Data di Pubblicazione:
2023
Citazione:
Risk and Opportunity: Italy in the Troubled Mediterranean during the 1970s / M. Merlati, D. Vignati. - In: ATHENS JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES. - ISSN 2407-9480. - 9:3(2023), pp. 163-180. [10.30958/ajms.9-3-2]
Abstract:
During the Seventies, in the stormy Mediterranean theatre, many events
endangered NATO’s positions all along the Southern flank and threatened to
jeopardize the stability in Europe and thus the Détente itself. In this scenario,
Italy played a dual role. On the one hand it contributed to increasing the risks of
instability with its own internal instability. During the so-called Years of Lead,
Italy was affected by social turbulence, political terrorism, and violence, while
at the same time going through economic decline and skyrocketing inflation. In
the meantime, a sharp increase of votes for the Italian Communist Party (PCI)
ignited fears that the PCI might be close to taking power, thus being able to
further weaken the Atlantic Alliance by pushing Italy out of it. On the other
hand, Italy was pivotal in serving the interests of the Alliance in the
Mediterranean, avoiding an alteration of the military balance in Southern
Europe by keeping Malta from shifting towards the Soviet Union. The Italian-
Maltese agreement signed in August 1980 was the climax of this process. In
addition to literature, this paper relies on documents, both edited (Foreign
Relations of the United States) and unedited (held by The National Archives in
London, the NARA II in Washington D.C., the Gerald Ford Presidential Library
in Ann Arbor, the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, the Archivio
Centrale dello Stato in Rome, and the National Archives in Rabat, Malta)
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
Italy; NATO; Mediterranean; Malta; United States; Cold War; Communist Question;
Elenco autori:
M. Merlati, D. Vignati
Link alla scheda completa: