From the Iraq War to the Middle Eastern crises: strategic security, multilateral diplomacy, and the Holy See’s moral soft power
Abstract: This contribution analyzes the growing divergence between the United States and the Holy See as a manifestation of the broader transformation of the contemporary international order. The comparison between the American strategic posture, increasingly oriented toward paradigms of deterrence and competitive unilateralism, and the Vatican position, grounded in the primacy of multilateral diplomacy and international law, reveals a structural tension between logics of security and demands for moral legitimation. By referring to the historical precedent of the 2003 Iraq War and to current Middle Eastern crises, the essay interprets the role of the Holy See as a non-state actor endowed with moral soft power and symbolic influence within the global system. The analysis is situated at the intersection of international relations, political theology, and global governance studies, highlighting how the crisis of the multilateral order is reshaping the relationship between political power, war, and international mediation.
Keywords: #HolySee #UnitedStates #Vatican #deterrence #internationalorder #internationaldisorder #multilateraldiplomacy #softpower #justwar #internationallaw #politicaltheology #globalgovernance #MiddleEasterncrisis #Iraq2003 #Trump #unilateralism #morallegitimation #internationalsecurity #CristinaDiSilvio #EthicaSocietas #EthicaSocietasJournal #ScientificJournal #SocialSciences #ethicasocietasupli
Introduction
The increasing divergence between the United States and the Holy See constitutes one of the most significant indicators of the transformation of the contemporary international order. The progressive erosion of multilateralism, the weakening of international organizations, and the return of logics grounded in strategic competition among major powers are profoundly reshaping global geopolitical balances, within a framework that recalls both the crisis of the liberal order and the persistence of an international structure marked by anarchy, balance of power, and the pursuit of security by states (Bull, 1977; Kissinger, 2014; Mearsheimer, 2001; Waltz, 1979). In this context, the relationship between Washington and the Vatican assumes a significance that extends beyond the strictly diplomatic dimension, insofar as it reflects a broader tension between security paradigms and systems of moral legitimation.
The recent positions expressed by the Holy See on Middle Eastern crises, nuclear deterrence, and the use of armed force are situated within a line of continuity with the Vatican diplomatic tradition of the second half of the twentieth century, grounded in the primacy of international law, the centrality of the United Nations, and the critique of war as an ordinary instrument for the regulation of conflicts (John Paul II, 2003a; Weigel, 1999). At the same time, Donald Trump’s return to the American political arena has reactivated a conception of international politics more markedly oriented toward strategic unilateralism and the reaffirmation of national sovereignty, along a line that scholarship has frequently associated with the Jacksonian tradition of U.S. foreign policy and with a competitive understanding of global order (Bolton, 2020; Mead, 2017). This contribution seeks to analyze this rift not as a merely contingent divergence between political leaderships, but as a manifestation of the broader redefinition of the relationship between power, security, and legitimation in the international order of the twenty-first century.
The Holy See as a Non-State Geopolitical Actor
Within the contemporary international system, the Holy See represents a peculiar actor, one that is not easily assimilated to the traditional categories of international politics. Although it does not possess coercive instruments comparable to those of sovereign states, the Vatican exercises significant symbolic, diplomatic, and normative influence, grounded in the spiritual dimension of its authority and in its capacity to intervene in international processes as an actor of mediation, moral appeal, and legitimacy production (Franco, 2023; Melloni, 2013). Pontifical diplomacy has historically rested on the capacity to construct moral consensus and to intervene in processes of international mediation through instruments of soft power.
This dimension appears particularly relevant in a phase marked by the crisis of traditional multilateral architectures and by the increasing difficulty of international organizations in containing conflicts. Joseph Nye defined soft power as the capacity to influence the behavior of international actors not through coercion, but through cultural attraction, symbolic production, and normative legitimation (Nye, 2004). From this perspective, the Holy See constitutes one of the principal contemporary examples of non-coercive geopolitical influence. The positions adopted by the Vatican on recent international crises confirm the continuity of a doctrinal line oriented toward the primacy of diplomacy and international law. War is interpreted not as an ordinary instrument of politics, but as an extrema ratio subordinated to rigorous ethical and legal criteria, in continuity with reflection on just war and with the progressive moral restriction of recourse to armed force (Walzer, 1977; John Paul II, 2003a).
Deterrence and the Crisis of the Multilateral Order
The transformation of the contemporary international order appears closely connected to the return of paradigms grounded in strategic deterrence. The progressive crisis of multilateral governance and the re-emergence of competition among great powers have favored a renewed centrality of the military dimension in the construction of international security. Within the realist tradition of international relations, the stability of the global system depends on the balance of power and on the capacity of states to exercise reciprocal deterrence, according to a logic that runs through both classical realism and structural neorealism (Morgenthau, 1948; Waltz, 1979). This paradigm has regained centrality especially in relation to Middle Eastern tensions, nuclear proliferation, and growing geopolitical fragmentation.
