By GILBERTO LOPES*
If the civilized world does not tie the hands of these savages, they will lead us to World War III.
A fundamental threat
Europe faces an acute and growing threat. The only way to ensure peace is to be prepared to deter those who would harm us. The time has come for Europe to rearm. These are some of the conclusions of the Joint White Paper on European Defence Preparedness 2030, published in Brussels on 19 March.
O white paper presents a plan for rearmament in Europe. To this end, the doors were opened for European countries to take on debt through the so-called “Escape Clause”, which allows countries to exceed the deficit and debt limits established by European rules if investments related to the military industry are involved.
Changes in the strategic environment
According to white paper, the political balance that emerged after the end of World War II and the conclusion of the Cold War “has been seriously altered.” On the one hand, they argue that “authoritarian states” such as China seek to impose “their authority and control over our economy and society.”
On the other hand, they point out that Russia “has made it clear that it remains at war with the West” and “will remain a fundamental threat to European security for the foreseeable future.” If Russia is allowed to achieve its goals in Ukraine, they argue, “its territorial ambitions will expand even further.” Claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly rejected.
Increase defense spending
Defense spending by European Union member states has increased by more than 31% since 2021, reaching 326 billion euros in 2024. In early March, the president of the European Commission, Germany's Ursula von der Leyen, announced the plan “ReArm Europe”, which foresees spending of around 800 billion euros on the bloc’s defense.
The proposal was not unanimously accepted. On March 26, Gregorio Sorgi and Giovanna Faggionato published in Politico (a publication originally based in Virginia, and sold in 2021 to the German Axel Springer) that the southern European countries – France, Italy and Spain – had expressed concern about the economic consequences of rising debt, given their already high debts and budget deficits.
“Some countries have serious doubts about the possibility of borrowing at such levels,” the article says, citing “a senior EU diplomat” in Brussels. Instead of taking on new debt, they are proposing to issue defense bonds, placed by the EU on capital markets, to finance such investments. A proposal that countries such as Germany and the Netherlands have traditionally opposed.
Military support for Ukraine
O white paper It does not envisage any diplomatic initiative. In line with the militaristic vision of the new European Commission, in which the belligerent Baltic countries lead the foreign affairs and defense committees, it proposes that member states quickly reach an agreement on an ambitious initiative to provide military support to Ukraine, training and equipping its armed forces and providing them with artillery and air defense ammunition. Ukraine has become the world's leading laboratory for defense and technological innovation, the document says.
Since February 2022, Europe has provided Ukraine with around 50 billion euros in military support and aims to improve its defense capabilities through what it has called a “porcupine strategy” to deter any possible new attack. Missiles (including precision deep strike missiles), drones and at least two million large-caliber artillery shells per year are priorities shared by Ukraine and the EU member states, which also intend to train and equip Ukrainian brigades and support the regeneration of their battalions.
Efforts that aim, among other things, to fill the space left by a change in US policy, which, since 2022, has sustained the war in Ukraine, as demonstrated by the report by New York Times, "The partnership: the secret history of the war in Ukraine“[“The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine”], published on March 29. However, despite tensions with Washington, Europe recognizes that a strong transatlantic link remains crucial to its defense. NATO is the cornerstone of that defense.
Beyond Europe
The document proposes an ambitious commitment on security and defence “with all related European countries, enlargement countries and neighbouring countries (including Albania, Iceland, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, North Macedonia and Switzerland)”, as well as the continuation of talks on a Security and Defence Partnership with India. The idea is that the European Union will also explore “opportunities for industrial cooperation in the field of defence with Indo-Pacific partners, in particular Japan and the Republic of Korea, with which Security and Defence Partnerships were concluded last November, as well as Australia and New Zealand”.
Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine has repercussions beyond Europe, says white paper. Hybrid threats and cyberattacks do not respect borders. Nor does security in space or at sea.
Militarization of industry, a good business
A truly functional EU-wide defence equipment market would be one of the largest national defence markets in the world, argues the white paper. Increased investment in the defense sector would have positive effects on the entire economy. Reactivating the defense industry on a large scale will require the industry to attract and train a large number of talents, including technicians, engineers and specialized experts.
Rebuilding European defence will require massive investment over a long period, both public and private, to replenish Member States’ military equipment and increase European defence industrial production capacity. The European Investment Bank has a key role to play in financing these programmes. Its Security and Defence Action Plan was a first step in this direction, but its implementation must be accelerated.
