Operations

A post-WWII peace treaty signed by Italy prevented the country from deploying military forces in overseas operations as well as possessing fixed-wing vessel-based aircraft for twenty-five years following the end of the war.

This treaty expired in 1970, but it would not be until 1982 that Italy first deployed troops on foreign soil, with a peacekeeping contingent being despatched to Beirut in that year following a UN request for troops. Since the 1980s, Italian troops have participated with other Western countries in peacekeeping operations across the world, especially in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.

As yet, the Italian Army has not engaged in major combat operations since World War II; though Italian Special Forces have taken part in anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan as part of Task Force 'Nibbio'. Italy was not yet a member of the United Nations in 1950, when that organisation went to war with North Korea, the 1964-73 Vietnam War was a 'police action' on the part of the United States with neither a formal declaration of war, neither was NATO involved (as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the entire war itself took place outside NATO jurisdiction).

Italy did take part in the 1990-91 Gulf War but solely through the deployment of eight Italian Air Force Panavia Tornado IDS bomber jets to Saudi Arabia; Italian Army troops were subsequently deployed to assist Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq following the conflict. The Italian Army did not take part in combat operations of the 2003 Iraq War; despatching troops only after May 1, 2003 - when major combat operations were declared over by the US president, George W Bush aboard the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Subsequently Italian troops arrived in the late summer of 2003, and have been scheduled to begin leaving their southern Iraqi base near Nasiriyah by September 2005. Some twenty Italian troops have been killed in Iraq in the past two years - with the greatest single loss of life coming on November 12, 2004 - a suicide car bombing of the Italian Carabinieri Corps HQ left a dozen Carabinieri, five Army soldiers, two Italian civilians and eight Iraqi bystanders dead.

A recent law promotes membership of the Italian Army guaranteeing volunteers post-Army careers in the Carabinieri, Italian State Police, Italian Finance Guard and Italian State Forestry Corps, amongst other state bodies.

The Italian Army has recently become a professional all-volunteer force of 112,000 active duty personnel

Weapons
Beretta AR 70/90 - 5.56 mm assault rifle
Minimi - 5.56 mm light machine gun
MG 59/42 - 7.62 mm machine gun

Combat vehicles
Ariete - Main Battle Tanks ( 200 )
Leopard 1 - Main Battle Tanks ( 98 )
Centauro - Light Tank ( 400 )
Dardo - Infantry fighting vehicle ( 500 )
VCC - Armoured personnel carrier (Highly modified M113)( 1638 )
M113/A1 ( 882 )

Artillery
M 109L self-propelled howitzer ( 192 )
FH-70 towed howitzer ( 70 )
PzH-2000 self-propelled howitzer ( 70 )

Helicopters
Agusta A129 Mangusta - attack ( 65 )
AB 212 - tactical transport ( 14 )
AB 412 - tactical transport ( 20 )
NH-90 - tactical transport


http://www.esercito.difesa.it/

differently to what other people think we italians have a quite good army that can meet modern standards and needs however our defence expenditure is i think too low for the present times...

The proof is always in the eating! I don't doubt that Italy have some good units. However your track record is not so good. An all volunteer army is always preferential. With Italys population there is no reason why a professional army can not be maintained. Also the equipment needs trying out for real. Then we'll know how good it is ...
You get the Army you pay for!

yes but the army you pay needs to be related to the size of your country and the amount of money your country makes, you spend millions cause you make billions and you have a large country to defend...
what youre saying is like telling luxemburg to spend 25% of its gdp on a 900 people force... that has no point the italian army can defend italy and we have 600000 reservists which are scattered around italy and every 6 months follow a 2 months refresh course training with the actual army, we do not keep a fixed army cause we see no need in it plus the european union is trying to put that idea forwrd not fixed armies only volunteers and i think perhaps theyre looking forard to creating a single force to defend the whole of europe it could come to match the American army and probably otsmart it in technology and so on...

I would say that approx 3% of GDP spent on military is not alot to ask from the wealthier European countries .

well. for comparison.. we spend 2% of our GDP
while the whole amount of the GDP is somewhere around $171.6 billion

we have aproximitly 400,000 reservists
from total population of 5.3 million.
(while italy has population of ~58million)

italian army has to watch over 301,230 sq km
while we have 338,145 sq km of area to cover.

$160-180 billion????? Holy **** ,everybody is worrying about China .... When it's really the Nokia nation that we should be worried about ....

whoops.
i managed to copy that from the puraching power parity section mixing it with
the exhange rate... been kinda tired since
i have to take anti-histamines for my spring allergies. i should definetly chance the meds.
or maybe i took 2 pills accidently.. cant remember.. lol.

yes our GDP around $171.6 billion no need to worry.. we would started our evil world domination
masterplan years ago if we would be that rich.

but anyhows.. thats 600,000 reservists in italian army with volunteer service..
we have 400,000 with mandatory.. but we have bit more ground to cover.

You're in Finland? I believe you are overestimating what your country spends on defence.

160 - 180 would be far more than 2% of your GDP, these are amounts you simply do not have to spend on defence.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3238.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces