The return of conscription in Italy is part of a framework that sees increasing the number of military personnel as a key element of rearmament policy. In a European context of reintroducing conscription ( see UN No. 16/2026 ), Italy is also pursuing a massive plan to strengthen its national military contingents, which has complex, multifaceted, and widespread characteristics.
After spending the spring winking at the German and Scandinavian models for reintroducing conscription, Defense Minister Crosetto has shifted toward a camouflaged conscription formula aimed at establishing a large army of reservists. Let's proceed in order.
Over the summer, Crosetto churned out two bills.
On June 8, the minister published a draft bill entitled "Provisions for the establishment of reserve forces in the field of military personnel and Delegation to the Government for the revision of the military instrument."
On August 4, Crosetto submitted a further draft bill entitled "Provisions for the strengthening and adaptation of national defense capacity."
The first bill is the most relevant for the reintroduction of conscription or similar measures. It essentially envisions a significant increase in recruits: 40,000 more military personnel than currently, plus an additional 2,600 Carabinieri. The increase is to be implemented by 2033 and is phased as follows: 5,071 for 2028; 5,321 for 2029; 7,001 for 2030; 7,444 for 2031; 7,500 for 2032; and 7,663 for 2033. The planned progress will be reviewed annually in the budget law based on available resources.
To achieve this goal, in addition to strengthening the already active recruitment campaign (recall that a new type of voluntary service came into force in January 2026, with higher pay and greater benefits for discharged soldiers wishing to access public administration jobs), a three-pronged "military reserve" is being introduced.
The bill provides for the operational reserve, the specialized reserve, and the territorial reserve, contingents that can be called up at any time. For the reserves' periodic training period (minimum 30 days per year), they are entitled to a net salary of EUR130 per day and an annual bonus of EUR1,300 for those who complete all required training. The training is necessary for the recall to arms, which may take place for any reason deemed necessary by the Government. Furthermore, for the entire duration of the recall period, "the employer is entitled to a 100% reduction in social security and welfare contributions due for the worker hired on a fixed-term contract to replace the recalled employee."
The operational reserve will employ military personnel up to the age of 45 who have been discharged for no more than 5 years.
The specialized reserve will employ, up to the age of 55, discharged military personnel who have served as officers with specific professional skills in the medical, IT, engineering, etc. fields. Up to this point, these are discharged military personnel who, as "civilians," are recalled to arms and periodically trained.
The third form of reserve has slightly different characteristics. The territorial reserve will employ not former discharged soldiers, but individuals up to age 35 whose only requirements are a middle school diploma (currently insufficient for any job in the public sector, or elsewhere) and participation in a 12-month military service.
Caution: considering that the annual voluntary service is no longer in force, having been replaced by the three-year voluntary service (a reform effective January 1, 2026), this territorial reserve has a requirement-a 12-month service-that strikingly resembles military conscription. Therefore, military service has been introduced as the basis for a territorial reserve. The fact that the ministry defines the recruitment procedures through its own decree, without even undergoing parliamentary institutional review, is highly disheartening regarding the voluntary nature of recruitment, especially considering that in the European context, the formula for reintroducing conscription does indeed stipulate voluntary service, but in the event of insufficient numbers of volunteers, a random draw is conducted among the entire population in the defined age group. In short, a "mandatory voluntary service."
The purpose of the territorial reserve is "to generate a pool of personnel based throughout the country, rapidly deployable to support the functional needs of the Armed Forces, including police support, emergency and disaster management, and relief and assistance." The deployment of these resources and the constant reference to regional territorial affiliation make this type of reserve eerily similar to the National Guard, which we have witnessed in brutally repressive use in the United States, even in recent times.
To recap: to form the operational and specialized reserve, we will have former soldiers periodically retrained and recalled to arms; to form the territorial reserve, we will have "volunteers" subjected to a specific 12-month term and then periodically trained. That is, conscription. Given the numerical target of 40,000, with a precisely defined annual numerical staggering, if the established targets are not met, volunteering will be cancelled and become mandatory. That is, compulsory conscription.
The fact that it's called a reserve doesn't change the reality of the matter.
The 40,000-strong increase will lead to a ratio of one military member for every 295 inhabitants in Italy by 2033. Considering that the increase in military personnel in Germany will lead, within the same timeframe, to a ratio of one military member for every 320 inhabitants, it's easy to deduce that Italy aims to reach a higher number of military personnel than Germany itself (data compiled by the Observatory against the Militarization of Schools and Universities).
The reserve system is not unexpected. Crosetto, in his statements regarding the reintroduction of conscription, has consistently referred to the military reserve, a point highlighted, as has been the case in official statements by General Portolano, Chief of the Defense General Staff. And already in 2022, the Draghi government, with Law No. 119, granted the government the authority to establish, by decree, a military reserve of 10,000 personnel by 2035. The authority has since expired, but we now have a draft bill that, while still aiming to establish a reserve corps, quadruples the objective and brings forward the implementation timeline: 40,000 personnel by 2033. The June bill is currently pending; it has not yet begun its process, pending verification of the financial coverage required to initiate this significant military increase, but the picture is clear.
