each political realignment deepened rather than disrupted his focus on substantive policy, particularly in the security and defence domain.
Undersecretary for Defence (2008–2011)
Crosetto's first direct executive role in the defence sector came during the Berlusconi IV government, when he served as Undersecretary of State for Defence from 2008 to 2011. The position placed him at the intersection of parliamentary accountability and executive decision-making, giving him direct exposure to the workings of the Ministry of Defence from the inside.
As undersecretary, Crosetto dealt with procurement questions — the complex, politically sensitive business of acquiring equipment and systems for Italy's armed forces. Defence procurement involves long lead times, industrial policy implications, and significant public expenditure, all of which require careful navigation of both bureaucratic and political constraints. This experience gave him an unusually granular understanding of how defence investment decisions are actually made.
He also represented Italy in international meetings within the NATO framework and in bilateral defence forums, gaining early exposure to the alliance dynamics and interoperability questions that would later define his ministerial agenda. The combination of parliamentary background and executive experience at subcabinet level was unusual for Italian politicians and placed him in a strong position when the question of leading the ministry arose in 2022.
The AIAD Period (2013–2022)
After the fall of the Berlusconi government and the subsequent period of political transition, Crosetto moved into an unusual role for an active politician: in 2013 he became president of AIAD, the Italian Federation of Aerospace, Defence and Security Companies. This position, which he held until 2022, placed him at the head of Italy's defence industrial lobby at a time when European defence integration and transatlantic procurement patterns were undergoing significant change.
AIAD represents the interests of Italian companies operating in the aerospace, defence, and security sectors — firms including Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica), Fincantieri, Iveco Defence Vehicles, Beretta, and many smaller specialists in electronics, communications, and systems integration. These companies together account for a substantial share of Italian high-technology exports and employ tens of thousands of skilled workers.
Crosetto's nine-year tenure at AIAD gave him a perspective on defence that few politicians possess: a detailed knowledge of the industrial base, its capabilities and limitations, its dependencies on export markets and government contracts, and its relationship to national security interests. He became a fluent translator between the language of industrial policy and the language of defence strategy.
Crucially, the AIAD role kept him connected to European and NATO-level discussions about defence industrial cooperation, PESCO projects, and the development of next-generation platforms. When Italy signed the GCAP agreement with the United Kingdom and Japan in December 2022 — just weeks after Crosetto took over the ministry — he brought to that decision an industrial understanding of what such a programme requires and what it could deliver.
Some critics noted the potential tension between AIAD advocacy and subsequent ministerial responsibilities, but Crosetto's supporters argued that the industrial knowledge was an asset precisely because it allowed him to engage substantively with procurement choices rather than deferring entirely to the military and bureaucratic apparatus.
Ministerial Service (2022–present)
Guido Crosetto was appointed Minister of Defence on 22 October 2022, as part of the first government led by Giorgia Meloni. The appointment was significant in several respects: it placed at the head of one of Italy's most operationally demanding ministries a politician with genuine defence expertise, and it signalled that the new government intended to engage seriously with NATO commitments and European security questions.
The Italian Ministry of Defence is a substantial organisation. It has oversight of the Esercito Italiano (Army), the Marina Militare (Navy), the Aeronautica Militare (Air Force), and the military component of the Arma dei Carabinieri (the gendarmerie force with both domestic and international deployment roles). Together, the armed forces number approximately 170,000 active personnel, with significant civilian staff and a large estate of bases, installations, and equipment.
The ministry's responsibilities span a wide range: managing ongoing international deployments across dozens of missions; conducting procurement programmes worth billions of euros; fulfilling Italy's NATO commitments including the nuclear sharing arrangement; engaging in bilateral defence cooperation with dozens of partner nations; and presenting annual budget requests to Parliament under the Decreto Missioni mechanism.
Crosetto has managed this brief through a period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty — the ongoing war in Ukraine, instability across the Mediterranean and the Sahel, and a broader NATO debate about defence spending levels and readiness. His management style has combined political engagement with substantive policy focus, earning him a reputation as a minister who understands his brief in detail.
Key Contributions
Crosetto's contributions to Italian public life extend beyond the formal roles he has held. Several themes stand out across his career.
Building Defence Credibility for the Centre-Right
Within the Italian centre-right, defence policy has not always been the subject of consistent or sophisticated attention. Crosetto's combination of parliamentary experience, executive service, and industry leadership gave Fratelli d'Italia, and the broader coalition it leads, a credible voice on defence questions at a time when that credibility was essential for governing effectively within the NATO framework.
NATO Positioning
One of Crosetto's consistent positions has been his strong Atlanticism — support for Italy's obligations within NATO, including the nuclear sharing arrangement, and for the alliance's collective defence commitments. This positioning helped reassure allied governments that the change of government in Rome in 2022 would not translate into a weakening of Italian commitment to the Western security framework.
Ukraine Management
The management of Italy's response to the war in Ukraine has required careful navigation of a coalition in which Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, holds more ambivalent positions. Crosetto's clear support for continuing military assistance to Ukraine, expressed through successive parliamentary decrees authorising arms transfers, has been one of the defining positions of his ministerial tenure.
Defence Industry Advocacy
Crosetto has been a consistent advocate for adequate defence investment, arguing that Italy's historically low defence spending relative to GDP carries strategic costs that will compound over time. His arguments have connected defence spending to industrial policy, employment, and technological sovereignty — making the case in terms that go beyond narrow security calculations.
Transparency and Communication
Crosetto is notable among Italian defence ministers for his willingness to engage directly with public debate. He maintains an active presence on X (formerly Twitter), where he addresses both policy questions and public criticism, often in detail and at length. This approach is unusual in a ministry where reticence is the norm, and it reflects a deliberate choice to bring defence questions into broader public conversation.
His press conference style is similarly direct. He tends to address uncomfortable questions rather than deflecting them, to acknowledge the complexity of decisions rather than presenting them as straightforward, and to engage with parliamentary critics on substantive grounds. Italian commentators across the political spectrum have noted, even when disagreeing with his positions, that his communication style represents a departure from the typical opacity of the defence establishment.
This transparency carries risks: candid ministerial statements on sensitive topics, from nuclear sharing to intelligence cooperation, require careful calibration. But Crosetto's supporters argue that the benefits — a better-informed public, a more engaged parliamentary debate — outweigh the risks of occasional diplomatic friction.
A Different Kind of Politician
Crosetto's biography marks him out from many Italian politicians. Born in Cuneo in January 1963, he studied economics at the University of Turin before entering business. His background in the private sector — including work in the food and retail industry in Piedmont before turning fully to politics — gave him a perspective shaped by commercial reality rather than exclusively by political calculation.
His physical stature (he is notably tall) and his directness of manner have made him a recognisable figure in Italian public life. He is also known for a capacity for personal warmth and for maintaining relationships across political lines — unusual in the polarised environment of contemporary Italian politics.
The AIAD presidency represented an atypical path for a politician: most elected officials do not step into industry leadership roles and then return to executive government. But this trajectory gave Crosetto a breadth of perspective that has arguably strengthened his ministerial performance. He understands the armed forces as a customer, the defence industry as a supplier and employer, and Parliament as the body that must ultimately authorise and fund the whole enterprise.
In a political culture that sometimes rewards charisma over competence, Crosetto has built his position primarily on expertise. His longevity in public service — approaching four decades — reflects a sustained commitment to the defence domain that few of his contemporaries can match.