For twenty years Carabinieri have been assisting the international community through the CoESPU

To better understand the twenty-year history of the Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units, we  must begin with the birth of the concept of "Stability Policing" internationally, its evolution, and discuss the challenges, particularly the role of Italy and the Carabinieri within this context. To do so, we must go back to the 1990s and the deployment of traditional military forces in situations outside of conventional warfare. These units, designed primarily for interstate conflicts and primarily geared toward countering external threats, encountered significant difficulties, proving inadequate in addressing complex security scenarios such as civil wars and humanitarian crises, terrorism, and ethnic and sectarian tensions, as tragically demonstrated first in Somalia and then Bosnia.

In Somalia, during a humanitarian aid operation amidst civil war, clashes between rival clans with their own armed militias in the urban area of   the capital, Mogadishu, led in 1993 to the use of combat tactics by traditional forces (albeit trained for special operations, such as Delta Force and the US Rangers), which led to the shocking outcome of Operation Gothic Serpent. In the city center, two US Black Hawk helicopters were initially shot down by the insurgents, and during the battle to rescue the crews, 19 US forces were killed and over 70 wounded. Somali losses were estimated at hundreds, including militants and civilians, with a high number of wounded and prisoners.

Horrific episodes of ethnic genocide occurred in Bosnia. The Srebrenica massacre, where approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically killed by Serbian forces, remains in the collective memory. One of the most serious acts of carnage in Europe after the Second World War, with the forces ofpeacekeepingUN forces were unable to protect the civilian population, despite their "safe zone" mandate. After the Dayton Agreement in 1995, the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) contingent was joined by the UN International Police Task Force (IPTF), an international police force bringing together police officers from over 40 countries, under UN command, with the aim of monitoring, training, and reorganizing local police forces. This force was later replaced in 2002 by a European Union Police Mission (EUPM). Lessons learned were beginning to be learned, leading to the emergence of actors on the battlefield that resembled organized criminal groups or gangs rather than traditional military units. Addressing them required specific skills that went beyond the objectives and organization of conventional forces.

The global security landscape had changed. In the post-Cold War era, the complexities of civil wars and humanitarian crises, albeit within specific geographic contexts and historical moments, illustrated the tragic consequences of this inadequacy and the subsequent need to develop approaches such as Stability Policing. This immediately led to the creation of specialized units such as the Multinational Specialized Unit (MSU), composed of Carabinieri, other gendarmerie forces, and military police units.

The UN needed a doctrinal architecture that could support such stability policing operations, aimed at restoring order, reinstating civil administration, and fostering cooperation between civilian and military organizations.

The concept of "Stability Policing" therefore includes the use of international police forces in post-conflict or protracted crisis contexts to restore public order, protect civilians, and support the reconstruction of legal and security institutions. This is achieved through territorial control and the maintenance of order, the fight against organized crime, the protection of minorities and civilians, and support for local police reform (SSR – Security Sector Reform) achieved through the training and mentoring of local forces.

In 2000, the so-called Brahimi Report (“Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations”) was a true milestone. It was commissioned by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who convened a commission of high-level experts to analyse the entire United Nations system in relation to the issues of peace and security, with the aim of formulating recommendations for the Secretariat. 

The Report denounced the limitations of UN missions and proposed a profound reform, introducing the idea that operations should include robust police components, to bridge the gap between the end of fighting and long-term stability. It was accompanied by the “United Nations Police Policy (2020)”, an update on the role of the UN police in the “peacekeeping” and “peacebuilding"", which reiterated the need for specialized and adaptable police interventions in fragile contexts, promoting synergy with military units, civilian authorities and transitional justice bodies.

In the international context, also by virtue of the positive deployment of the MSU in theater, the Carabinieri's ability to operate in high-risk contexts had become evident, thanks to their unique model of a "dual-purpose" police force (professional military but with civilian police functions). 

Thus, in 2000, even the governments of the "G8" (the international forum composed at the time of the eight most industrialized countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia, which met annually to discuss economic, political, and global security issues) began to highlight, in the documents released at the end of their meetings, the need for the inclusion of "International Civil Police" forces as a "critical element in conflict prevention," so that this component would be seen "generally as a constituent of peacekeeping operations." At the 2004 Sea Island Summit, the “Big Eight” agreed on an “Action Plan for Expanding Global Capacity for Peace Support Operations,” in which they explicitly recognized that the Carabinieri/Gendarmerie forces had demonstrated unique capabilities in peace support operations, serving as a bridge between military forces and civilian police. Consequently, they envisioned the creation of a Center of Excellence for the training of Carabinieri/Gendarmerie-like units, focusing on peace support operations and implementing training programs, developing common doctrines and operational standards, and training for interoperability with military forces.

