Si vis pacem para bellum. Crisi del multilateralismo e retoriche belliciste in Italia

The deconstruction of the public narrative and the delegitimization both of the international political-legal order and the political-constitutional framework of republican democracy in Italy became particularly intense in 2025. These processes certainly did not begin in 2025; if anything, they have progressed in stop-and-go phases since the 1990s. But on the 80th anniversary of 1945, they appear to have undergone a significant acceleration, undoubtedly fuelled by the positions taken by the US under the leadership of Donald Trump. This essay reconstructs and discusses the stages of these processes in Italy: a warmongering rhetoric, aimed at challenging supranational institutions and legitimizing rearmament policies, has been countered by a civic pedagogy that has found in the President of the Republic a constant driving force in favour of the need to strengthen multilateralism and to enhance the role of international law in the pursuit of peace and coexistence among States.