Facing a Tilting World and the Rise of European Militarism: Why Peace and Socialism Matter Now

Good afternoon, dear friends, dear comrades.

We cannot discuss militarism in Europe without acknowledging that the very foundations of our world seem to be shifting beneath our feet. We are living through a moment of converging crises: the re-emergence of Donald Trump and his copies in Europe, the escalating militarisation across Europe, and the threat of global war.

As the subtitle of the book by our General Secretary, Peter Mertens, Mutiny, puts it: “The world is tilting.” This tilting world, especially in Europe, demands our analysis, our understanding, and, most importantly, our action.
The Shifting Global Order and New Battlegrounds

The most fundamental shift is the change in the global economic centre of gravity. This shift is moving decisively towards Asia, and more specifically towards China. China is truly challenging the United States of America for the first time. This is a massive challenge, and the resulting friction means that the tectonic plates are in touch with each other, creating shocks greater than anything we have experienced in the last three decades.

These turning points are not solely driven by great power competition; they are fundamentally linked to rapid technological development. We are in the midst of a double transition: one towards fossil-free production and another towards artificial intelligence. This double transition is reshaping industries, redefining supply chains, and altering the very nature of work.
These technological shifts hinge on crucial technologies like batteries and semiconductors, and the critical materials required to produce them. These elements are creating new battlegrounds. A stark reality emerges for the West: Europe and the US are heavily reliant on China for these critical minerals, with up to 95% of imports coming from Chinese sources.
This scramble for resources has consequences everywhere. Even the tragic war in Ukraine has a resource dimension, with the US concluding a raw materials agreement in exchange for its support. Even Greenland, with its significant deposits of lithium and rare earth metals, is quickly becoming a geopolitical hotspot.

We see this view manifested clearly in the Trump administration's foreign policy. Comrades, this is plain imperialism and neo-colonialism.

And imperialism inevitably brings a period of war, and that period is already upon us. It is already there in Ukraine. It is already in the battle for the control of lithium in Latin America and the cobalt in Africa. It is there in Palestine with the genocide. It is there when the US illegally bombards vessels off the coast of Venezuela.
Therefore, the threat of war is not a hypothetical threat; it is already a crushing reality. Yes, we are at the beginning of a new phase of war, and this phase is being led by the US.

Guns Instead of Butter: Europe’s Alignment and Militarisation

The choice made by the European Union as a reaction to this unprecedented shift has been the choice of the war economy and alignment with the United States. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, made it clear even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the EU must become a major “geopolitical actor” and “learn to speak the language of power”. Since the war in Ukraine, the “war economy” has become the current slogan of the European Union.
EU member states currently spend €326 billion on armaments today, which is nearly 2% of European GDP. This spending has doubled in the last ten years. So, Europe has been rearming for a decade already, and it is going much, much further in the coming years.

The German Chancellor Merz stated recently that we are not already at war, but we are “not anymore in peace”. There is a strong political push for Germany to be great again, to militarise, and to be “war-ready”. Germany is already the fourth largest defence spender in the world.The European Union has pushed forward the €800 billion EU militarisation package—dubbed “Readiness 2030”. This package is partly funded by debt and by plundering existing social and climate funds. Its explicit goal is to position the EU politically and enable military interventions outside Europe.
In February 2024, the EU deployed warships to the Middle East. The stated purpose was to secure “free passage” in the Red Sea and 

Gulf of Aden, protecting trade routes. Crucially, this mission was not to pressure Israel regarding the genocide in Gaza. Furthermore, EU military missions in the Sahel, often under the guise of promoting “stability”, have in fact led to increased instability. This clearly indicates that EU policy is driven by interests in raw materials, trade routes, and spheres of influence, and is not concerned with human rights, peace, or the genuine defence of our territory.
The European Summer of Humiliation

And then came the summer of humiliation for Europe. It was the summer when the European Union shamefully aligned itself directly with Donald Trump.

First, we had the NATO summit in The Hague at the end of June. There, the US President imposed the Trump norm: the standard of 5% of GDP to be dedicated to the military for all NATO members. Social issues, the climate emergency—all must take a back seat. The mandate is clear: arm, equip, buy weapons—lots of weapons, and fast. Our Minister of War Theo Francken even declared he understood Trump's demand, because “the United States must focus on the Indo-Pacific area”—read: against China—and “we must take our share for the eastern flank of the NATO area”—read: against Russia.

The cost of this severe militarisation is paid directly by the working class. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte bluntly told members of the European Parliament: “Generally, spending more on defence means spending less on other priorities.” Rutte knows exactly where to find the money. He pointed out: “On average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, healthcare, and social security. We only need a small fraction of that money to strengthen defence.”
The head of NATO is explicitly telling parliamentarians that money intended for pensions, healthcare, and social security should instead go to war. One economist calculated on Belgian public television that the amount requested by the 5% norm corresponds roughly to a 20% reduction in all pensions. Thus, the 5% norm has become a militarist version of the Maastricht norm, a noose around the neck of the working class.