The first brick had been laid for the creation of the Center, under the responsibility of the Carabinieri, today a full and deserving privileged partner of the UN Department of Peace Operations, financially supported by the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), the Security Assistance Program, created and funded by the United States Department of State as a contribution to the broader G8 action plan adopted at the Sea Island Summit.

The choice of location fell on the barracks in Vicenza, named since 1919 after General Antonio Edoardo Chinotto of the Royal Army, a heroic figure of the First World War. It had already hosted Army units and later a battalion of the Carabinieri Warrent Officers and Sergeants Cadet School. Directed by a Carabinieri Italian general, assisted by a deputy with the rank of Colonel, from the U.S. Armed Forces, and – in keeping with its mission – staffed mostly by members of the Army but also by police forces and armed forces from other countries, the Center immediately began training peacekeepers, establishing itself on the international scene as a point of reference for the teaching of United Nations doctrine to military and police personnel, but also civilians, belonging to more than thirty nations in Africa, Asia and Europe, combining the theoretical notions taught in the classroom with exercises, not only at Headquarters but also abroad, through Mobile Mentoring Teams, in direct support of the forces of other countries.

As well as training institutes for the peacekeeping present in other countries, CoESPU has also become a center for study and analysis, capable of developing new employment policies in the peacekeeping sector, reviewing and updating its methods. Doctoral students and university researchers have followed and continue to follow advanced training programs there, following established training paths, conducted in the form of curricular internships.

The focus of international institutional attention, since 2006 it hosted the first United Nations seminar on Formed Police Units (FPUs). These are international stabilization police units composed of approximately 140-160 officers each, deployed in peacekeeping missions where a rapid and disciplined response force is needed to ensure public safety, order, and support local police, equipped with their own command, logistics, and vehicles. In 2009, the activities expanded with the first training exercise for European Union police forces, and then, in 2016, with an exercise on combating human trafficking for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest regional security organization, with 57 participating states from Europe, Central Asia, and North America. While the then British Prince Charles (now King Charles III) visited the Vicenza barracks/headquarters in 2017, in 2018 an “Action Point” was signed with UNPOL, the UN “police division,” whose mission is to define policy, guidelines and identify effectiveness parameters for Peacekeeping Operations, as well as provide technical advice to the police components of such United Nations peacekeeping missions.

These brief notes have highlighted how Italy is a global pioneer in Stability Policing, thanks to the deployment of the Carabinieri in international missions. In this context, the CoESPU (Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units), founded in Vicenza in 2005 with the support of the United States and under the auspices of the UN, is today a hub of global training and doctrine. Over the past two decades, these partnershiphave enabled CoESPU to improve international stabilization and peacekeeping missions, training more than 15,000 highly qualified professionals from 128 countries around the world.

Through CoESPU, Italy codified the concept of Stability Policing and contributed to the creation of the first operational manuals shared at the NATO/UN level, collaborating closely with UNPOL, providing instructors and guidelines. With this twenty-year experience, CoESPU can be considered a clear and consolidated doctrinal hub, as well as a training and education center, not only for the UN FPUs but also, more generally, for the gendarmerie and police forces dedicated to Stability Policing functions. In Vicenza, the NATO SP-CoE (one of NATO's Centres of Excellence, which have the mission of training and educating leaders and specialists from NATO member and partner countries, contributing to the development of doctrine, identifying "lessons learned", improving interoperability and capabilities, and testing and validating concepts through experimentation) and the EUROGENFOR Permanent Headquarters (EGF), which brings together the police forces with military status of seven European Union countries, are also present in the same structure, thus realizing a unique doctrinal and training center, an "International Hub" for Stability Policing. The Carabinieri proudly leads this organization, thus establishing themselves as leaders in an organization with a strong international focus and interest, today a rich expression of professionalism consolidated over decades of missions and operations outside of their area.

A story that is a source of pride for Italy and which – thanks to the Carabinieri – provides valuable support for maintaining international peace.