At a meeting in Seoul on Monday, leaders from Italy and South Korea agreed to cooperate on the defense industry, marking a new collaboration between two strong allies of Ukraine who are, coincidentally, prohibited by their respective constitutions from directly sending Kyiv all the military help for which it might ask.
At his office in Seoul, President Lee Jae Myung hosted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the two agreed to expand cooperation in artificial intelligence, space and the defense industry, citing concerns about “global challenges.”
It was the first visit by an Italian leader to South Korea in almost two decades, AFP noted.
Lee said the two countries would “further expand the horizons of cooperation into advanced industries such as artificial intelligence, space, and aviation.
“In addition, we will pursue complementary cooperation in the defense industry based on each side’s strengths,” he said. Lee also vowed to “work closely together to contribute to global peace” and “safeguard the universal value of peace, extending our efforts ... to the wider world.”
Both South Korea and Italy are strong allies of Kyiv, although they have contributed in unique ways.
Circuitously, Seoul has manufactured arms for Ukraine’s defense via sales to Central and Eastern Europe, who in turn have promised such weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, even though South Korea is legally restricted from selling arms to a country at war.
Seoul’s first military priority, of course, is keeping its rival to the north in check. Across the demilitarized zone, Pyongyang has sent both soldiers and weaponry to Russia to reinforce their full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Seoul has bolstered a strong military-industrial complex ever since the Korean War ended in 1953. In 2023, during the second year of Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, South Korea exported $557 million in weapons, with $320 million worth going to Poland alone.
But it has not supplied weapons to Ukraine due to a domestic policy preventing the provision of arms to countries at war.
That position, however, might be changing slowly.
“Depending on the level of North Korean involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in phases,” former president Yoon Suk Yeol said in 2024.
The new president, Lee, seen as a centrist, appears to be watching for signals from Washington before amending such a policy.
More troubling for Europe, the new president has expressed a desire to resume economic cooperation with Russia, which “could make him susceptible to ‘bullying’ from Moscow, Alexander Lipke, Asia program coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Politico.
Meloni, one of few conservatives in Europe, has been careful to retain unusually good relations with the Republican president in the White House, while also joining European voices in staunch support of Kyiv.
Italy has so far contributed more than €3 billion (about $3.5 billion) in military aid to Kyiv and other support including air defense systems such as SAMP/T (similar to Storm Shadow) missiles. It is also on the forefront of energy aid to electricity-starved Ukraine, most recently sending some 378 boilers to Ukraine this week to help heat homes.
But Italian boots on the ground are off the table.
Article 11 of Italy’s post-WWII Constitution forbids war as a way of settling international disputes, and that has been interpreted to mean that it cannot send troops to a country at war, except as participation in international peacekeeping forces and its own defense. Deployments for such operations require political consensus in parliament and must be within the Constitution’s limits.
What Italy can offer, other than energy aid, is military technology. (Italy is in fact home to the world’s oldest continually operating weapons-maker, Beretta, founded in the 1500s and a supplier to the colonials during the American Revolution.)
Overall, the aerospace and automotive sectors accounted for nearly half of Italy’s total revenue last year.
The companies of Leonardo and Fincantieri dominated that sector, with only eight other Italian firms surpassing €1 billion ($1.16 billion) in revenue, collectively representing three-quarters of the industry’s total turnover.
Italian defense firms are heavily export-oriented, with 68.2 percent of sales in 2023 coming from foreign markets.
Both Italy and South Korea are heavily involved in jockeying for position in Ukraine’s eventual postwar reconstruction.
“The war in Ukraine also poses an extremely serious risk to Europe’s security in every respect,” Meloni said. “For that reason, we will continue to pursue new forms of cooperation at the global level,” she added, describing Seoul as “one of the G7’s most important partners”.