Deterrence does not consist merely in the availability of force, but in the capacity to communicate credibly the possibility of its use, producing strategic effects even before the actual deployment of violence (Schelling, 1966). The Iranian crisis represents one of the principal points of convergence of these dynamics. The risk of regional escalation and strategic competition between state and non-state actors feed a security logic based on the balance of force and the permanent management of threat. The position of the Holy See is instead situated within a different perspective, oriented toward the ethical limitation of conflict and the reaffirmation of the role of international law. Such an approach inevitably enters into structural tension with strategic models based on deterrence and military equilibrium.
The Precedent of the Iraq War
The present divergence between Washington and the Vatican inevitably recalls the historical precedent of the Iraq War in 2003. On that occasion, John Paul II expressed clear opposition to the military intervention promoted by the Bush administration, arguing that preventive war lacked sufficient moral and legal legitimation. In the Message for the World Day of Peace 2003, the Pope reaffirmed that peace cannot be reduced to military balance or unilateral imposition, but must be grounded in law, justice, and respect for the international order (John Paul II, 2003a). A few days later, in his address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, he reaffirmed the centrality of the United Nations and the need to prevent the use of force from being removed from shared criteria of international legitimation (John Paul II, 2003b).
The Holy See undertook an intense diplomatic initiative aimed at preventing the conflict, reaffirming the centrality of the United Nations and the primacy of international law in the regulation of global crises. This position reflected a broader conception of international order based on multilateral cooperation and on the limitation of war as an instrument of foreign policy. The continuity with current pontifical positions is evident: the Vatican continues to interpret war as a failure of diplomacy and international politics. The Iraq War also represented a decisive moment in the crisis of Western legitimation, contributing to the widening of the fracture between military power and normative consensus, as also highlighted by reflections on the internal division of the West following the intervention (Habermas, 2005; Kagan, 2003).
Trump, Unilateralism, and the Crisis of the Western Political Order
Donald Trump’s return to the international political arena has further exposed the fragility of the traditional mechanisms of Western cooperation. Trump’s foreign-policy orientation appears characterized by a conception of international politics strongly directed toward the reaffirmation of national sovereignty and the competitive redefinition of global balances. This approach tends to privilege instruments of strategic deterrence and relations of force over multilateral mechanisms of mediation, placing itself within a political tradition that values the primacy of national interest, distrust toward supranational constraints, and bilateral negotiation in terms of strategic advantage (Bolton, 2020; Mead, 2017).
The consequence is a progressive tension with international actors that continue to ground their action in the centrality of international law and diplomatic cooperation. In this framework, the confrontation with the Holy See assumes a significance that transcends the contingent dimension. It reflects the broader crisis of Western political universalism and the difficulty of maintaining a stable balance between strategic power and normative legitimation. On the one hand, international politics tends to reintroduce the Schmittian distinction between friend and enemy as a criterion for organizing political conflict; on the other, moral and multilateral institutions continue to invoke the necessity of an order founded on limits, rules, and mediation (Schmitt, 1972; Held, 2004).
Europe, Italy, and Spaces of Mediation
The crisis of the multilateral order also reveals Europe’s difficulties in defining a common position on the principal geopolitical dossiers of the contemporary world. The absence of a genuinely integrated foreign policy limits the European Union’s capacity to influence global strategic balances, confirming its condition as an incomplete or imperfect power, capable of producing norms and constraints but often unable to translate them into unified geopolitical action (Borrell, 2022). In this scenario, Italy occupies a distinctive geopolitical position, determined both by its Mediterranean location and by its historical and institutional relationship with the Holy See.
This condition could, in theory, favor a role of diplomatic mediation among different international actors. However, the transformation of this potential into effective geopolitical capacity requires a more structured strategic project, currently limited by European political fragmentation and by the increasing marginalization of the continent in processes redefining the global order. The issue is situated within the broader crisis of the postnational constellation, in which European states struggle to reconcile democratic sovereignty, supranational integration, and the capacity to act in the global sphere (Habermas, 1999; Held, 2004).
Conclusions
The increasing divergence between the United States and the Holy See does not represent a simple diplomatic rift, but rather a manifestation of the broader transformation of the contemporary international order. What emerges is the growing tension between models grounded in strategic deterrence and paradigms oriented toward the construction of moral legitimation and multilateral cooperation. The Holy See continues to perform a normative function within an increasingly fragmented global system, presenting itself as an actor capable of preserving spaces of mediation and limitation of conflict, according to a logic of moral influence that operates not through coercion, but through symbolic authority, diplomatic continuity, and the capacity to formulate judgments of legitimacy (Nye, 2004; Melloni, 2013).
At the same time, American politics appears oriented toward a competitive redefinition of international balances, grounded in the centrality of sovereignty and strategic security. The stakes do not concern exclusively the relationship between Washington and the Vatican, but the broader problem of producing legitimacy in the international order of the twenty-first century. It is within this tension between power and conscience that the capacity of the global system is now measured: whether it can prevent geopolitical crises from becoming permanent structural fractures of the world order.
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