I’ve noticed that in both Belgium and The Netherlands there has been an increase in war talk lately, saying how we need more military personnel and that we need to be wary of Russia. I’ve seen some British articles about it too.
Now, I hope it is purely coincidental otherwise I’d have to get worried about EU+UK being complete idiots and preparing for war.
Germany is discussing reintroducing the military service requirement.
The German defense minister is clearly saying that Germans must prepare for war, not just in the material sense of getting the Bundeswehr into fighting shape but in the socio-political sense of “the government and military can’t go to war if the people are against it, and the government damn well wants to go to war so we better get the propaganda rolling.”
It’s a scary time to be alive.
This one is genuinely scary… but I have no idea how they’d introduce it without massive resistance, and it blowing up in their faces.
Higher ups of the army literally protested the reintroduction of conscription because the army lacks the infrastructure and personnel to train such a high number of new recruits. But Material reality never stopped the German government from passing asinine legislation.
It’s just gonna happen, without resistance.
Fascists like it, because of nationalism and the prospect of having a huge army to “defend” ourselves. The liberals will be very easy to convince to toe the line. Leftists are a small group, and half are basically liberals anyway.
Well it’s not just a coincidence then it seems, because the same talks are happening in other countries. They must have decided something behind the scenes.
Seems like they’re going to pull a Russian Civil War type of scenario should Ukraine lose. All the propaganda points to this idea of Russia going after the Baltics and then all of Europe after beating Ukraine.
Or it could be the result of electing right-wing nationalists that do nothing but saber rattle when they haven’t fought a conventional war since the boomers were children.
Or it could be the result of electing right-wing nationalists that do nothing but saber rattle
The libs are just as good at it
Yes: the Ukraine mess proved America that proxy wars are very profitable. It doesn’t matter who wins as long as they make money, so now they want the whole Europe to fight Russia. The EU will comply because it’s a puppet of USA, so we are very very fucked.
It’s scary how little debate this entails. Our countries are in war in Yemen, and I’d say 80% of the public doesn’t even know it.
Poland. Loud sounds of sabers rattling, though if you listen more closely, those are actually sounds of coconut shells and spurs being worn on bare feet.
Czechia, same here. Same old Russia wants to invade all of Europe so we have to defend ourselves.
oh hey
yeah a lot of scaremongering about russia, but it seems like most people on the ground just want us to stay in the bowl
Spain. No drums here, probably because they know that as always no one is willing to die for this mess of a country lmao.
Would Spain even trust arming and training all the separatist regions?
Regional separatism is quite strong, to the point of having leaked into the culture itself of those regions, but those movements are non-violent, to the point in which organized acts of violence have been virtually nonexistant since almost a decade and a half ago in the Basque Country and for even longer in Catalonia. No, the truth is that very few people would not get angry at the prospect of being forced into conscription (a concept that, if it wasn’t awful enough by itself, is also tightly associated with the Francoist regime), and being on the other side of the continent no one really believes that Russia is any threat to us in particular. Moreover, the Spanish government has been pulling some moves that are very unpopular with the right-wing sector of the country by attempting to reach a compromise with the Catalan separatist movement and granting amnesty to the political prisoners of the Referendum of the 1st of October, so threatening the population with war mobilization is pretty much the worst thing they could do right now.
Gracias por la sabía de los dentros.
(Eso no aparece correcto. ¿Cómo se dice <insider knowledge>?)
It would be “Gracias por el conocimiento interno”, although that is not much of an expression in Spanish.
Thanks for the translation and the caveat. Out of interest, is there a similar idiom?
None that comes to mind right now.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Spain making a killing off the switch to LNG since nordstream was killed? iirc y’all have like one of two LNG import ports in Europe so Spain’s actually one of the few EU countries to come out ahead on this war economically
What I can say is that we have been importing a lot of Russian LNG, and for what I see at some point we were their 2nd largest clients worldwide only behind China. I couldn’t find any information regarding how well has Spain’s economy fared with this, but in other sources I found that only 5% of what we are buying goes to other members of the EU, so there’s also that.
