Security and Strategy: Italy's Strategic Posture

Minister Crosetto at the EU Foreign Affairs Council (Defence format), November 2022 — representing Italy's security interests in the European institutional framework.

Italy's Strategic Context

Italy's strategic position is at once advantaged and demanding. Geographically, Italy sits at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea — the body of water that connects Europe to Africa and the Middle East, that carries much of global energy trade in the form of liquefied natural gas and petroleum, and that has historically been a zone of civilisational exchange, competition, and conflict. The Italian peninsula, with its lengthy coastline on both the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, is exposed to challenges from multiple directions. Sicily sits less than 150 kilometres from Tunisia; the Adriatic faces the Western Balkans; the Strait of Otranto is the gateway to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Italy's security environment is therefore genuinely multi-directional in a way that differs from the experience of most other NATO allies. Germany faces east; the United Kingdom faces the Atlantic approaches; France must balance continental and expeditionary commitments. Italy must simultaneously attend to the eastern flank — through its Adriatic exposure and its NATO commitments — and to the southern neighbourhood of North Africa, the Sahel, and the Middle East. This dual exposure shapes Italian strategic culture and explains the persistent Italian emphasis on Mediterranean stability as a core security interest alongside the Atlantic and European frameworks.

Italy is a founding member of both NATO (1949) and the European Economic Community (1957), and these two frameworks remain the twin pillars of Italian security policy. The tension between them — in particular the debate over EU strategic autonomy and its relationship to NATO primacy — is not merely an abstract institutional question for Italy; it directly concerns the practical management of Italy's security relationships with France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Navigating this tension has been a recurring challenge for Italian governments and for Minister Crosetto personally.

The 2015 White Paper on International Security and Defence

Italy's most recent formal strategic document is the 2015 Libro Bianco per la Sicurezza Internazionale e la Difesa — the White Paper on International Security and Defence. Published under then-Minister Roberta Pinotti, the document set out Italy's threat perception, strategic interests, and capability priorities for what was then seen as a period of managed strategic competition and graduated instability rather than the direct great-power confrontation that would materialise after 2022.

The 2015 White Paper identified seven principal threats and challenges to Italian security: state fragility and the failure of governance; international terrorism; transnational organised crime; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; competition for resources; cyber threats; and climate change. This list reflected the strategic environment of the time — an environment shaped by the experience of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, by the 2011 Arab Spring and its aftermath, and by a threat assessment that still assigned only secondary importance to traditional state-on-state military conflict in Europe.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally changed this calculus. The assumption that large-scale conventional conflict on European territory was structurally unlikely proved wrong, and the 2015 document's threat hierarchy required immediate reconsideration. The Crosetto ministry has had to operate with a strategic framework that was conceived for a different security environment, managing the gap between the 2015 document and the post-2022 reality through ministerial statements, parliamentary testimony, and updated planning guidance to the armed forces. A new White Paper or equivalent strategic document updating Italy's national security strategy for the current environment would provide a more durable planning foundation.

Strategic Priorities: Mediterranean, Atlantic, European

The Mediterranean

Italy consistently identifies the Mediterranean as its primary strategic theatre. This is both a geographic inevitability and a political choice: Italy's direct interests — energy security, migration management, counter-terrorism, economic relations with North Africa — are more immediately at stake in the Mediterranean than in the Baltic or the Arctic. The instability of Libya since 2011, the continuing fragility of governance across the Sahel, and the persistent presence of jihadist networks from the Sinai to the Sahara all affect Italian security directly and immediately.

Libya is Italy's most important and most sensitive Mediterranean security challenge. Historically close ties between Italy and Libya — rooted in the colonial period and sustained through oil and gas relationships, migration flows, and bilateral commercial interests — give Italy a stake in Libyan stability that is unmatched by any other European country. The prolonged civil conflict in Libya after 2014, and the continuing competition between the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity and eastern Libya factions backed by the UAE and Russia, creates a situation in which Italy's interests are directly engaged but in which Italian influence is constrained by the complexity of the conflict and by competing interventions by other external actors.

Italy participates in the EU's EUNAVFOR MED IRINI operation, mandated to implement the UN arms embargo on Libya, and maintains a substantial diplomatic and political engagement with all relevant Libyan stakeholders. Italy's Mediterranean strategy also encompasses engagement with Tunisia (whose stability Crosetto has identified as a priority concern), Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco — countries that collectively frame Italy's strategic southern neighbourhood. The so-called "Mattei Plan for Africa," championed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, seeks to reframe Italy's engagement with the African continent on a basis of mutual investment and partnership, with security as a central component, and Crosetto's Ministry has an important role in its security dimensions.

The Atlantic Dimension and NATO

Italy's Atlantic commitments run through NATO, to which Italy has been bound since the Alliance's foundation in 1949. Italy hosts significant NATO infrastructure — Naples (Joint Force Command), Sigonella (naval air), Aviano (air combat), and Camp Darby (logistics) — that is integral to NATO's southern command structure. Italy is one of only five NATO allies that host US tactical nuclear weapons under the Alliance's nuclear-sharing arrangements, and Italian Air Force pilots are trained for and tasked with this mission.