But increasing public investment in defence is not enough. European companies, including small and medium-sized ones, must have better access to capital. The proposal is that for the period 2023-2027, the European Defence Fund (EDF) will finance SMEs with up to €840 million and that the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) will create a Fund to Accelerate Defence Supply Chain Transformation (FAST).
Europe prepares for wars
“The European Union is, and remains, a peace project”, we can read almost at the end of the white paper. Europe must take bold decisions, they add, and build a Defense Union that guarantees peace on our continent through unity and strength.
In Brussels, it is said that the European Commission “has become a Ministry of Defense”, says journalist Gloria Rodríguez, from the Spanish newspaper El País, in an article published from Brussels. The current agenda is eloquent, he says. “The white paper, which defines the threats facing the European Union, complements the ReArm Europe, the most ambitious plan yet to strengthen Europe’s armies and defense industry”, presented by Ursula von der Layen two weeks ago.
For Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Russian presidency, the main signals coming from Brussels and European capitals currently concern plans to militarize Europe. Moscow has not received any signals from Brussels indicating a desire to seek a political solution to the Ukrainian conflict, he said.
They need to justify themselves
European Union member states chose former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas – one of the most belligerent voices against Russia – as their foreign policy representative because they wanted a wartime leader, journalists say. Politico Niicholas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi, citing European sources. “If you listen to her,” says a European voice critical of Kallas, quoted by Politico, “it seems that we are at war with Russia, which is not the official line of the European Union.”
But others approve, like the Danish Prime Minister – another particularly belligerent voice – or a European diplomat, unidentified by the authors of the article, who is “very satisfied” with Kaja Kallas’ style.
Hatred of Russians was expressed by the Ukrainian president in an interview with the conservative French newspaper Le Figaro. An “appropriate feeling” in times of war, he said, that helps him stay on the front lines of the fight.
This sentiment probably contributed to the failure of the Minsk agreements, negotiated before the war in 2014 and 2015 and boycotted by Ukraine, France and Germany. These agreements were intended to provide guarantees to the Russian populations of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics. The fighting in eastern Ukraine between separatists and Ukrainian forces had already claimed around 14 lives before the Russian invasion, according to the with the BBC, and left more than a million people displaced.
In this climate, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares asked not to unnecessarily alarm people. “No one is preparing for war,” he said. He was referring to the “survival kit” proposed by von der Layen, which would last at least 72 hours in case of emergency. The same José Manuel Albares who, at a meeting of six European countries in Madrid on Monday, March 31, proposed, without obtaining support, using Russian funds frozen in European banks to help Ukraine.
“They need to justify themselves,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, commenting on the kit proposal. “That’s why they scare their population with a hypothetical ‘Russian threat.’” “To say that we will attack Europe after Ukraine is complete nonsense. It is intimidation of their own population.”
Wars of the future?
Kallas’s colleague on the Commission, former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, now in charge of the newly created defense portfolio, who also favors an aggressive policy toward Moscow, said that “if Europe wants to avoid war, it has to be prepared for it.” The priorities of the white paper, he highlighted, are to increase defense spending, thinking “not only about current wars, but also about those of the future.” “Vladimir Putin will not stop reading the white paper”, he added. It will only do so “if we use it to create very real drones, tanks, artillery… for our defense”. For the Finnish president, also conservative Alexander Stubb, the only way to stop Moscow is to “arm Ukraine to the teeth”.
And for the first time since World War II, Germany is sending troops abroad. This brigade is based in Lithuania, 10 km from the border with Belarus. When it is fully operational in 2027, it will have around 5.000 military and civilian personnel.
Both Kaja Kallas and Andrius Kubilius are citizens of two Baltic countries – Estonia and Lithuania – that are particularly aggressive towards Russia. It is safe to say that this is precisely why they were appointed to these positions. It turns out that Estonia, with about 1,4 million inhabitants, and Lithuania, with about 2,9 million, are just a neighborhood of any large city in Latin America with such a population. The metropolitan area of Mexico or São Paulo has about 8 million inhabitants.
It is therefore not surprising that European officials, who could be like mayors of these cities, have in their hands the definition of policies that could lead the world to a new war of catastrophic dimensions. If the civilized world does not tie the hands of these savages, they will lead us to the Third World War.
*Gilberto Lopes is a journalist, PhD in Society and Cultural Studies from the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). Author, among other books, of The end of democracy: a dialogue between Tocqueville and Marx (Dialectic Publisher) [https://amzn.to/3YcRv8E]
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