‘Armiamoci e Partite’: Italy’s Paradoxical Approach to European Union Rearmament Policy

Abstract

This article examines Italy’s apparently paradoxical approach to European rearmament under the Meloni government: enthusiastic support for the €800 billion ReArmEU initiative while rejecting military deployment. Utilizing Putnam’s two-level game and Moravcsik’s liberal theory, it demonstrates how this contradiction dissolves under systematic analysis of domestic constraints. While supporting military preparedness without operational commitment is not uncommon among states facing severe constraints, Italy’s position is distinctive in combining this stance with full NATO membership and burden-sharing expectations befitting the EU’s third-largest economy. With PNRR funds expiring in 2026, Italy confronts a fiscal cliff precisely as ReArmEU launches. Facing fiscal crisis, coalition fragility, constitutional antimilitarism, and European pressure for solidarity, the government has identified ReArmEU as a rare convergence: access to resources without politically untenable military commitments. Drawing on EU documents, budget plans, and defence-industry data, the analysis shows how rearmament has been reframed as European alignment, industrial policy and coalition maintenance. Government preferences and public opinion point in the same direction: fiscal imperatives, electoral calculations, and antimilitarist culture mutually reinforce industrial mobilization without operational deployment. This equilibrium depends on Europe’s tolerance for asymmetric burden-sharing, the materializing of fiscal returns, and the absence of crises forcing a choice between economic benefits and military engagement. Should these conditions deteriorate, Italy’s ‘careful ambiguity’ risks collapsing into involuntary defection, undermining both its credibility and European security architecture.