Italy's Atlantic commitment has been consistent across governments of very different political orientations. The Meloni government, which includes some voices historically sceptical of Atlantic frameworks, has in practice been a dependable NATO ally — supporting Ukraine, meeting defence spending commitments, and maintaining Italy's contribution to collective defence. Crosetto has been among the most NATO-aligned voices in the Italian government, consistent in his view that the Alliance remains the cornerstone of Italian security and that credibility within it requires demonstrated investment and active participation.

The relationship with the United States is the critical bilateral dimension of Italy's Atlantic policy. The US military presence in Italy, the nuclear sharing arrangement, defence industrial partnerships (notably the F-35 programme), and intelligence cooperation all give the bilateral relationship a depth and substance that requires sustained political management. Crosetto has engaged actively with US counterparts at the Pentagon and in NATO contexts, and Italy's reliable alignment on major Alliance issues — Ukraine assistance, defence spending, China policy — has reinforced Italy's standing as a valued US ally.

The European Dimension

Italy's European security dimension operates primarily through two frameworks: NATO, which includes most EU members, and the EU's own Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Italy has been an active participant in EU military and civilian missions under CSDP since the policy's inception, and Italian officers have commanded EU missions in the Mediterranean, in Africa, and in the Western Balkans. Italy participates in PESCO (Permanent Structured Cooperation), the European Defence Fund, and the ongoing development of EU defence industrial policy.

Italy's position on the relationship between EU strategic autonomy and NATO has been characteristically nuanced. Italian governments have consistently supported the development of European defence capabilities while insisting that such capabilities must complement rather than duplicate or undermine NATO. This position aligns Italy with the general stance of most central and northern European allies, who share the concern that a drive for EU strategic autonomy that excludes or marginalises the United States would weaken rather than strengthen European security. Italy has opposed efforts to establish an EU military headquarters that might compete with NATO's command structure, and has argued for EU-NATO interoperability as the standard against which European capability development should be measured.

Hybrid Threats and the Grey Zone

The contemporary security environment presents Italy with threats that do not fit the traditional categories of peace and war. Hybrid warfare — the deliberate combination of conventional military means, irregular forces, cyber operations, information manipulation, economic coercion, and subversive political influence — has become the preferred operational mode of state adversaries who seek to achieve strategic objectives while remaining below the threshold that would trigger collective defence responses under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.

Russia's hybrid operations in Europe — including documented cases of sabotage against critical infrastructure, interference in elections and democratic processes, disinformation campaigns targeting public opinion, and the instrumentalisation of migration flows — present Italy with challenges that cross the boundaries between defence, intelligence, law enforcement, and information policy. Italy's response involves multiple governmental actors: the intelligence services (AISE for external, AISI for internal), the Presidency of the Council of Ministers' security coordination function, the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of the Interior all have roles in the hybrid threat response framework.

Italy has been subject to documented influence operations targeting Italian public opinion on Ukraine, on NATO membership, and on Russian energy relationships, and has experienced cyber intrusions targeting governmental and critical infrastructure systems. The National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN), established in 2021, coordinates civilian cybersecurity policy, while the military maintains its own cyber capabilities for operations within the defence domain. Building Italy's resilience against hybrid threats requires not only defensive technical measures but a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach that is still in development.

Counter-Terrorism

International terrorism remains a persistent threat in Italy's security environment, though the nature of the threat has evolved significantly since the peak years of jihadist attack activity in Europe in the 2010s. Italy's counter-terrorism posture benefits from the intelligence services' deep connections to sources in North Africa and the Middle East — a legacy of Italy's longstanding regional engagement — and from the Carabinieri's extensive counter-terrorism intelligence and investigative capability. Italy has not experienced a major mass-casualty terrorist attack since the 1980s, a record attributed in part to effective intelligence work and in part to the role of Italian organised crime structures in limiting the operational freedom of external terrorist networks on Italian territory.

The threat from returnees from conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya — individuals who have acquired combat experience and extremist indoctrination — has been a consistent concern, addressed through both judicial mechanisms and intelligence monitoring. Italy's membership of the Counter-ISIL Coalition has involved military contributions to the campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and Italian special forces units have participated in training missions that have built local capacity to manage the threat at source.

Energy Security

Italy's energy security is a strategic challenge of the first order. Italy is one of Europe's largest energy importers, and the country's dependence on natural gas — for domestic heating, power generation, and industrial processes — has historically made it one of the European nations most exposed to supply disruption. Before 2022, Italy imported approximately 40% of its natural gas from Russia, making it one of the most exposed European allies to the leverage that dependence gave Moscow.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerated an energy diversification effort that had been proceeding gradually but became a matter of strategic urgency. Italy, under the Meloni government, has pursued a rapid diversification of gas supply sources — increasing imports from Algeria, Libya, Azerbaijan and through LNG from the global market — while investing in LNG import infrastructure (floating storage and regasification units, or FSRUs) that reduce the structural import dependence. The government's "Mattei Plan for Africa" has a substantial energy component, seeking to develop Italy as an energy hub connecting African producing countries to European consumers, which would both diversify Italian supply and reduce European dependence on Russian sources.

