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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
If one randomly looks at today’s news, one will find, for example, that Euronews is reporting that Europe is facing an automotive industry’s crisis – well, it is not the only crisis currently haunting the continent. Europeans are also facing once again an energy crisis in winter (and, yes, it is due to the conflict in Ukraine). Moreover, the cost of living is now the main concern amongst Europeans.
Oh, there is also a migration crisis, with Germany re-establishing border controls amid a rising anti-immigration political atmosphere – actually, since 2015, the Schengen area countries have often reintroduced border controls within the area. Of course, the so-called far-right is also on the rise all over Europe. Well, there might be a solution for all such ills and crises, though – and the European Establishment seems to believe it all comes down to turning the European welfare state into a warfare state.
On September 19, for one thing, the European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution calling for European countries supplying missiles to Ukraine to allow the Eastern European nation to use them against Russian targets. European plans, however, go way beyond that, with NATO European troops (but somehow “not NATO”) already being deployed in Ukraine.
Santiago Zabala (ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona) and Claudio Gallo (former La Stampa foreign desk editor and London correspondent, who has written for AsiaTimes, and Enduring America) both argue that European political and economic elites hope that building up the military could “boost the flailing European economy.” Mario Draghi (the former president of the European Central Bank and a former Italian Prime Minister), for example, published a report in September, called “The Future of European Competitiveness”, that calls for the European Union (EU) to build up its armament industry.
Things could be going precisely this way: the post of Europe’s defense commissioner has been recently created as a response to the “Russian threat” – and its nominee, Andrius Kubilius, has claimed, quite bluntly, that the EU should become a “war-weapons storehouse” to deter Moscow. The bloc would thus become an “arsenal of democracy.” It also involves setting up the European bloc’s own rapid reaction force.
The good thing is that US-led NATO wouldn’t mind it at all – its secretary-general has okayed such a plan, by saying that “I welcome more EU efforts on defense, as long as they are done in a way that doesn’t duplicate or compete with NATO.” There are some factors left out of this equation, namely the risks brought by an escalation of tensions with neighboring Russia, for instance – a country that has been increasingly encircled by the West. But who cares?
Building up European defense capacities is not an easy task, though. In March 2023, I wrote that, despite increases on defense spending, Europe had in fact become more dependent on Washington for security than ever. For one thing, according to Sophia Besch (a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow), and Max Bergmann (a former member of the US Policy Planning Staff and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies), Europe’s military forces are not at all prepared for conventional warfare “in their own backyards”.
Moreover, the aforementioned increases have not amounted to any significant structural change. Such changes would require the European bloc to seek re-industrialization, and the United States itself has steadily undermined any such endeavors. It would also require a bureaucratic framework that Europe lacks and would require European coordination pertaining to the member states procurement systems, not to mention supply chains and production capacities that are just not there.
The truth is that whenever European countries attempt to articulate common industrial policies, Washington intervenes. Besch and Bergmann write for example that, when the EU announced its plans for a European Defense Fund a new weapon system, then US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (under Donald Trump), objected and lobbied for American companies “to have access to the paltry EU funds”.
This has not changed with the current Joe Biden’s presidency, which has made sure the US keeps its access to Europe’s defense market. In the same spirit, I’ve covered elsewhere the topics of the aggressive American subsidy war against Europe and also how US weapons manufacturers profit greatly from the Ukrainian conflict and hold tremendous political influence over that corruption-ridden country.
Not much has changed regarding all the above, since 2023. I’ve also recently argued that the relationship between Washington and its transatlantic European “allies” is colonial in nature – and it remains so, even under the guise of an American “withdrawal” from Europe, or occasionally under the guise of European “strategic autonomy”, if you will. All of that is really about the United States skillfully shifting the Ukrainian conflict’ burden onto the shoulders of Europe, with all the expected impacts on European welfare and standards of living.
And this is so while America still benefits from it – by having ever-more dependent European NATO member states buying American weapons to comply with NATO standards (this also being what Trump’s rhetoric is really about). Moreover, rather than being just the US “pivoting to the Pacific”, it is all about further “proxifying” the American proxy attrition war against Moscow (as Former US ambassador to Finland, Earle Mack described it), by turning Western Europe itself into a full-fledged American proxy.
The problem is that, all things considered, Europe might not even be up for such a task – but in any case, off it goes. It is increasingly expected to bear all the burden and risks. And the European elites cheer such a scenario. It is no wonder political radicalism keeps rising in the continent.