The draft of the second bill, dated August 4, has already been approved by the Council of Ministers and has begun its institutional process in the Senate. As part of a general strengthening of the Defense system, the creation of a Joint Forces Summit with faster and more coordinated decision-making capabilities is envisaged. For "national security and energy defense needs" (sic!), the Ministry of Defense is exempted from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the affected territories.
The "Fund for Investments in Military Scientific and Technological Research" is established, with public funding that, for 2027 alone, provides a base of EUR10 million for the fund's establishment, to be replenished in subsequent years. Legal protections for military personnel deployed abroad are extended; the legal scope of systems such as drones is defined. Furthermore, on the economic and production front, the Ministry of Defense will be able to acquire stakes in companies and businesses in the defense production sector, enter into contracts with private individuals even without a call for tenders, and strengthen relations and exchanges with other states for the production and exchange of weapons and the construction of military infrastructure.
There is also a large section dedicated to the "Cyberspace of national interest for the defense of the State" (Article 7). Cyberspace is defined as "the set of IT infrastructures, including hardware, software, capabilities, data, physical and electromagnetic connections, cyber-physical OT systems including process actuator systems, sensors, industrial control systems (ICS), mobile equipment equipped with network connections, as well as the interconnection points, digital representations, physical, logical, and cognitive relationships established between them, within which the Ministry of Defense operates to fulfill its institutional tasks."
The scope is to strengthen the military system, especially in the face of so-called "hybrid threats," those that combine conventional tools and methods with less conventional ones. Using a sinister-sounding lexicon, crafted with a perverse taste for apocalyptic conspiracy, it refers to issues such as the control of platforms for national defense purposes, the manipulation of decision-making processes, and the use of communications and propaganda to alter the perception of external danger and create consensus around war choices. These elements are precisely used as weapons within the prevalent sphere of communications and targeted at the realms of mind and behavior. These are long-standing and widely used methods of control, both in war and in "peace." Obviously, the means evolve as technologies evolve, which are increasingly sophisticated and, especially by exploiting the generative capabilities of AI, expand the possibilities for action and deception. "Cyberspace" thus becomes a sort of territory of national interest, over which to extend military dominance.
And even in this "cyber" context, the element that brings us back to the draft, to enlistment campaigns and to the increase, on a voluntary or compulsory basis, in the number of military personnel comes into play.
The bill, in fact, provides for the creation of a new type of soldier, the "cyber soldier," who, after completing his initial military service (conscription?) and earning a specific qualification, must serve a five-year term, renewable for an additional eight years. This is a specific career path that recruitment campaigns will undoubtedly focus on, likely to attract widespread interest.
Just to ensure financial coverage for the provisions of Article 7 regarding the mastery of cyberspace and the establishment of the role of "military cyber specialist", an expenditure of almost 50 billion has been foreseen over the next 10 years (1,186,096 immediately starting in 2027).
Against this background, it is clear that opposition to the increasingly widespread militarization must grow and expand further.
The Ministry of Defense is aiming for a significant increase in resources: equipment, tools, but also and above all people: to be recruited to increase the effective workforce and to be involved at various levels in the military machine according to the concept of "permanent total defense."
The reintroduction of conscription, including through the establishment of military reserve contingents, will lead to an increase in the already unbearable military propaganda in schools, which must be countered with even more forceful and aggressive action than has been done so far, to prevent recruitment campaigns from being successful.
The issue of conscription is increasingly proving crucial in opposing the logic of war, colonialism, and exploitation. There can be no room for concerted approaches.
To put it more clearly: conscientious objection openly requested as a complement to military service (as in the case of the popular initiative law presented as part of the "Another Defense is Possible" campaign, see UN.n.16/2026 ), functional to fulfilling the task of "defending the homeland" in ways that do not involve the use of weapons, is merely a way to consolidate the war machine by fully integrating into that system of "total defense" that requires the involvement, with diversified roles, of every component of society. Similarly, the establishment by municipalities of official lists of individuals eligible for military service or recall who declare themselves unavailable for military service and express objection to military service is useless if not harmful, as it publicly exposes individual names and encourages the inference that those who do not publicly express their opposition should be counted among those available.
Let us oppose the plans to reintroduce conscription in a clear, radical, and massive way.
Let's grow opposition to militarism, to war, to patriotic rhetoric, to war!
Let us not place our bodies and those of the younger generations at the disposal of the slaughterers of humanity, of those who destroy environmental resources, of those who propagate death and destruction.
No to the reintroduction of conscription in any form.
Patrizia Nesti
https://umanitanova.org/contro-la-leva-militare-lotta-senza-riserve/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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