War with the East will be indecisive and very costly for both sides. If the war doesn’t become nuclear, then I can see the conditions of the October Revolution (WW1) being replicated everywhere in the West.
The war will become very unpopular once the realities of war set in. Vietnam draft riots will be a pindrop compared to war with Russia, especially since the youth (they fight wars) nowadays (at least in the US) don’t eat up propaganda as well as they used to.
I doubt there will be an actual hot war between the east and west yet as the west knows how destructive it would be for themselves. But I think more proxy wars are likely. All of this increase in military spending is just a racket to increase the bottom line of the arms industry.
:estonia-burning: is already stiffing the education budget for war. The Riigikogu cannot afford to give €50M for schools and increase teacher salaries, but €300M per annum until at least 2027 to
- as if by magic, suddenly money appears!Oh and Estonia wants to mine the eastern border. Everything is still also covered in Ukraine flags, just as it was 2 years ago.
ZelensKKKy was also in Tallinn 2 weeks ago and the reaction is exactly what you’d expect - at least in the online space, Estonians trying their hardest to maximize their 1940s Nazi power level, swooning over the golden idol of crackerkind.
In Denmark the conflict in Russia/Ukraine has resulted in accepting American troops being stationed here, and of course a massive $20 billion USD investment in the military, over the next 10 years. The articles are in Danish, use a translator if you’re interested.
Denmark has for at least 70 years always said no to having American troops stationed in our country, so it’s quite a big move. Very few political parties have been criticizing it this time around, except for the most left-wing ones (obviously including our very-small communist party).
The talk is different than the talk at the beginning of the Russian invasion now. Instead of a ‘hypothetical’ war the focus is now more on preparing for a ‘soon to be imminent’ war
This is shown objectively, isn’t it? Their budgets are going up.
Yeah I guess. A little voice in my head is telling me that surely they won’t be that stupid. But then again they probably are.
Finland is prepared to redo our glorious history once more with a fascist ally by our side yet again.
lmao we’re so fucked
Yeah I’m getting serious tiny poodle vibes. Going “let me at em bro I swear to god bro I’ll fuck em up bro you’re lucky i’m on this leash aaaabark bark bark barkbarkabrkbark” at a pack of swole bears or something. We have like 40 soliders and maybe an old tractor somewhere. It’s a god damn suicide cult.
Not to disagree with you, but doesn’t Finland have conscription? I was surprised that a country with no active conflicts does that.
Yep. The red-scare brainworms are deeply rooted here, every boy has to go to the military to prepare for the inevitable day the russians come. It hasn’t really been taken very seriously for as long as I’ve lived, at least. Until now, I guess. A funny little cultural rite of passage meme where 18-year-olds get to fuck around with their bros in the woods for half a year. But tbh I never went myself, so I don’t really know what you actually learn there.
“40 soldiers and an old tractor” is what I assume is the portion of the conscripts who are actually ready and willing to fight, and didn’t just go there because they were expected to.
every boy
Yes, hello, this was me years ago.
From my very personal experience I’d say there are some who get some actual training and learn all kinds of things like how to hunt and eat a reindeer etc, but my placement was in the artillery and like 95% of everyone there was going to jump straight to Sweden if shit actually hit the fan, and that was the fucking artillery, like if someone is close enough to do damage there we’re royally screwed anyway
But you’re the happiest country in the world!
not with this suicide rate we aint
Every time there’s a happiness index Finland is always number 1, do they just not take that into account 😭
Yeah, Sweden is going all in on military expenditure since our planned ascension into NATO seems to be giving everyone a hard on, despite decreasing security and increasing the risks of entering into conflict. Any alternative perspective is discarded, polls show a majority is in favour of the ascension, so no one is willing to drive any counter opinion. Military service is also expanded, the weapons industry is having a field day (if the stock market is any indicator). All in all a total shit-show with no sign of slowing down for at least a decade.
