From middle power to subordinate ally? Meloni’s foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war

Italy has been described as a ‘middle power’ in international politics. While middlepowerness is an ambiguous term, in Italian self-conceptions it refers to a middle-ranking power with limited resources that can achieve its foreign policy goals by expanding its influence in international organisations and through bilateral relations with larger powers. The relationship with the United States, Italy’s main ally, is particularly important, but cooperation with non-Western great powers - notably Russia and China - as well as with Italy’s Southern Mediterranean Arab neighbours has been a significant constituent of Italy’s middlepowerness too. Cooperative relations with non-Western powers once gave Italy a degree of autonomy in foreign policy. However, growing US-China competition and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have put this policy under severe strain. Through an analysis of the foreign policy of Giorgia Meloni’s government, this article argues that structural factors and Rome’s political choices have combined to weaken Italy’s middle power status. Greater subordination to US foreign policy weakened the non-Western vectors of Italy’s middlepowerness. Simultaneously, Italy had a marginal role within NATO and the EU. Since Trump’s re-election, Meloni has faced the uneasy task of balancing her privileged relationship with the US president with cooperation with European partners.