Federica Saini Fasanotti

Federica Saini Fasanotti is a military historian and specialist in counterinsurgency. Her fieldwork and research have covered, among others, Afghanistan, Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia, and her latest book is The Army in the Bush: Italian Counterinsurgency 1860-1943 (Historical Office of the General Staff, Italian Ministry of Defense, 2015).

She is an expert on the role of the military in African colonies. She received her doctorate from the University of Milan; as a trained nurse, Dr. Saini Fasanotti’s dissertation focused on the controversial relationship between fascism and the Italian Red Cross. Following her studies, she moved to Rome, where she works actively with the Central Historical Office of the Italian Army and the Historical Office of the Italian Ministry of Defense.

She is a nonresident fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at The Brookings Institution, a guest lecturer at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and a frequent speaker at military history conferences and congresses, Her many published essays and articles have also appeared in historical and geopolitical journals. She developed for Rai-National Italian Television the series “The History of Fascism” (2006) and “The Second World War” (2009), distributed by “Il Corriere della Sera,” the leading Italian newspaper.

Dr. Saini Fasanotti’s books include: Violated Joy: Crimes against Italians 1940-1946 (Ares Editore, 2006); Ethiopia 1936-1940: Colonial Counterinsurgency through the Sources of the Italian Army (Historical Office of the Italian Army, 2010); Libya 1922-1931: The Italian Counterinsurgency (Historical Office of the Italian Army, 2012); Military History of Afghanistan: From the Durrani’s Empire to Resolute Support Mission (Mursia Editore, 2014).

Her current book project is The Counterinsurgency Doctrine from the XVII Century to the Present, a wide-ranging study of the history and methods of counterinsurgency in the modern era.

She has consulted on Libya for the Terna Group, the first grid operator for electricity transmission in Europe. She also collaborates with the Pentagon on Libya.