Page 36 - Coespu Magazine 2018-2

Cops in Foreign Lands: Italy’s Role

in International Policing
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Italy’s involvement in ‘international policing’ has steadily grown over the past two decades, and the
country has succeeded in establishing itself as a leading contributor in this highly complex and
specialized sector.
Italy’s significant and committed engagement in international policing is driven by a number of
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interrelated political, economic and cultural factors. First of all, it responds to the country’s
national interests and security objectives. With few exceptions, addressed below, most of the police
missions are deployed in an ‘arc of crisis’ – running from the Maghreb to Afghanistan through the
Balkans, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Persian Gulf – which coincides with the
‘enlarged Mediterranean’, identified as the
geographical priority area in the main
official documents approved by the Italian
politico-military authorities. All of the 31
ongoing international missions of the
Armed Forces and Police occur in this
region, where Italy seeks to advance and
protect its national interests, and in
particular foster stability, secure energy
supplies, and control migration, also in
view of the fight against organized crime
and terrorism. The concept of ‘advanced
territorial defense’ is also deeply related to
overseas deployment, whereby Italy has its
police forces in Iraq to fight Daesh or in
Kosovo to curb the grave threat of foreign
fighters. It is also noteworthy that the
Carabinieri General Headquarters deems
the participation of its personnel in
operations abroad as necessary for
accruing valuable experience directly
connected to their professional and
personal growth and development.
Second, the overseas deployment of Italian
police personnel serves the country’s foreign policy goals: the deployment increases Italy’s
international visibility and credibility and thus increases Italy’s international recognition and sway.
This point is well established in the literature, according to which Italy struggles to avoid being
assigned an ancillary international role and strives to affirm national reliability abroad by

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This article is a summary of a longer article which appeared as Paolo Foradori, “Cops in Foreign Lands: Italy’s Role
in International Policing”, in International Peacekeeping, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2018.1476854.
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Although law enforcement in Italy is provided by multiple police forces, this article focuses on the Carabinieri, which
by far makes up the bulk of the Italian contribution to international policing.

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