Amid Europe’s Push To Rearm, Would Italy — Home of Physicist Enrico Fermi — Revive Its Nuclear Weapons Program?

Is it time for Giorgia Meloni’s Italy to go nuclear? That’s weaponry, not temperament.Back in the 1930s, the University of Rome La Sapienza was in the vanguard of quantum physics. And Enrico Fermi, who headed the Royal Physics Institute, would go on to create the world’s first nuclear reactor that led to the atomic bomb.By the 1960s and 1970s, the Italian nuclear weapons program sought to develop homegrown nuclear weapons. Though the program was disbanded, it could be revived. That’s in part because Italy has neither signed nor ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.Though committed to the safety and survival of the Continent, Prime Minister Meloni is not entirely sanguine about the Macron-Starmer “Coalition of the Willing.”“In order for Europe and Italy to matter,” said the premier, “both must strengthen their defense.”However, when President Macron declares that “Our soldiers, when they are engaged and deployed” must respond to a “conflict situation,” Signora Meloni balks.The French president seems eager to trigger a 21st-century Balkan quagmire that could metastasize into the end of the world.Why is a NATO ground war in Eastern Europe even being contemplated? One need not possess a keen military mind to see that Western boots on the ground would not ensure a Kyiv victory, much less a cakewalk. President Putin could end up responding in the most apocalyptic manner.Envisioning such bellicosity in the midst of peace talks to end the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is sheer folly. What’s equally unsettling is how Berlin’s likely new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has unilaterally shredded the Maastricht Treaty’s fiscal restraints in agitating for a vast German military build-up.The Italian Finance and Economy minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, finds Herr Merz’s dismissal of the rules governing the EU’s debt to GDP ratio to be a flagrant bit of hypocrisy.In response to Herr Merz’s sudden profligacy, Signore Giorgetti has proffered a novel solution. He proposes raising as much as 200 billion euros for defense from private sector investments, which would be backed by a 16.7 billion euro public sector guarantee. However, defense spending would be excluded from the Stability Pact.The deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, is more visceral in his reaction to Herr Merz’s belligerence: “It’s never good news when Germany spends billions of euros to arm its military. That has never ended well in the past.”In calling for higher European defense spending, President Trump has ruffled more than a few Continental feathers. But he did not order the evisceration of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Yet Herr Merz’s Deutschland seems to act as if the 47th president is as much of a blackguard as Mr. Putin.According to the New York Times, “German rearmament would change the face of Europe; it would certainly cause Moscow to take note.”In such a volatile geopolitical climate, the Magic Boot’s return to the atom might be more than warranted. And Mr. Putin would surely take note.An Italian nuclear arsenal would act as a deterrent against an enemy attack — be it Russian, Chinese or Iranian. And such a force could serve as a protective shield for Southern Europe — even as the French and British umbrellas protect Northern Europe.Moreover, Italy’s potenza di fuoco nucleare would be welcomed by the Trump administration. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Prime Minister Meloni underscored her respect for America, Italy’s “first ally.” Though she worked well with President Biden, Signora Meloni pointed out the former president’s protectionist Inflation Reduction Act.“Do you really think protectionism in the US was invented by Donald Trump?”Unlike Herr Merz, Monsieur Macron and even Prime Minister Starmer, Italy’s premier acknowledges that while the transatlantic alliance faces significant challenges, one does not abandon an ally.“Our relations with the US are the most important relationship that we have.” Echoing Marcus Aurelius, Signora Meloni believes that within every crisis “always hides an opportunity.” That is, Italy can serve as Europe’s indispensable link to Trump’s America.In the days following her tête-à-tête with the Financial Times, Signora Meloni issued a blistering condemnation of opposition leaders — specifically Elly Schlein of the leftist Partito Democratico — who view Europe as “a demilitarized hippie commune that relies on the good faith of foreign powers.”Imagine their reaction should the Seed of Aeneas flex its nuclear muscle.

Amid Europe’s Push To Rearm, Would Italy — Home of Physicist Enrico Fermi — Revive Its Nuclear Weapons Program?

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