If Capablanca Played for Europe: Five Strategic Lessons for the European Union and Italy

From the chessboard to economic policy and security: what one of history’s greatest chess players might teach us.

This weekend, after playing chess with my daughter, I came across a video about José Raúl Capablanca, the Cuban grandmaster who dominated the chess world in the 1920s. The commentator set out five principles that characterised his play: respect the fundamentals of the opening, coordinate your pieces, gain space, open a second front, and avoid unnecessary risks. I began to wonder what would happen if we applied these principles to the economic and geopolitical strategies of the European Union and Italy.

The comparison is, of course, imperfect. Chess has two players, fixed rules, and a clearly defined objective. International economic relations involve many actors, changing rules, and forms of cooperation that can benefit both sides. Yet, looking at some of Europe’s difficulties, I suspect Capablanca might still have something to teach us.

The first rule: understand the fundamentals before choosing an opening. Capablanca did not need to memorise endless variations. He knew that he had to control the centre, develop his pieces, and protect his king. What would be the European equivalents today? A functioning internal market, competitive productive capacity, affordable energy, technological capabilities, and institutions able to make decisions.

The Union has already built much of this position: the single market, the common commercial policy, a currency shared by many Member States, and a network of international agreements. In other areas, however, integration remains incomplete. Consider capital markets, fragmented industrial policies, or the ability to mobilise common resources. The 2024 Draghi report identified several of these problems, which the Commission subsequently took up in its January 2025 Competitiveness Compass. The question is whether Europe can turn stated objectives into actual capabilities.

For Italy, the issue is even more concrete. We can debate individual tax measures and incentives for businesses, but productivity growth, infrastructure quality, education, research, and administrative efficiency determine which moves will remain available in the years ahead. The European Commission continues to draw attention to Italy’s weak productivity growth and high public debt. If the fundamentals remain fragile, every new difficulty will require more costly responses.

The second rule: coordinate the pieces. This may be the most important principle of all. Capablanca did not assess the strength of a rook in isolation, but what that rook contributed to the position as a whole. The European Union has substantial instruments at its disposal: trade policy, competition rules, the internal market, monetary policy for the euro area, research programmes, industrial-policy measures, and economic-security tools. Their effectiveness depends on whether they can be deployed coherently.

Competences are, of course, distributed between the Union and its Member States by the Treaties. The common commercial policy is an exclusive EU competence, whereas many choices affecting competitiveness remain national or are subject to different forms of coordination. This makes the problem more complicated than the metaphor suggests: on the European chessboard, there is no single player who can issue orders to every piece.

The difficulty becomes apparent when economic and security objectives are not considered together. We may adopt measures to reduce a strategic dependency while retaining policies that make European alternatives difficult to develop. We may support innovation without creating suitable conditions for firms to expand. We may finance national infrastructure projects that would be more useful if designed on a cross-border basis.

Italy faces a similar challenge. Industrial policies, university research, training, energy, and infrastructure often follow separate decision-making processes. Institutional and administrative competences cannot simply be merged, but they can be coordinated around measurable objectives. A public investment delivers different results depending on whether it encounters a system capable of making use of it or a succession of administrative obstacles.

The third rule: gain space. In chess, space allows manoeuvre and restricts the opponent’s options. In international economic policy, the most interesting equivalent is freedom of choice.

A Europe dependent on a small number of suppliers for critical raw materials, strategic technologies, or digital services has fewer alternatives when a commercial relationship deteriorates. Dependency does not necessarily imply vulnerability: it may reflect an efficient form of specialisation that benefits both parties. It becomes a security concern when the interruption of supply would have serious consequences and substitutes would be prohibitively slow or costly to obtain.

Gaining space, then, means developing industrial capabilities, diversifying supplies, strengthening research, building infrastructure, and maintaining economic relationships with a range of partners. It does not mean autarky. For an advanced and open economy such as Europe’s, diversification can provide greater security than closure.

For Italy, too, strategic room for manoeuvre depends on the opportunities available to businesses and workers. Diversifying export markets, improving productivity, developing skills, and accessing competitively priced energy all widen economic choices. High public debt, by contrast, constrains fiscal policy, particularly when financing costs rise.

The fourth rule: open a second front. Capablanca understood that concentrating all his resources on one part of the board could allow his opponent to organise an effective defence. He would therefore build pressure elsewhere, forcing the opponent to redistribute defensive resources.

Applied to the European economy, the principle suggests that competitiveness should not depend on a single instrument. When facing international price competition, Europe can also compete through innovation, production quality, access to capital, technological standards, and diversified markets. Trade policy may create opportunities that a purely domestic industrial policy could not generate.

This lesson is especially relevant to relations with China and the United States. The Union can seek to reduce specific vulnerabilities without abandoning mutually beneficial economic relationships. It must nevertheless have alternative instruments available when a partner resorts to trade restrictions, distortive subsidies, or economic coercion. In this context, a second front may take the form of a new trade partnership or deeper integration among European markets.

The same reasoning applies to Italy. Competing exclusively on price exposes firms to producers with structurally lower costs. Technological specialisation, services associated with manufactured products, research, and access to different markets can provide other options. But dispersion must be avoided. Opening numerous fronts without the resources to sustain them can produce precisely the opposite effect.

The fifth rule: avoid unnecessary risks. Capablanca was willing to sacrifice material, but normally only after preparing the conditions needed to secure a concrete advantage. Caution, in his play, did not mean passivity.

This distinction matters in economic policy. Investing in emerging technologies inevitably entails uncertainty. Industrial and energy transitions can also require high initial costs. Yet failing to act can create even greater risks, especially when technologies and markets are changing rapidly.

For the European Union, assessing risk means considering both action and inaction. Supporting a new industrial supply chain may require considerable public resources and produce uncertain results. Failing to develop it may entrench a dependency that is difficult to reverse. Decisions must take account of costs, benefits, time horizons, the possibility of failure, and strategic consequences.

In Italy, this rule encounters the constraints of public finance. High debt makes the quality of investment especially important. Fiscal prudence can help preserve the state’s capacity to respond to future crises; if it systematically postpones essential investment, however, it may eventually weaken the very economic foundations on which debt sustainability depends.

Looking again at Capablanca’s game, one detail strikes me more than the others. The Cuban champion did not win through a single spectacular move. He gradually improved his position, compelled his opponent to defend, gained control of more squares, and kept several possibilities open. When the decisive combination came, much of the work had already been done.

In Europe we often concentrate our debates on the next measure: a new regulation, fund, investment programme, or diplomatic initiative. These are, of course, important decisions. The question is how each contributes to the overall position we are trying to build.

Italy faces an additional difficulty: many strategic choices require continuity beyond the term of any individual government. Investing in education, research, infrastructure, and administrative capacity means accepting that some results will emerge only over long time horizons. That is a feature of many structural policies, whatever the political orientation of the government pursuing them.

Capablanca had no formula for winning every game. He did, however, understand the value of a position from which several good moves remained available. Perhaps this is the question we should ask more often when discussing the future of Europe and Italy: are the decisions we make today increasing or reducing our freedom of choice tomorrow?

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