“With Ukraine, but no soldiers.“ The formula with which Giorgia Meloni reiterated in Parliament that Italy “does not intend to send soldiers to Ukraine” has the virtue of tactical clarity but all the flaws of strategic confusion: it seems like a promise of responsibility, but risks becoming an alibi of irrelevance. In the communications ahead of the European Council of 18 December, the premier claimed support for Kyiv and at the same time closed the door, in principle, to the only option that – if the conflict enters a negotiating phase – can transform solidarity into credible deterrence.

It is an ambiguity that clashes with the best tradition of the Second Republic: that of a country that, with all its limitations, has learnt to carry weight in the world above all when it took the necessary share of risk to sit at the adult table. In Kosovo in 1999, Italy joined KFOR from the very first day of the operation; not because Rome had suddenly discovered a taste for the helmet, but because the stability of the Balkans was European stability, and Italy could only be in the front line in the region with which it borders to the east.

Then there is Afghanistan, where Italy has been involved since the beginning of the post-September 11 season, in a UN/NATO framework that spans different majorities and opposing governments. One can (and must) discuss objectives, costs and results; but the political point is that the bottom line was clear: if the Euro-Atlantic community makes a commitment, Italy does not play the guest at dinner who eats and then disappears when it comes time for the bill.

Even Iraq, with all the controversies it still brings with it, signals a trait: when the international context moves and the allies demand a response, Rome tends to look for a way – often imperfect, sometimes questionable, almost always negotiated in Parliament – not to stand by and watch. ‘Ancient Babylon’ was authorised in 2003 and is part of a long cycle of foreign missions that, from the end of the Cold War onwards, have built Italy’s international identity more than many solemn declarations.

Credibility is not proclaimed, it is guaranteed

Why does this matter today? Because the idea of ‘standing with Ukraine’ is not a moral stance; it is a European security choice. And European security, on a continent that is no longer protected by geography or American inertia, is measured by an old and un-photogenic word: credibility. Credibility is not proclaimed, it is built. And it is also built with soldiers – not to ‘go to war’, but to prevent war from returning, or from resuming as soon as a ceasefire is signed.

Therefore, Meloni’s formula is not prudence, it is ambiguity. The premier moves in a European climate where the hypothesis of a European post-conflict security force is no longer a taboo, but a real dossier, albeit one full of divisions and unknowns. Back in 2024, when Macron refused to rule out ‘boots on the ground’, the reaction of the allies was a mixture of public rejection and private nervousness: a sign that the topic was closer to reality than many wanted to admit.

Since then, the idea has matured in different forms: more robust training missions, protection devices in backward areas, reassurance forces in the event of a truce, ‘Article 5‘ guarantees without being NATO in the formal sense (the latter, paradoxically, proposed by the Italian government itself). Today, with Washington engaged in a new phase of negotiations and with Europe forced to fill in the gaps, the theme returns forcefully: the discussion of a ‘Europe-led force’ in Ukraine circulates as one of the possible instruments of guarantee.

In Berlin, a few days ago, the negotiation itself was described in terms that no longer allow governments to take refuge in the lexicon of ‘support’ without content: security guarantees yes, but with an architecture that could include a European force on the ground, at some distance from the front, to make a truce credible and discourage the next Russian offensive. And Moscow, as always, cries scandal, offends European leaders and refuses to talk to Europe because it understands that European troops on Ukrainian soil is the only real obstacle to its future hostile initiative against Ukraine (and beyond).

The credibility test: if the Europeans get in, Italy cannot stay out

It is here that the ‘no soldiers’ line shows its fragility: not because tomorrow morning Italy must send brigades to Kyiv – a useful caricature for some talk show infiltrated by pro-Russians – but because, if Europe is to guarantee a truce, the guarantee will have a concrete form. And when that form will have been shared or at least ‘digested’ by the United States (not necessarily with enthusiasm), Italy will hardly be able to call itself out without paying a huge price in credibility, influence and security.

In other words: the choice will not be between ‘soldiers yes’ and ‘soldiers no’ in the abstract. It will be between participating in a European arrangement that avoids the repetition of war (and thus protects us as well), or letting others build it and then discovering that, at the decisive hour, Italy is considered an accessory ally, useful for photos and irrelevant for decisions. It is an outcome that Cavour would have called, with his elegant cynicism, a defeat without a battle: being in the concert of powers only when others play.

This is where history comes in, and not as an ornament. Modern Italy was born when it understood that its sovereignty is not defended alone: it is defended with alliances, responsibilities, institutions. De Gasperi translated this in the post-war period into a western and European choice, not as an act of faith, but as a security technology for a vulnerable country. If there is a red line in national history, it is the idea that Italy cannot afford the luxury of moral equidistance, nor the illusion of strategic innocence.

Western seriousness is not a badge: it is a chain of consistent choices. To say today ‘never soldiers’ is to mortgage tomorrow Italy’s ability to contribute to a European guarantee that, if it materialises, will not be a French fantasy nor a British whim: it will be the inevitable answer to a simple question. How do we prevent Russia, tomorrow, from repeating what it did yesterday?

If Italy really wants to be ‘with Ukraine’, it must prepare public opinion and Parliament for an adult truth: peace, in Europe, is not a wish. It is a device. And devices work when they are credible, shared and supported even by those who would prefer not to pay the cost.

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