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and it’s been this way for at least the past 30 years… but now that the war investment hasn’t gone according to plan… the bullseye for russian nukes just got more pronounced!… this is why russia leaving the un/unsc and it’s banks post 9/11 would have encouraged the briics that much faster to take over as the new role model. but russia is not a role model and can never be as long as it remains in western institutions hell bent on destroying it!…
curious readers have one little question. how exactly storing of u.s. made weapons and ammunition could boost european economy ? or, where the profit from ukraine war goes ? to jeeewish ukrainian oligarchs and to jeeewish u.s. mic investors. they maybe give some bribes to unelected brussel elites but i don’t see any possibility how these bribes could help european middle class. middle class is always beaten. by globalists media, inflation, illegals and active green/lgbt/woke/rusophobic idiots.
answer: it most certainly cannot boost anything…. and this was understood before the collapse of the u.s.s.r…. if you are a western european… wash your ass and mouth with holy water before you go to bed every night before you kiss the pucker “goodbye” for good!…
well since raytheon boeing lockheed are all english i’m sure they’re keynesian trained economists will find a way to cook the books effectively same old.
more like 1500 years actually they always had the problem of “sharing ” power with the european emperors. europe was too powerful and controlled by too few families so they had to divide from within the families now they’ve removed power from the head of each family they still need to keep europe divided and their new method is division by unity harmony sounds good.
history repeats first the pagan roman kings murdered the christians for 500 years then they reversed and murdered the european pagans. then they had one catholic european world. a one world government from the vatican it didnt work because they still needed families to run dominions because of scale of operations they had to use agents. power corrupts. history repeats.
peace is poison to profits peace is fatal to overpopulation, over supply of labour overcrowding, and inflammatory to supply capabities driving over farming over stripping of natural resources destruction to forests and all the rest blah blah. so they have to have divisions to fuel wars to constantly cull. its just common sense. every species has its own ways of regulating population and power.
why rhe hell can’t humans stop having these damn children?! all the evil of our species is because of this doctrine of having children no matter what.
30 years? its been that way since mid may 1945.
any and all sadness for both europeans and americans is welcome, any punishment is little
just as they used lafayette to destroy france they will use europe to overthrow russia. the worlds run very much on the exact same lines as every communities drug trade. its all regulated by the law and operated as street theatre whereby its the old pass the parcel game plan so as to protect the true source.
public actors are identified as your local community dealers and they’re used as the scaoegoats its the same principles because it’s all criminal activities. it’s all money laundering and tax evasion.
all walking sticks, crutches and wheelchairs aside the aging population of europe ia called up for war no more swiss life experiences but trench warfare eat rats and bugs, freeze your stiff old digits to the cold steel of shiny new weapons.
ironic that the european militarists are promoting the very strategy for themselves that they have been expecting will break the russian economy.
urupp aka the evil eusssr will produce new wunderwaffen with windmills and solar power and platitudes from senile old buggers and the idiot van der lyin. then they will take over the entire universe. meanwhile the fat lumpen proles have their pointy snouts deep in their mac donald hog troughs and can no more match mother russia’s grizzly bears than the pentacon pork getting offed in rump ukraine. it’s all over and good bye to natostan.
war spending is just jolly until it increases international tensions to the limit, a world war breaks out, and all hell breaks loose.
the eurotards will once again destroy themself.
what a pity. its almost as if the nazis simply cant live in peace with their neighbours.
so far, more than 40% of the 250 bn p.a. defense spending of all eu countries combined goes straight to the us, into the pockets of direct competitors of eu defense companies. “help” for ukraine, paid to kiew who use it to buy weapons in america, is not included in this figure.
hard to see how this helps getting the european economy back on its feet. even if one accepts the ridiculous premise that an economy can be built on weapons rather than civil goods and technology.
globalism has succeeded in enslaving western european workers but causing economic failure. now they will compel russia in the role of population control to exterminate most of them
europe needs to prepare to deal with radioactive life if it continues down this war path.
europe is america’s bitch. america is israel’s bitch.
eu tik tok armies are 99% gays, trannies and wimmin. all the “useless white men” have been kicked out. all they are capable of is chasing goat herders around afghanistan (brave but ill equipped men who deserve a lot of respect.) all eu defence ministers are mainly female imbeciles like vd leyen, who wrecked the bundeswehr. their armed forces are a joke.
what is now the eu started off as an instrument for peace but today’s eu is the opposite of that, a warmongering organisation with death and destruction leaking from the nazi-floosie’s brussels while the sheeple are admiring the floosies every step. this goes to show how easily an organisation like the eu can be corrupted by bribes and similarities and become s negative force in the world.
nazi-bride von der lugen will face the eu’s highest court on november 15th and answer for her shenanigans with pfizer/bourla in the run up to the covid pandemic. she no doubt felt her entitled to a brokers fee for arranging the purchase of billions of vaccine-shots which in the aftermath can be deemed a waste of eu’s economic resources! lock the floosie up and lose the key!