Italian Armed Forces
The Italian Armed Forces encompass the Italian Army, the Italian Navy and the Italian Air Force. A fourth branch of the armed forces, known as the Carabinieri, take on the role as the nation's military police and are also involved in missions and operations abroad as a combat force. Despite not being a branch of the armed forces, the Guardia di Finanza is organized along military lines.
These five forces comprise a total of 340,885 men and women with the official status of active military personnel, of which 167,057 are in the Army, Navy and Air Force. The President of Italy heads the armed forces as the President of the High Council of Defence established by article 87 of the Constitution of Italy. According to article 78, the Parliament has the authority to declare a state of war and vest the powers to lead the war in the Government.
History
The military history of Italy chronicles a vast time period, lasting from the military conflicts fought by the ancient peoples of Italy, most notably the conquest of the Mediterranean world by the ancient Romans, through the expansion of the Italian city-states and maritime republics during the medieval period and the involvement of the historical Italian states in the Italian Wars and the wars of succession, to the Napoleonic period, the Italian unification, the campaigns of the colonial empire, the two world wars, and into the modern day, with world peacekeeping operations under the aegis of NATO, the EU or the UN. The Italian Peninsula has been a centre of military conflict throughout European history due to its geostrategic position: because of this, Italy has a long military tradition.The Risorgimento movement emerged to unite Italy in the 19th century. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia took the lead in a series of wars to liberate Italy from foreign control. Following three Wars of Italian Independence against the Habsburg Austrians in the north, the Expedition of the Thousand against the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies in the south, and the Capture of Rome, the unification of the country was completed in 1871 when Rome was declared capital of Italy.
File:Flag of the President of Italy.svg|thumb|The presidential standard of Italy. The square shape and the savoy blue border symbolize the four Italian Armed Forces, which are commanded by the President of Italy. Blue in heraldry also metaphorically symbolizes command.
The presidential standard of Italy is the distinctive standard of the presence of the President of Italy. The presidential standard is one of the National symbols of Italy. The standard recalls the colors of the flag of Italy, with particular reference to the standard of the historic Italian Republic of 1802–1805; the square shape and the savoy blue border, whose use was maintained even in the Republican era, symbolize the four Italian Armed Forces, which are commanded by the President of Italy. Blue in heraldry also metaphorically symbolizes command.
Organization
The office of the Chief of Defence is organised as follows:| Position | Italian title | Rank | Incumbent |
| Chief of the Defence Staff | Il Capo di Stato Maggiore della Difesa | Generale | Luciano Portolano |
| Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff | Sottocapo di Stato Maggiore della Difesa | Ammiraglio di Squadra | Giacinto Ottaviani |
| Chief of Joint Operations | Il Comandante del Comando Operativo di Vertice Interforze | Generale di corpo d'armata con incarichi speciali | Francesco Paolo Figliuolo |
The four branches of Italian Armed Forces
Italian Army
The Italian Army is the land force branch of the Italian Armed Forces. The army's history dates back to the Italian unification in the 1850s and 1860s. The army fought in colonial engagements in China and Libya. It fought in Northern Italy against the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I, Abyssinia before World War II and in World War II in Albania, Balkans, North Africa, the Soviet Union, and Italy itself. During the Cold War, the army prepared itself to defend against a Warsaw Pact invasion from the east.Since the end of the Cold War, the army has seen extensive peacekeeping service and combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter, recently deployed in UN missions. The headquarters of the Army General Staff are located in Rome opposite the Quirinal Palace, where the president of Italy resides. The army is an all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel.
The Italian Army originated as the Royal Army, which dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy following the seizure of the Papal States and the unification of Italy. In 1861, under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy was invited to take the throne and of the newly created kingdom.
The Italian Army has participated in operations to aid populations hit by natural disasters. It has, moreover, supplied a remarkable contribution to the forces of police for the control of the territory of the province of Bolzano/Bozen, in Sardinia, in Sicily and in Calabria. Currently, it protects sensitive objectives and places throughout the national territory since the September 11 attacks in the United States.
The army is also engaged in Missions abroad under the aegis of the UN, the NATO, and of Multinational forces, such as Beirut in Lebanon, Namibia, Albania, Kurdistan, Somalia, Mozambique, Bosnia, East Timor and Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon again.
Italian Navy
The Italian Navy is one of the four branches of Italian Armed Forces and was formed in 1946 from what remained of the Regia Marina after World War II., the Italian Navy had a strength of 30,923 active personnel, with approximately 184 vessels in service, including minor auxiliary vessels. It is considered a multiregional and a blue-water navy.The navy of Italy was created in 1861, following the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. The new navy's baptism of fire came during the Third Italian War of Independence against the Austrian Empire. During the First World War, it spent its major efforts in the Adriatic Sea, fighting the Austro-Hungarian Navy. In the Second World War, it engaged the Royal Navy in a two-and-a-half-year struggle for the control of the Mediterranean Sea. After the war, the new Marina Militare, being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, has taken part in many coalition peacekeeping operations. It is a blue-water navy. The Guardia Costiera is a component of the navy.