Germans got so excited they accidentally remade the maus
Communists in france think Ukraine has a right to self defence and host fundraisers for the ukrainian army. You can extrapolate the rest from here.
I’m guessing it’s the “communist” party, the swarm of trot parties and maybe some (supposedly) marxist-leninist parties like the PCRF? I know the PRCF (Pôle de renaissance Communiste en France) is supporting Russia against the Ukrainian Nazis. I don’t know that much about other parties.
im mostly shitting on the NPA and their nebula of like minded idiots, PRCF is very good.
so your national equivalent of democrats call themselves communists?
Not exactly.
The French equivalent to the Democrats, as in the status quo party that serves to prepare the country for further right-wingery, is Macron’s La République en marche/Renaissance (The marching republic/Rebirth) (with the equivalent to the Republicans would be Marine LePen’s Rassemblement National/Front national (The National gathering/National front)). What the “communists” is referring to is mainly the so called Partie communiste Français (French communist party), a now minority party, which used to be an actual Marxist-Leninist party until the fall of the commintern, since then the PCF has abandoned it’s revolutionary character to become an unremarkable “left” reformist third party that still calls itself communist by pure opportunism, this debacle has caused many splits that gave birth to smaller nominally communist parties ranging from Trotskyists to Marxist-Leninists (Lutte ouvrière, Révolution permanente, Partie communiste révolutionnaire de France, Pôle de renaissance communiste en France, etc…).
thanks, that’s super informative!
I’m not an EU comrade but I wanna comment to help boost as I am super curious about this topic. I especially want to hear from Portuguese comrades about what’s currently going on down there with regards to your question.
media is busy with the upcoming elections here (Portugal) but tbh I don’t think I’ve heard the “defense” narrative being pushed ever, maybe some talk once in a blue moon about bringing back obligatory conscription but other than that I think it’s too much of a small country and quite peripheral for that talk to gain traction
also there aren’t many pockets interested in - or capable of getting it, really - “defense” money, but the defense budget increased in 2023 I’m sure, some RRF money thrown in there as well
on the other hand I’ve never heard talk about dismantling the very strategic American base in Azores, we’re still part of NATO (founding member!) and whoever holds the belief that we shouldn’t be is ridiculed, even though we joined during our fascist era
I believe the common conception about “defense” here is: no more, no less
I see, so the Portuguese channel I have access to is standard. I only have the one so I’m glad I’m not missing out on anything (except the language barrier). I honestly couldn’t imagine Portugal succeeding in the military sect even if CHEGA wins so I’m glad I was right to think that. Unfortunate that there’s still a base is the Açores, though.
Portugal makes me so sad, my family is from there and things could’ve been so good but alas… at least they’re not itching for war like the other EU states… hopefully one day they’ll be free from NATO.
I am Portuguese. Most people seem to support Ukraine (as expected), but honestly I don’t think anyone wants to fight a war. We’re already in a tough position as is, and I doubt anyone in their right minds would want to fight a war right now.
That’s sort of the vibe I was getting, that no one there wants to go to war, which makes sense. Based on what I know about Portuguese history going to war would be a veery bad move, but that knowledge has never stopped governments from doing it anyway. I can’t really understand the news very well and my Vavó doesn’t understand certain political terms to translate, but does CHEGA say or imply anything? I know I’ve been worried about them for a while (far-right rise is an unfortunate common trend in the EU right now)…
Chega is more concerned with appealing to cops rather than military, they’re not so much about “defense” as they are about “security”. As you said historically the country is not equipped for war but the fascists loved their state police and they wouldn’t mind having it again
Hm that makes sense. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think I heard something about Salazar being “admired” by CHEGA, if thats the case it makes sense why they wouldn’t be interested n the military considering they were the ones (including the non-military communists) that overthrew the Salazar regime.
I think I remember seeing police officer protests in Portugal too, though I may be misremembering due to the language barrier (I just remember a few guys protesting Costa and I think they were cops).
Anyway I’m hoping for the best in Portugal ❤️
