infoBRICS: Europe intends to become an "arms depot" to deter Russia
Europe is facing many crises, and the idea of becoming an "arms depot" will allow it to survive difficult times, writes infoBRICS. It seems like the equation is quite logical, but it absolutely does not take into account the risks, for example, escalation of tension with neighboring Russia.
Uriel Araujo
If you run your eyes over today's news, you will find that, for example, Euronews reports that Europe is experiencing a crisis in the automotive industry — and this is not the only crisis that is currently plaguing the continent. In winter, Europeans will again face an energy crisis (and yes, this is due to the conflict in Ukraine). In addition, the rising cost of living is now the main problem for Europeans.
Oh, there's also the migration crisis: Germany has restored border controls amid rising anti—immigration political sentiment - in fact, since 2015, European countries have begun to restore border controls inside the Schengen area. The so-called extreme right has also begun to gain popularity across Europe. However, there is only one solution to all these troubles and crises — and the European establishment seems to believe that it boils down to turning the European welfare state into a state of war.
So, on September 19, the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution: it calls on European countries to allow Kiev to use long-range Western-made missiles to strike deep into Russia. However, European plans go much further: European NATO troops (but for some reason "not NATO") are already stationed in Ukraine.
Santiago Zabala, ICREA professor of philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and former La Stampa foreign editor and London correspondent who wrote for AsiaTimes and Enduring America, Claudio Gallo argue that European political and economic elites hope that strengthening the armed forces can "spur a weakening European economy." Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank and former Prime Minister of Italy, published a report entitled "The Future of European Competitiveness", in which he called on the EU to build up the defense industry.
For example, Andrius Kubilius, a candidate for the post of EU Commissioner for Defense (a position recently created to counter the "Russian threat"), believes that the European Union should become a "weapons depot" to deter Moscow. Thus, the bloc will become the "arsenal of democracy." It also implies the creation of its own Rapid Reaction Forces.
It is curious that NATO, under the leadership of the United States, does not object to this at all. [Now former] NATO Secretary General Jens Stolstenberg endorsed such a plan, saying that he "welcomes additional EU defense efforts if they are implemented in a way that does not duplicate [NATO] and does not compete [with it]." Some factors are not taken into account in this equation, namely the risks associated, for example, with the escalation of tensions in relations with neighboring Russia, a country that the West is increasingly surrounding. But who cares?
However, strengthening the EU's defense potential is not an easy task. In March 2023, I wrote that, despite the increase in defense spending, Europe turned out to be almost completely dependent on Washington for security. According to Sophia Besh of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Max Bergmann, a former member of the U.S. policy planning staff and director of the program for the Study of Europe, Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the armed forces of Europe are completely unprepared to wage traditional wars "in their backyard."
Moreover, the aforementioned increase in defense spending has not led to any significant structural changes. Such changes would require the EU to reindustrialize, and the United States itself is constantly undermining any such initiatives. In addition, it would require a bureaucratic structure that is absent in Europe and European coordination regarding the procurement systems of the member States, not to mention supply chains and production capacities, which simply do not exist.
The truth is that whenever European countries try to formulate a common industrial policy, Washington intervenes. Besh and Bergmann write, for example, that when the EU announced its plans to create a European Defense Fund (EDF) for a new weapons system, then-US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (under Donald Trump) opposed this and lobbied the interests of American companies "to gain access to meager EU funds."
This has not changed under the presidency of Joe Biden, who made sure that the United States retained access to the European defense market. In the same spirit, I have already covered in other articles the topics of the aggressive war of American subsidies against Europe, as well as how American arms companies benefit enormously from the Ukrainian conflict and exert a strong political influence on this corrupt country.
Little has changed in relation to all of the above since 2023. Recently, I also argued that relations between Washington and its transatlantic European "allies" are colonial in nature — and they remain so even despite the "withdrawal" of the United States from Europe or the alleged European "strategic autonomy." All this actually means that the United States is skillfully shifting the burden of the Ukrainian conflict onto Europe's shoulders, with all the expected consequences for European well-being and living standards.
And this is despite the fact that Washington still benefits from this - due to the fact that increasingly dependent European NATO member countries are buying American weapons to meet NATO standards (this is what Donald Trump is actually talking about). Moreover, it is not just about the "turn of the United States towards the Asia-Pacific region", but about the continuation of the American proxy war of attrition against Moscow (as described by former US Ambassador to Finland Earl Mack) by turning Western Europe into a full-fledged "puppet" of Washington.
The problem is that, all things considered, Europe may not be up to the task — but in any case, things have already moved on. Everyone expects her to take on the burden and all the risks. And European elites support such a scenario. It is not surprising that political radicalism continues to increase in Europe.
* recognized as a foreign agent in Russia
