Stefano Antonelli | No Nato National Coordination (Italy)
Dear comrades,
we bring you the greetings of the No Nato National Coordination from Italy to this eleventh International Anti-imperialist Conference and to this Counter-summit Nato.
We are here to enhance an international front against Nato, against the imperialism US-led and against the ongoing World War III, with the aim to share with you the experience we developed in these years of struggle. The No Nato National Coordination was born to counter this reality, having the goal to put together grassroots initiatives and efforts willingly appeared among ordinary people: committees against military bases, political organizations, unions, student groups, associations, workers, youngs and single activists. We are born to create a coordination, unity of action and shared goals.
No Nato National Coordination works on more levels: advocacy, investigation, mobilization and organization. At the beginning of 2026 we published a dossier about US and NATO installations in Italy. We are not presenting this work as a definitive exhaustive study, but only as a first step to make people aware about the military presence on the Italian territory. This is useful for the activists as for ordinary people aiming to get more detailed information. The dossier maps 137 military and civil installations directly managed, used or created by US and NATO apparatus or simply offered by the Italian authorities. This book was carried out thanks to the experience gained in years of struggle against US and NATO occupation of our country. Let’s think about the mobilizations against MUOS, the advanced military satellite system on the island Sicily, let’s consider the struggle on the island Sardinia against the military exercises and against the military fire ranges, let’s admire all the battles against the bases all over Italy and the increasing war economy.
Our watchword is clear: Italy out of NATO, NATO out of Italy. This means to shoot down US and NATO military bases, to stop sending weapons to countries promoting World War III, to break the subordination of our country to US, Zionist and European imperialism, to counteract the rearmament and militarization. Italy is nowadays a military platform in the Mediterranean Sea: bases, ports, airports, military fire ranges and military training grounds, military oil pipelines, armaments industries and command centres. All these form a single system at disposal of imperialistic wars now and for the future.
This dossier was created to collect, update and share information with the mass, focusing on “socializing” this information, with the aim of promoting new local investigations. Unveiling economical and political links between military bases and the territory, making explicit the activities carried out, showing the companies involved in this business, clarifying the dimension of the net of military transport, focusing on the deep involvement of the political institutions.
Every local organism can use the dossier as a starting point, updating and developing it, transforming it into a mobilization campaign, into a public complaint, into a popular assembly. It is necessary to know, not only to make public the information, but to organise ourselves, to act and struggle till NATO and US will leave our country.
An important mobilization all over Italy was the 4th April 2026 for the anniversary of NATO foundation. In Ghedi, Italian military air base near Lake Garda in Northern Italy, part of the NATO disposal “nuclear sharing” where around 40 nuclear US bombs B61 are stocked; in Capodichino, an important US/NATO military installation linked to the Naval Support Activity Naples and to the allied command system for the Mediterranean area; at the Joint Operation Headquarters, responsible for operations and military exercises in Italy and abroad, headquarter located in the highly inhabited district of Tuscolano in Rome; in the district Borgo Panigale in Bologna, crossed by the military oil pipeline NIPS to supply military aeroplanes; in Florence, in front of the NATO Headquarter Multinational Division South, responsible for operations for South and Mediterranean Area. So, where the war machine is active, we brought there the struggle with our rage and our watchword Italy out of NATO, NATO out of Italy.
It is very important not to waste this work and these results got in our country after the huge demonstrations and strikes that paralyzed Italy in September and October 2025. The mobilizations do produce contacts, trust, experience, organizational skills. We do have to ensure continuity, so we won’t start always from zero: every step must become the base for a new step forward. The National Assembly of the No Nato National Coordination that is being held today in Rome is an important moment to make an assessment, to further promote the Coordination, to join the existing campaigns, to create a more solid front, bringing the struggle to a more advanced level.
Three issues will be crucial.
The first one is the struggle against the conscription and against every type of military enlistment of the youngs. The governments want the youngs to get used with the war, with the military discipline, with the sacrifice for the imperialistic bourgeoisie. We do say that the youngs have to organise themselves against the war and not to be enlisted in the war.
The second one is the workers’ conscientious objection. In a rearmament and militarization phase, the right to refuse the war is a very actual battleground for political and civil strife. We must support whom refuses the enlistment in every form, whom denies to collaborate with the military apparatus, whom doesn’t want to be complicit with the imperialistic wars.
The third one is the declassification of military agreements. The popular masses must know which agreements tie Italy to the United States of America, to NATO and to Israel: it is imperative to explicit which bases exist, which weapons are stocked inside, what type of operation start from Italian territory. Secrecy is a tool to dominate: breaking the secrecy means enhancing popular mobilization.
All this is strictly related with the implementation of article 11 of the 1948 Italian republican Constitution, which states “Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples and as a mean to settle international disputes”. Governments celebrate it in words alone, but the popular masses have the charge of implementing it by deeds with struggle and grassroots actions.
In imperialistic countries the popular masses have a decisive role, they are the only force able to break the chain of the community among imperialistic groups from US, NATO, EU and Zionist movement. Solidarity with aggressed peoples can’t be just a statement: it must turn into a struggle against our governments, initiatives against our bases, against our weapon factories, demonstrations against the way to manage our ports, airports and railways for war purpose. During September and October demonstrations 2025 the actions of dockworkers in the hub ports of Genova, Livorno, Ravenna, the actions of railway workers or Leonardo armaments industry workers and medical sector workers showed us the right path. When workers and popular masses call for a strong, clear and advanced mobilization, the slave governments of the imperialist bourgeoisie cannot deny their presence and look the other way. They can’t ignore them because they perfectly know they can’t loose control over popular masses in their own countries.
NATO is international, so the struggle against NATO must be too. But internationalism lives if every single force hits the war machine in his own courtyard.
Italy out of NATO, NATO out of Italy.
No to imperialist wars, no to rearmament, no to militarization.
Let’s build together a common international front against NATO and against imperialism.
