01/2026 – Hedley Bull e l’Europa come potenza militare: un inedito

Abstracts

Michele Chiaruzzi, Hedley Bull and Europe’s Defence: Towards a European Strategic Policy

The European Union (and, before it, the European Community) has long conceived of itself as a “civilian power”, primarily concerned with containing the hegemonic ambitions of its member states—both internally and externally—through a dense institutional framework and a politico-diplomatic practice centred above all on economic cooperation. In doing so, it effectively removed from its political and existential horizon the very idea of possessing a strategic vision of its own, an autonomous military force, and an independent defence capability. These were the premises of Hedley Bull’s (1932–1985) critical reflections, grounded in the conviction that Europe needed to extend the process of integration into the strategic and military sphere as well. This question has returned with renewed and dramatic urgency in the wake of the outbreak of the Russo–Ukrainian war.

Keywords: Europe; Strategic Policy; Hedley Bull; Russo–Ukrainian war; Power.

 

Hedley Bull, Civilian Power Europe. A Contradiction in Terms?

As war continues along Europe’s borders, with Europe itself involved in supporting Ukraine, renewed attention has been drawn to the essay that Hedley Bull—one of the most influential theorists of international relations of his generation—devoted in 1982 to the need for the Old Continent to develop an autonomous strategic and military policy. In Bull’s view, this constituted a necessary condition for confronting international tensions and responding effectively to external threats. Read today, the text appears strikingly prophetic: with remarkable clarity, it already identified the vulnerability of Western European countries so long as they remained without the means required to ensure their own military security and, consequently, their political and economic autonomy as well.

Keywords: Military security; Europe; International relations; Hedley Bull; War.

 

Alessandro Campi, Giorgio Napolitano at the Quirinale: Italian History and National Unity

After the presidency of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, that of Giorgio Napolitano was the one most consistently attentive—at the political-institutional, cultural, and symbolic levels—to the theme of national unity. It was in this domain that Napolitano devoted his greatest efforts during the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the Italian state: an occasion that was not merely ritualistic or rhetorical, but one that the President of the Republic used to advance—on the basis of a reflection deeply influenced by liberal historiography, particularly the work of Rosario Romeo—a vision of Italian history, from the Risorgimento to the Republic, grounded in the idea of a fundamental continuity of ideals.

Keywords: Risorgimento; Giorgio Napolitano: National unity; Rosario Romeo; Quirinale.

 

Jacopo Gigliotti, The Realism of Irving Kristol: The Last Neoconservative

Neoconservatism is commonly associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and with the conviction that democracy can be exported through military force. Drawing in part on archival sources, this article seeks to examine the profound divergence in foreign policy between Irving Kristol and other neoconservatives, especially those belonging to the movement’s later generations. Kristol’s approach bore little resemblance to either “armed” Wilsonianism or liberal internationalism; rather, it was deeply informed by a realist understanding of international affairs. Yet his realism was neither mechanistic nor deterministic, being instead grounded in a keen awareness of the enduring force of ideas. Although guided by considerations of national interest, Kristol held that the American nation was founded upon a distinctive creed. Such a creed, in his view, was to be preserved as a means of consolidating the domestic order, without any claim to the universal applicability of its values, and even less to a presumed mission of exporting them abroad. From this emerges an apparently paradoxical conclusion: the “godfather” of neoconservatism was also its last authentic representative.

Keywords: Irving Kristol; Neoconservatism; Realism; National Interest; Internationalism.

 

Sandro Ciurlia, Socrates and the Italian National Unification. Bertrando Spaventa and Antonio Labriola interpreters of the Socratic ethical-political “challenge”

This article seeks to reconstruct the interpretations of Socrates advanced by Bertrando Spaventa and Antonio Labriola during the years of Italian national unification. For Spaventa, working within a Hegelian framework, Socrates represents a stage in the speculative trajectory of Spirit: a figure who brings to a close an increasingly ossified phase in the life of the pólis and opens the way to new historical horizons. For Labriola, by contrast, the Athenian philosopher becomes a means of grasping the socio-historical and political tensions of his own age. For both thinkers, however, Socrates emerges as one of the exemplary founding figures from whom intellectual nourishment and inspiration could be drawn in order to construct a public ethic for the newly established national community.

Keywords: Bertrando Spaventa; Antonio Labriola; Socrates; Italian national unification; National community; Historical materialism.

 

Claudio Capo, No Place for Humanism. Nick Land’s Political Thought between Cyberpunk and the Dark Enlightenment

Cyberpunk imagery, born as a literary genre, evolves into a conceptual laboratory for interpreting the technological and social transformations of modernity. Nick Land radicalizes its impulses, fusing critique of humanism, and techno accelerationism. His political thought, known as The Dark Enlightenment, attacks liberal democracy, universalism and egalitarianism, promoting a post-human order that is hierarchical, selective, and steered by the impersonal and entropic forces.

Keywords: Land, Cyberpunk; Anti-humanism; Dark Enlightenment; Postmodernity.

 

Alessandro Vitale, The Beginning of the End. Soviet Imperial Collapse in the Baltic Region: Violence, Reason of State, and ‘Arcana Imperii’

The violence unleashed and stimulated thirty-five years ago in the Baltic States by the centralized power of the Soviet Union, personified by Gorbachev, to prevent them from regaining their independence, can now help us understand the long process of imperial disintegration still underway and the repeated attempts to contain it, which are very similar to each other. The confrontation between Gorbachev and the Baltic States, which began in the late 1980s, was a decisive test of the imperial reaction to the threat of disintegration of the internal empire. That confrontation was the real beginning of the collapse of imperial unity and the real key issue, impossible for the Kremlin leader to solve. The study of the contrast between the Secretary General’s public statements and the political choices that were implemented at that time requires an analysis of the arcana imperii and the elements of raison d’état, starting from historical and political-institutional data and direct witnesses, which allow us to see the reality of politics beyond the façade of “reforms” which are still superficially evaluated, and to dive deeper into the reasons, including ideological and doctrinal ones (which reveal an unsuspected continuity in the present), for preserving imperial unity by any means necessary, including violence.

Keywords: Secret Protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; Baltic States; Collapse of the Soviet Union; Glasnost; Arcana imperii; Raison d’état.

 

Andrea Beccaro, Rearmament: Technology, Doctrine, and Personnel

Today we are facing a period of profound changes linked to military technology, and it is, therefore, important to understand how to deal with such a situation. As a consequence, this paper analyzes two historical periods in which new technologies profoundly impacted the future vision of warfare and the resulting rearmament policies (the strategic debate on tanks warfare between the two world wars and that on the RMA at the end of the Cold War), revealing a constant hope to shorten the duration of conflicts and reduce their economic costs and loss of human life by using technology to avoid the use of soldiers in battle. In the third paragraph, based on the limitations of those debates, the central role of soldiers and friction in war (with the resulting costs) will be emphasized, these are also two elements that clearly emerge from the most recent conflicts. This will highlight how, despite technological revolutions, the central element of war remains the human factor: an aspect that should not be forgotten in the context of current rearmament.

Keywords: Cold War; Human factor; RMA; Strategic debate; War