Europe in arms: how bureaucrats build paper tanks while citizens starve

Europe in arms prepares for war. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now. Ursula von der Leyen launches her “ReArm Europe” plan: 800 billion euros. A number that stuns. A number that divides. A number that drains public coffers. Her vision: firepower against global instability. Full arsenals against geopolitical uncertainty. Military muscle against undefined threats. The reality: cohesion funds drained dry. Poor regions abandoned. Italy, Southern Greece, Bulgaria and Romania – sacrificed on the altar of Europe in arms. Entire nations left to rot while Brussels bureaucrats order tanks that will never arrive. The math is brutal: 95 million Europeans at risk of poverty. Hospitals collapsing. Schools crumbling. And Brussels diverts resources toward phantom weapon systems. “Fill arsenals and empty granaries.” The accusation from La Verità hits like a bullet. No paraphrase needed. Only raw truth.

The monetary trap

The euro gasps for air. Breathes with difficulty, supported by machines consuming more energy than they produce. Under normal conditions, this artificial currency might have survived another few decades. But not now. Not in this world in flames. Not with Europe in arms devouring resources like a hungry predator. The ECB prints. Prints and prints. But it’s phantom money. Debt upon debt. A pyramid that will inevitably collapse. And while citizens count pennies, Brussels bureaucrats dream of aircraft carriers.

The geopolitical vise

America and Russia. Two colossi with clear objectives. Two powers that won’t tolerate European ambiguity. Washington observes. Moscow calculates. Both slowly tighten their grip. Sanctions will come. First some. Then more. Then all. Europe in arms, slave to its own contradictions, cannot bend. Will not adapt. Will be slowly, inevitably crushed between two impatient giants. Von der Leyen knows this. Everyone in Brussels knows. But they pretend not to see the obvious.

The military-bureaucratic parasitism

“ReArm Europe” isn’t a plan. It’s an ATM for consultants. A money flow toward the same hands as always. They’ve been talking about it for years. Summit after summit. Declaration after declaration. Result: zero. The war industry of Europe in arms? A chimera. Where’s the steel for cannons? Where’s the low-cost energy for foundries? Where’s the integrated supplier chain? A German general, anonymity guaranteed, confesses: “Even with a trillion euros we couldn’t build a common defense in less than twenty years.” And energy? Russian gas cut off. Nuclear dismantled. Renewables insufficient. How do you build Europe in arms with scheduled blackouts?

The great military fraud

For decades they’ve dismantled. Sold off. Reduced. Cut. The tanks? Scrapped. The aircraft? Cannibalized for spare parts. The submarines? Rusting in ports. But the generals remained. The bureaucrats remained. The salaries remained. It’s the greatest example of a parasitic caste in modern history. “Until yesterday you paid us to do nothing,” they whisper between the lines of their memorandums. “Today you must pay us more for a Europe in arms that will never exist.”

While hospitals close. While schools collapse. While infrastructure crumbles.

An Italian colonel in retirement, name protected, recounts: “With the money spent on consultancies in the last five years we could have bought an entire fleet of F-35s. Instead we have only PowerPoint.”

The emergency strategy

Emergency as political drug. Urgency as a mantra that anesthetizes critical thinking. “Hurry up” – they obsessively repeat. “There’s no time to discuss” – they hammer in press conferences. First climate. Then pandemic. Now Europe in arms. The mechanism is well-tested: declare crisis, impose decisions, bypass parliaments. Von der Leyen knows how to navigate these murky waters. Knows how to transform panic into signatures on blank checks. Knows how to empty public coffers without leaving fingerprints.

Europe in arms: the past that condemns

Germany remembers. German generals don’t forget. Von der Leyen as Defense Minister: “the darkest period” of the Bundeswehr. Not an opinion. Documented history. Tanks with broomsticks painted black during NATO exercises in 2017. Not satire. It actually happened. Helicopters that wouldn’t fly. Rifles that jammed. Billions vanished into “consultancies.” And now this same person will manage 800 billion for a “protective” Europe in arms? Memory wounds. Truth burns.

The real reason

Donald Trump. His “isolationist whims” terrify the European establishment. The response? Spend. Arm up. Empty coffers already gasping. Who benefits from Europe in arms? Germany and France, primarily. Their war industries already uncorking champagne. Italy struggles behind. Leonardo and Fincantieri – solitary vessels in a sea of sharks. A financial analyst from a sovereign fund: “European armaments are a bluff. If war broke out tomorrow, Europe in arms would have ammunition for three weeks. Then silence.”

The choice we don’t have

The choice has already been made: imaginary arsenals against empty granaries. Phantom weapons against real cohesion. Europe in arms on paper against social misery in the streets. Von der Leyen has chosen. She chose the helmet. A papier-mâché helmet. Europe gets dragged into this armed crusade while its foundations crumble. The storm is already here. And no one at the top has the courage to tell the truth: we’re paying to build sandcastles in the middle of a hurricane.