Which Type of Armament Cooperation Do We Want/Need? The Case of Italy

The traditional Italian approach during and after the Cold War favoured cooperative procurement, mostly in Europe, to equip the armed forces with capabilities that national industries were not able to develop and produce autonomously. In recent years, Italy has gradually changed such approach because of both external and domestic factors, such as the rise of the defence budgets in the EU as well as a relatively stable government including a Defence Minister with a strong political vision concerning defence industrial policy. Overall, the priority of cooperative programmes is shifting towards four interrelated goals: greater operational and technological sovereignty; an equal-foot role for Italian companies with respect to international partners; higher chances for domestic industrial growth; favourable positioning concerning exports. Several recent examples confirm this shift of priorities, including the Global Combat Air Programme, the Leonardo-Rheinmetall deal on Main Battle Tanks and the Near Future Submarine procurement. Such trend will be further accelerated by the Italian use of 14,9 billion euro of SAFE loans.