The security dimension of energy infrastructure has become more salient since the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, which demonstrated that critical undersea infrastructure is vulnerable to attack and that protecting it is a genuine military challenge. Italy's own undersea energy infrastructure — pipelines from Algeria and Libya, LNG import facilities — has been assessed for vulnerability, and the Navy has enhanced its capacity to monitor and protect critical maritime infrastructure. This intersection of energy policy and military security is one of the most practically important aspects of Italy's comprehensive security strategy.

Migration as a Security Challenge

Migration — particularly the irregular maritime migration routes crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa — has been one of the most politically sensitive and practically demanding security challenges facing Italy in recent years. Italy is the EU member state most directly exposed to Central Mediterranean migration flows, with the island of Lampedusa (less than 200 kilometres from Tunisian and Libyan coasts) serving as the first point of entry for hundreds of thousands of people crossing in often dangerous conditions.

The intersection of migration and security policy is complex and contested. Humanitarian obligations under international law must be balanced against Italy's finite capacity to process and host asylum seekers, against the security concerns posed by the presence of criminal and extremist networks within irregular migration flows, and against the political and social pressures generated by large-scale irregular arrivals. Italy has sought EU burden-sharing arrangements and external partnership agreements — most notably with Tunisia and Libya — to reduce migration flows, with mixed results and persistent controversy over the human rights conditions attached to such arrangements.

The Ministry of Defence's role in migration is primarily in the naval domain: the Navy and Coast Guard conduct search and rescue operations, maritime patrol, and border enforcement activities in the Central Mediterranean, and Italy has been engaged in the EU's EUNAVFOR MED IRINI operation. Crosetto has engaged with migration policy primarily in terms of its links to source country stability and the Sahel security environment — arguing that reducing migration pressure requires addressing the governance failures, economic deprivation, and insecurity in origin and transit countries that drive people to make dangerous maritime crossings.

Cyber and Space

Cyber security and space have emerged as critical domains for Italian national security in the years since the 2015 White Paper. Italy established the National Cybersecurity Agency (Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale — ACN) in August 2021, consolidating civilian cybersecurity responsibilities that had previously been dispersed across multiple institutions and giving Italy a dedicated, appropriately resourced agency for this domain for the first time. The ACN works alongside the intelligence services and the Ministry of Defence to protect Italian governmental, military, and critical infrastructure systems against cyber threats from state and non-state actors.

Space has been formally recognised by NATO as an operational domain (at the 2019 London Leaders' Meeting), and Italy's national space programme gives it significant capabilities relevant to military applications. The COSMO-SkyMed constellation of synthetic aperture radar satellites — operated jointly by ASI (the Italian Space Agency) and the Italian Air Force — provides all-weather, day-and-night Earth observation capability that has both civilian and defence applications. Italy participates in NATO's space policy framework and has established dedicated space functions within the Air Force command structure. The protection of space assets against anti-satellite weapons, directed energy systems, and cyber intrusion is an increasingly important component of Italy's defence planning.

Crosetto's Strategic Vision

Guido Crosetto has articulated a strategic vision for Italy that is notable for its directness and its breadth. In speeches, parliamentary testimony, and media engagements since taking office in October 2022, he has consistently argued that Italy faces a fundamentally changed security environment that requires a fundamental reassessment of national posture — not merely incremental adjustments to existing policies.

At the core of his strategic vision is an insistence that Italy must be taken seriously as a security actor — by its allies, by potential adversaries, and by its own citizens. A credible deterrence posture, in his analysis, requires demonstrable investment in capability, a willingness to accept the political costs of difficult decisions, and a public culture that understands security as a precondition of everything else that Italians value. He has been notably willing to argue against the short-term political calculus that might suggest underfunding defence is costless, insisting that the consequences of strategic failure are vastly more expensive than the price of prevention.

On the EU-NATO balance, Crosetto has been clear that he regards NATO as the primary collective defence framework and is sceptical of EU security arrangements that would effectively duplicate Alliance structures or create alternatives that could dilute transatlantic solidarity. He supports European defence industrial development and collaboration — particularly through the European Defence Fund and programmes like GCAP — but draws a clear line between industrial cooperation and political autonomy that implies distance from the United States.

On the Mediterranean, Crosetto has been consistent in arguing that Italy must maintain active engagement with its southern neighbourhood rather than treating instability there as someone else's problem. This means sustained diplomatic and security engagement with North Africa, meaningful partnership with the Sahel countries working to contain the jihadist threat, and a willingness to deploy Italian military capability when necessary to support stability in Italy's strategic periphery. The Mattei Plan for Africa represents the Meloni government's institutional expression of this strategic orientation, and Crosetto's Ministry is an active stakeholder in its implementation.

"Defending Italy means defending all Italians. Our security depends on credible capability, credible alliances and the political will to maintain both."

Guido Crosetto — themes from public statements as Minister of Defence