Today's Italian Navy is a modern navy with ships of every type. The fleet is in continuous evolution, and as of today oceangoing fleet units include: 2 light aircraft carriers, 4 amphibious assault ships, 3 destroyers, 11 frigates and 8 attack submarines. Patrol and littoral warfare units include: 10 offshore patrol vessels, 10 mine countermeasure vessels, 4 coastal patrol boats, and a varied fleet of auxiliary ships are also in service. The flagship of the fleet is the carrier Cavour.
The ensign of the Italian Navy is the flag of Italy bearing the coat of arms of the Italian Navy. The shield's quarters refer to the four Medieval Italian Maritime Republics:
- 1st quarter: on red, a golden winged lion wielding a sword
- 2nd quarter: on white field, red cross, the Saint George's Cross
- 3rd quarter: on blue field, white Maltese cross
- 4th quarter: on red field, white Pisan cross
Italian Air Force
The Italian Air Force is the air force of the Italian Republic. Since its formation, the service has held a prominent role in modern Italian military history. The acrobatic display team is the Frecce Tricolori. Italy was among the earliest adopters of military aviation. Its air arm dates back to 1884, when the Italian Royal Army was authorised to acquire its own air component. The Air Service operated balloons based near Rome.In 1911, reconnaissance and bombing sorties during the Italo-Turkish War by the Servizio Aeronautico represented the first use of heavier-than-air aircraft in armed conflict. On 28 March 1923, the Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service by King Vittorio Emanuele III of the Kingdom of Italy.
During the 1930s, it was involved in its first military operations in Ethiopia in 1935, and later in the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. Eventually, Italy entered World War II alongside Germany. After the armistice of 8 September 1943, Italy was divided into two sides, and the same fate befell the Regia Aeronautica. The Air Force was split into the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force in the south aligned with the Allies, and the pro-Axis Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana in the north until the end of the war. When Italy was made a republic by referendum, the air force was given its current name Aeronautica Militare. The cockade of Italy is one of the symbols of the Italian Air Force, and is widely used on all Italian state aircraft, not only military.
Armed conflicts in Somalia, Mozambique and the nearby Balkans led to the Italian Air Force becoming a participant in multinational air forces, such as that of NATO over the former Yugoslavia, just a few minutes flying time east of the Italian Peninsula. The commanders of the Italian Air Force soon saw the need to improve the Italian air defences.
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri are the national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign policing duties. It is one of Italy's main law enforcement agencies, alongside the Polizia di Stato and the Guardia di Finanza. As with the Guardia di Finanza but in contrast to the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri are a military force. As the fourth branch of the Italian Armed Forces, they come under the authority of the Ministry of Defence; for activities related to inland public order and security, they functionally depend on the Ministry of the Interior. In practice, there is a significant overlap between the jurisdiction of the Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri, and both of them are contactable through 112, the European Union's Single Emergency number. Unlike the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri have responsibility for policing the military, and a number of members regularly participate in military missions abroad.The corps was instituted in 1814 by King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy with the aim of providing the Kingdom of Sardinia, the forerunner of the Kingdom of Italy, with a police corps. It is therefore older than Italy itself. During the process of Italian unification, the Carabinieri were appointed as the "First Force" of the new national military organization. Although the Carabinieri assisted in the suppression of opposition during the rule of Benito Mussolini, they were also responsible for his downfall and many units were disbanded during World War II by Nazi Germany, which resulted in large numbers of Carabinieri joining the Italian resistance movement.
In 2000, they were separated from the Army to become a separate branch of the Italian Armed Forces. Carabinieri have policing powers that can be exercised at any time and in any part of the country, and they are always permitted to carry their assigned weapon as personal equipment. The Carabinieri are often referred to as "La Benemerita" as they are a trusted and prestigious law enforcement institution in Italy. The first official account of the use of this term to refer to the Carabinieri dates back to 24 June 1864.
The new force was divided into divisions on the scale of one division for each province of Italy. The divisions were further divided into companies and subdivided into lieutenancies, which commanded and coordinated the local police stations and were distributed throughout the national territory in direct contact with the public. They carry out peacekeeping mission abroad, such as Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. At the Sea Islands Conference of the G8 in 2004, the Carabinieri were given the mandate to establish a Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units to spearhead the development of training and doctrinal standards for civilian police units attached to international peacekeeping missions.