Second, at the end of July, came the deal on customs tariffs between von der Leyen and Trump—or rather, the complete submission of Europe to the United States. The terms dictate that US capital gets to export to the European Common Market for free. Meanwhile, EU-based businesses seeking access to the United States domestic market must pay import taxes of 15%. To top it off, Europe must commit to buying hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American arms and hundreds of billions’ worth of expensive and polluting American LNG gas.

And finally, there was the devastating photo from the end of August. We saw the European leaders gathered in the Oval Office in the White House, with Trump lecturing them all like a daddy scolding his children. Clearly, the European leaders are running after Trump, and that is a very bad thing.

Debunking Military Keynesianism

But, our leaders argue, won't this militarisation help relaunch our economies?
The argument that increased military spending stimulates the economy is an “evergreen” of the military industry, which attempts to brand it as “military Keynesianism”. They are desperate for governments to massively support the arms industry. With the European automotive sector struggling, and Germany suffering recession for the third consecutive year, they suggest switching production from cars to tanks.

This is absolute nonsense, because families do not buy tanks. If you produce weapons and tanks, you inherently create the pressure to ensure they are used; otherwise, the industry goes to hell. Thus, the militarisation of the economy creates a permanent pressure for war. This war is not meant to be won; it is designed to be continuous, precisely because peace threatens the profit margins of this industry. The only way to achieve this steady state is a state of permanent war, which is the model Washington currently employs with its global bases and endless interventions. Or Israel.

Higher military spending will not increase living standards. Producing a tank, a bomb, or a missile system provides no measurable benefit to the rest of the economy. The myth that the military industry creates many jobs is demonstrably false: a single euro invested in hospitals creates 2.5 times more jobs than a euro invested in weapons. The billions flowing to arms manufacturers do not flow back to society; they flow directly to the manufacturers themselves.
 

Opportunities for Mobilisation: Socialism Instead of War

The world is becoming suffocated by this “hallucinating” arms race. This spiral could easily end in a major war with countless losers and very few winners. History teaches us that this dangerous situation can only be broken by mutual disarmament treaties, sober diplomacy, and, critically, a strong international anti-war movement exerting pressure from below.

As Bertolt Brecht wisely wrote: “If we prepare for war, we will get war.” The reality is simple: whoever truly wants peace must prepare for peace, not war. Spending billions on war while people lack basic needs is the world turned upside down. We do not need NATO; we need peace.

There is a growing fury, a rage, among the working class, both here in Europe and in the United States. People feel unheard, unseen, and unrepresented, and they are absolutely right to feel this way. This energy must be channelled into a positive vision for change.Facing these immense challenges, despair might be a temptation, but it is fundamentally not an option. Some parts of the left specialise in creating depression. They organise meetings where, if you were not depressed entering, you are surely depressed leaving. But that is not emancipation. Emancipation is making the working class feel great again.
So, it is truly our urgent task to mobilise the people. And yes, these will be difficult times. But peace is achieved not by giving in to the dogma of rearmament and today’s military fetishes. Peace is achieved by building new power dynamics. History teaches us that wars and armament are not stopped from above, but by those from below—those who foot the bill for the weapons and who would be the first to suffer from the war, with their children sent to the battlefield.

There is great potential when the workers' movement and the peace movement join hands and reinforce each other.
We are already seeing the beginnings of these movements: On the front of mobilisation against the austerity imposed in the name of growing militarisation, we have already seen big mobilisations. This includes actions and strikes in France in September, and in Belgium, where 140,000 people demonstrated in the streets of Brussels on 14 October, and where an unprecedented three-day general strike is now being prepared for 24–26 November.

On the front of mobilisation against war, we have the tremendous mobilisation against the genocide in Palestine: 250,000 people in Amsterdam, 110,000 in Brussels on 7 September (and soon again on 16 November), 100,000 in Berlin, and in Italy, there was even for the first time a general strike in solidarity with Palestine.

Our task is to unite these two movements, to develop them, and to deepen them.Equally important, comrades, is having the confidence, as a party of the left, that the future is ours. The future cannot be anything other than a new socialist society, a new equal society, a new ecological and democratic society. That is the only possible emancipatory project.
This takes time, effort, discipline, and the art of strategy and tactics. But it is possible, if we are patient, if we build trust within our movements, if we invest in education and unity, and if we dare to speak from the strength of our convictions.
This system, where powerful monopolies impose their greed and dominance through conquest, wars, and an economy of destruction, cannot offer a future for humanity and the planet. As Rosa Luxemburg warned us: “It is barbarism or socialism.”

Thank you, comrades.