Defence, Portolano: ‘Peace must be built every day with courage. AI cannot replace human beings’

Peace as the nation’s civil infrastructure, founded on security, justice, health, love, work, freedom, knowledge, truth, the quality of information, development and trust in institutions. An infrastructure that must be built, maintained and defended, with courage, day by day, through shared responsibility and the ability to foster dialogue between different yet complementary worlds. The theme of peace was at the heart of the fourth edition of ‘Il Coraggio della Pace by Remind’, the initiative organised on Wednesday 16 September by Remind – the Association for Best Practices in the Nation’s Productive Sectors – which took place in Rome at the Salone del Commendatore in Borgo Santo Spirito. Paolo Crisafi, Knight Grand Cross and President of Remind, opened the proceedings: “With this fourth edition, we wish to renew a commitment that we feel is now more necessary than ever: to create a space in which the government, parliament, institutions, businesses, professionals and civil society can come together and recognise a shared responsibility, even whilst starting from different perspectives and positions.”

Among those speaking at the meeting, during the panel discussion on “Peacemakers: love, justice, freedom and truth”, was General Luciano Portolano. The Chief of the Defence Staff went straight to the heart of the matter. “Peace and stability,” he emphasised, “are not definitive achievements. They are not inherited: they are built and defended, day after day, through difficult and sometimes unpopular choices. Building peace requires great courage. And the first act of courage,’ he added, ‘is to look at the world for what it is, not for what we would like it to be. It is against this backdrop that our Holy Father’s call to ‘disarm technology’ is set. I welcome it and would like to link it to words that many in this room know better than I do: Pope Leo speaks of a peace that is ‘unarmed and disarming’. As a soldier, those words do not strike me as a rebuke, but they raise a question: how, in our profession, can we ‘disarm’ technology?’. A difficult question, to which the Chief of the Defence Staff gave his own answer: ‘My answer is clear,’ he stated, ‘by ensuring that decisions are made by human beings; through their intelligence, their judgement and their conscience. Because no artificial intelligence system, however swift and accurate, will ever be able to replace a human being in deciding whether or not to take action.’ Hence the conclusion of his argument: “Rejecting war,” Portolano pointed out, “does not mean ignoring it; it means understanding it well enough to know how to prevent it.”

The Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci outlined the value of peace in its social and health dimensions. “Peace is not just about relations between states,” he emphasised. “It is an essential condition for people’s lives, for the well-being of communities and for the protection of fundamental rights. Among these, the right to health occupies a central place. Conflicts have profound and lasting consequences for the health of populations: they destroy healthcare facilities, disrupt access to treatment, exacerbate the conditions of the most vulnerable, and leave physical and psychological scars that can be passed on to subsequent generations. For this reason, health is, in turn, an extraordinary instrument of peace. Caring for people means building trust, promoting solidarity and strengthening the bonds that hold our communities together. From this perspective, the National Health Service represents one of the most tangible expressions of the values of solidarity and cohesion upon which our Republic is founded. ‘Guaranteeing everyone the opportunity to receive treatment, without discrimination, means upholding the principle of human dignity every day – a principle that finds its full recognition only in a situation of peace,’ concluded Schillaci.

The discussion extended to the European level, with a contribution from Antonella Sberna, Vice-President of the European Parliament: ‘Peace,’ she emphasised, ‘requires courage, and we are accustomed to associating courage with those who fight, those who resist, those who do not back down – even in our collective imagination. Yet, at times, it takes just as much courage to pause, reflect, listen to the other side’s arguments and try to find a solution. This is the home of compromise, the European Union. In short, we can learn from this too, because peace is not merely the absence of war: it is a daily choice, a concrete commitment – she continued – that stems from the ability to recognise one another, to engage in dialogue and also to know how to build together. Pope Leo XIV called on us to pursue a peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. It is a message that is very, very relevant today. Disarmament does not merely mean taking action on arsenals, but also on words, on conflicts of interest and on everything that fuels divisions and conflicts. It means placing the individual at the centre – their well-being and their safety – whilst building a genuine culture of collaboration and community.”

Renato Loiero, Adviser to the Prime Minister, focused his speech on the economic and social prospects of peace. “Peace, as well as being a universal value, is a genuine infrastructure for development,” he noted, “it generates trust, attracts investment, stabilises markets and enables businesses and households to plan for the future. Recent geopolitical crises have shown us how wars, energy shocks and trade barriers directly affect the real economy, redefining the very concept of economic security. Today, the pursuit of efficiency goes hand in hand with resilience, diversification of supplies and strategic autonomy. It is essential – Loiero continued – to prevent the necessary ‘de-risking’ from turning into protectionism and deglobalisation. For Italia, this scenario requires us to work simultaneously on the soundness of public finances, productivity, human capital, innovation and energy security. Technology, too, presents us with a new responsibility: we must not stifle innovation, but rather manage it so that it remains at the service of development. Similarly, a greater focus on defence must be directed towards strengthening research, European industry and strategic infrastructure, with a clear objective: to defend stability, not to fuel conflict. Ultimately,’ he concluded, ‘peace is the greatest long-term investment we can make: dialogue, diplomacy and cooperation remain the essential prerequisites for building lasting prosperity.’