PRESS

fied its views about what constitutes a legitimate use
of military force. So too Italy, if judging by the number
of times its military has been involved in operations
outside its borders. 21 Italian forces were sent to Iraq
during the first Gulf War, followed shortly thereafter
by a deployment to Somalia, and then to Bosnia. Other
deployments have included operations in Central Africa,
East Timor, Mozambique, the Balkans, Iraq again,
Afghanistan, Lebanon, and, most recently, against
Libya, where the Italian Air Force flew air defense
suppression and strike missions and helped enforce
the United Nations (UN)-sanctioned no-fly zone over
the country.
While the activity level of the Italian military has
certainly picked up in recent years, perhaps the origins
of this new attitude toward using the military dates to
1982 when Italy—along with France and the United
States—sent troops into Lebanon in the wake of the
First Lebanon War between Israel and the Palestine
Liberation Organization and Syria. The deployment
arose because Rome believed that, given its geographic
location, Italy should have a more prominent role
in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean security affairs.
But it was not until Italy’s participation in Operation
DESERT STORM in 1991—the first time the Italian
Air Force had been involved in actual military
operations since World War II—that the rate of the
military’s deployments surged and appeared to open
the door to more kinetic use of force. For example, in
the 1991 Kosovo War air campaign against Yugoslav
forces, Italy was the third largest contributor of aircraft
and flew the fourth largest number of sorties by
a NATO member. 22
However, more recent deployments present a
mixed picture when it comes to the use of military
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