Crosetto explains why “defense from missile attacks must be a priority for everyone”

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What exactly does it mean to protect oneself from the Russian threat? What exactly does it mean to protect one's borders from Putin's floods? What exactly does it mean to protect one's sovereignty from all those who seek to use our vulnerabilities to influence our democracies? Over the past three years, the answer to these questions, in Europe, has tended to coincide with a word, a state, a flag: Ukraine . Protecting Ukraine, over the past three years, has had many meanings, strategic meanings, military meanings, political meanings, but ultimately the Europe that has chosen and is still choosing today to militarily protect Ukraine has made a choice at the center of which there is not simply the defense of a sovereign country embraced by Europe but there is also the choice to defend the borders of our democracies by defending the borders of an attacked democracy. The new historical phase that we are living in recent times, a phase made of peace negotiations hanging by a thread, a phase made of aggressors who are treated as if they were the attacked, a phase made of threats to the security of Europe that due to a disinterest in Europe shown by the most important democracy in the world, namely America, could become even more complicated to manage in the future compared to the recent past, in this new historical phase, it was said, for months the European countries, including those of the enlarged Europe, have been looking for creative ways to try to prevent future turbulence.

Some did it by joining Nato (Sweden and Finland). Some did it by considering a return to military service (Germany and Poland). Some did it by evoking troops of the willing (France, the United Kingdom and Germany). Some did it by going back to evoking the same powerful defensive instrument used by Israel to intercept rockets and missiles launched by terrorists and militias around the Middle East who dream of wiping Israel off the map (the Iron Dome ). The Telegraph, a few days ago, revealed, without being denied, that Great Britain is secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia, fearing that it is not ready for a possible war . For this reason, the government has asked officials responsible for Defence to update twenty-year-old contingency plans that would have put the country in war conditions after threats of attack by the Kremlin. The new plan, the Telegraph also says, will include scenarios in which Britain is hit by conventional missiles, nuclear warheads or cyber operations, which posed a limited threat when the plan was last significantly updated, before 2005. British officials have chosen to take particularly seriously the announcement made by Russia, China and Iran, who claim – they said on 23 November 2024 – to have developed hypersonic missiles that can travel up to ten times the speed of sound and evade defences more easily than a conventional ballistic missile. And that is why UK defence officials have also called on the British government to develop its own version of Israel’s Iron Dome to protect it from missile attacks .

We tried to understand if there are symmetric concerns in Italy too and what emerges from our little investigation offers some interesting ideas and also some news. In Italy, according to the 2025 Annual Report on Information Policy for Security , the main risks that our country runs in relation to the Russian threat are linked to hybrid warfare: sabotage, acts of asymmetric violence, disinformation and digital interference . In the current phase, sources with access to the dossier confide to Il Foglio, there is nothing comparable to what the United Kingdom is doing "other than a physiological update of the plans, which are scheduled annually, but absolutely not in correlation with potential war events" . The possibility of developing its own version of Israel's Iron Dome to protect EU member states from missile attacks is not just an English hobby: it has always been a hobby of many European defense ministers.

In 2022, at the initiative of Germany, the European Sky Shield Initiative (Essi) was created, which is nothing more than a project born to create an integrated European air and anti-missile defense system, designed to strengthen the continent's security against threats such as ballistic missiles, drones and air attacks, through the joint purchase of interoperable technologies (such as Iris-T, Patriot and Arrow 3). Twenty European countries adhere to Essi, but not France and Italy, which promote a European defense based on jointly developed systems, such as the Italian-French Samp/T project and contest the purchase of non-European technologies, in particular Israeli and American, preferring to strengthen the strategic autonomy of the EU. Despite this, however, when questioned by Il Foglio, the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto does not hide. And to a direct question, whether or not an Iron Dome-style instrument should be considered an opportunity to be seriously evaluated for our future, Minister Crosetto responds as follows: “Defense from possible missile attacks is a priority for anyone who has to deal with the security and defense of a nation” . Alarmism, no. But time for a turning point, perhaps yes. Defending Ukraine to defend ourselves is necessary. But given the times we live in, perhaps it is no longer enough. The sovereignty of a country, after all, also passes through here.

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