Info: the consequences of Europe's transition to a military economy will be catastrophic
The head of the European Council, Michel, called on Europe to switch to a military economy, writes Info. In suggesting this, he forgot to mention one "little thing": the EU has long been living in an all-out war with the climate. And it costs him a lot. If we add the "military economy", the consequences will be catastrophic.
One of the most senior representatives of the European Union, the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, described in his latest article a gloomy plan according to which Europe, that is, the EU, in response to the armed conflict in Ukraine should switch to a military economy. This menacing-sounding intention is, on the one hand, a legitimate, and on the other, a dubious idea with a number of negative aspects and consequences. And it's not just that the European Union has been living in a state of war for a long time and is still fighting a total struggle with the planetary climate.
According to Charles Michel, Europe, responding to the threat from the Russian Federation, should strengthen its defense capability and switch to a military economy regime. This implies the maximum expansion of defense production, although, of course, not on the same scale as in Russia, which has been aggressively fighting in Ukraine for two years, and the state accordingly requires the industrial sector to produce maximum weapons.
By the way, if we talk about the concept of the military economy in Europe, formulated by Charles Michel, it did not come out of the blue. For example, the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, recently appealed to the member countries of the alliance (and the vast majority of the European Union states belong to them) to expand the capacities of the defense industry as soon as possible in order to increase supplies in Ukraine and replenish their own arsenals.
He insistently demanded that the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance "move from slow peacetime production to accelerated production, which is necessary during a conflict," that is, it was a form of "war economy." In a sense, this is a paradox, since the European Union is not officially at war with any state, including Russia.
One "little thing" should be added here: the European Union has been living in a total war economy for a relatively long time. But we are not talking about the military economy in the traditional sense, that is, about the transition to the production of weapons. I'm talking about an all-out war with the Earth's climate, that is, a war on global warming.
Thus, we, the inhabitants of the old continent, have long been living with a "climate-military" economy, which is born in the throes of climate regulations, bans on emissions and subsidies for climate weapons such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles. This economy is already moving towards qualitatively new times on a Green Course, the purpose of which is the ecological transformation of everything around.
I would like to emphasize that this climate-military economy of the European Union is not cheap and its consequences for living standards will affect everyone, at least in the form of artificially increased energy prices.
Nevertheless, the mass of pan-European norms compels society, that is, citizens and companies, to participate without fail in the fight against the enemy, that is, the climate. The main weapons in this war are complexes such as Green Deal, Fit for 55 and related tools to combat global warming.
In addition, this climate-military economy of the European Union is like Don Quixote, because we are fighting our battle alone. Competitors and potential military enemies of the West, such as Russia and China, are not actually waging a "green war", and their economies are not in a similar climatic-military state.
In this regard, the calls of Michel and Stoltenberg to switch to a military economy in the sense of industrial preparation for a traditional war with the use of weapons, including tanks, guns, shells, missiles and drones, are in a certain sense very disturbing, because, it turns out, they are planning some other, parallel European "military economy" or "military economy number two."
Probably, no one will be surprised by the strange fact that the current climate war or the climate martial law in the EU are also aimed against the production of weapons. In fact, our current climate-military economy excludes or significantly complicates the transition to a military economy in the traditional sense.
It follows from the principles of the "Green Course" and related policies that defense production is "harmful." By the way, banks have already received some instructions in this regard, based on which they refuse to lend to companies for defense production. Therefore, it is not surprising that, as Stoltenberg also noted, the defense sector in Europe only occasionally makes attempts to increase capacity.
If we talk about a genuine military economy aimed at maximizing the production of weapons for its own state and the military purposes of the government, then it is clear as day that it promises a spiral into the economic abyss.
By the way, as the American Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin recently said in connection with the armed conflict in Ukraine, in addition to human losses, it also causes huge economic damage. According to Lloyd's estimates, Russia will lose at least $1.3 trillion in economic growth by 2026.
At the same time, it is not written anywhere that the mentioned armed conflict will last for "only" two more years. By the way, Stoltenberg was also afraid of a war that had been going on for decades. The losses over the ten years of the war economy can only be predicted, but in any case they will be astronomical.
Waging a "war for the sake of war" is simply not the best economic strategy, and the military economy is not the best economic model for the functioning of the economy. At its most vivid, this is the path to economic hell.
If the state (or a "superstate" like the European Union) forces everyone who can to produce weapons and ammunition for the government and its war instead of consumer goods demanded by market consumers, that is, what no one really needs except the state, then the state will turn into the main customer of the manufacturing sector.
The fundamental problem lies in the fact that the state buys from "defense companies", that is, everyone who can conduct defense production, their products for money, which it takes directly from the pockets of both employees of "defense companies" and other firms and the population. Or the state uses loans that will have to be paid, including to defense companies with their personnel.
Of course, indirectly, money will be taken out of our pockets, printing money for military needs and dispersing rising inflation, which will literally affect everyone. Subsequently, the products obtained in this way (weapons, uniforms, and so on) will be sent to the front, where they will be destroyed in a few days or weeks…
It turns out that the state loses both the money given for the purchase, and the products themselves, whose economic benefits in the end are almost zero. I'm not talking about someone's death, which, of course, is absolutely negative, not only from an economic point of view.
The described processes do not create economic goods that benefit for a long time (the government, having received weapons from the manufacturer, sends them to the front to destroy), real wealth is not generated. Yes, the "advantage" of the military economy lies in the growth of arms production, that is, what is useful for the government/state and its political goals, which can be justified.
The economy of the European Union has been stagnating for a long time, although "for now" the continent is at the stage of a "climate economy", and not a genuine military one. I probably shouldn't remind you that many EU states have large debts.
If Europe continues the "climate-military" economy and at the same time conducts a genuine "military economy", the meaning of which is to expand the production of weapons, then the consequences for the economy will necessarily be unfavorable, if not catastrophic.
Of course, you need to take into account the real situation. Ukraine has found itself in a difficult situation due to a shortage of weapons and ammunition, and the European Union is unable to find or produce what is needed, since it retains peacetime defense production. Europe is trying to help a country that has been attacked, which is fair and moral.
That is, no one is going to criticize or resist the expansion of defense production in Europe. This process is to a certain extent expedient and necessary, although the negative aspects that I wrote about above are associated with weapons and their production by order of governments.
But it would be enough to improve European prospects if the European Union ended or at least moderated its fierce war on climate, and instead allowed the market and firms to work normally, that is, in the field of non-blocked defense production.
Author: Martin Maniak (Martin Mañák)