The danse macabre of the Ramstein group

While our families struggle with impossible utility bills and wages evaporated by inflation, the conductors of the European massacre have delivered their most grandiose performance: 21 billion euros promised to Ukraine in fresh deadly arsenals. Germany and the United Kingdom take command of this war exhibition, with London writing a check for 5.2 billion in instruments of death by year’s end and Berlin countering with 11 billion over the next five years.

The British minister Haley, with the solemnity of someone announcing a philanthropic success, speaks of a “record boost in funding,” while his German colleague Pistorius – leading a caretaker government, the irony of democracy! – candidly explains that peace “appears out of reach in the near future.” A statement that sounds like the confession of failure but serves only to justify another round of military spending.

The United States feigns detachment, sending Hegseth by videoconference, with no new official commitments. A calculated performance: “let the European vassals handle it,” while Trump’s envoy Witkoff lands in St. Petersburg to negotiate with Putin. Four hours of talks in the Russian presidential library to discuss the only solution palatable to the Kremlin: ceasefire in exchange for occupied territories.

Pistorius speaks not only of new Iris-T systems, Leopard tanks, and one hundred thousand artillery rounds, but unveils the return of mandatory military conscription. Germany prepares for war while using Ukraine as an open-air laboratory: “It’s a win-win situation,” he confesses with glacial pragmatism. Berlin will provide communications coverage to Ukrainians and, simultaneously, gather data for the Bundeswehr. Ukrainian deaths will contribute to German military efficiency, while the developed technology will then be “sold to other countries.” Here it is, the naked face of European commitment: an R&D investment paid for with others’ blood and taxpayers’ money.

Italy at the weapons banquet

While we lament collapsing hospitals and crumbling schools, our arms industry gorges itself at death’s banquet: 7.7 billion in weapons exports in 2024, with 6.5 billion in foreign sales authorizations. Leonardo – the former Finmeccanica that bears the face of a Renaissance genius but the soul of a death merchant – dominates the rankings with 1.78 billion, followed by Fincantieri with 1.4 billion thanks to a succulent contract with Indonesia.

The report deposited by the government in Parliament is a catalog of horror bound in bureaucratic language: 1.26 billion in “aircraft,” just as much in warships, and the darkest pearl – 825 million in “bombs, torpedoes, missiles, and accessories.” Nearly a billion in explosive ordnance, treated as the most ordinary of commodities.

Among the best customers, we find questionable regimes like the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, in spite of any human rights considerations. Business has no morals, only balance sheets. Even Fiocchi Munizioni, owned by the family of Fratelli d’Italia MEP Pietro Fiocchi – who posed with a rifle during his electoral campaign – pockets 72 million.

The third largest exporter? Rheinmetall Italia, a branch of the German group, with 425 million. From the same holding comes RWM Italia, which obtained authorizations for “only” 62 million, returning to values prior to its 2023 boom. Following are Naviris, Avio, Somacis, Beretta, and Iveco Defence Vehicles, which with its 99 million is the target of an operation that would see Leonardo acquire it with the Meloni government’s blessing.

Here’s the truth behind the patriotic rhetoric: while pensions and essential services are cut, money is never lacking to finance those who produce instruments of death. Capital has no homeland, only dividends, and war is its most fertile ground. The arms industries prosper in the shadows, away from the spotlight, protected by a complicit silence that spans the entire parliamentary spectrum.

The global theater of destruction

On the world stage, the powerful perform their macabre comedy. Trump, master of television fiction, writes on Truth: “Russia needs to get moving” and “too many people are dying in a terrible war,” pretending to be a peace champion while his envoy Witkoff – the first US official to meet Putin since the invasion – has already convinced himself that “the quickest way to achieve a ceasefire is to give Russia the four eastern regions it has occupied.” The White House threatens sanctions against Moscow, but it’s mere theater: they’re preparing Ukraine’s surrender while Europe bleeds itself dry on armaments.

Putin, on the other side, plays his game with glacial calculation. He sends the American envoy home without concessions, holding firm to his line: occupied territories remain Russian, Western sanctions must be removed. The appointment of Kirill Dmitriev as chief negotiator is no coincidence – administrator of Moscow’s sovereign wealth fund, because war is primarily a financial matter. For the Kremlin, the summit was “a good opportunity to convey Russia’s position to Trump,” while the tireless Witkoff already flies to Oman to open talks with Iran, trafficking pieces of others’ sovereignty as if they were stock shares.

The burning truth is that no one in this global game is genuinely thinking about peace. Not Europe, rearming and rediscovering mandatory conscription; not the US, preparing territorial selloffs; not Russia, continuing its violent expansion. All play the part of peacemakers while feeding the spiral of death.

The Great Technocratic Parasite wears many masks: von der Leyen’s in Brussels, Pistorius’s in Berlin, Putin’s in Moscow, and Trump’s in Washington. The faces change, but the substance remains unchanged: a perpetual massacre serving profit. The arms industry is the only true winner, which is why the conflict will never truly end – at most, it will enter a phase of controlled stalemate, tense enough to justify perpetual rearmament, stable enough not to degenerate into nuclear apocalypse.

While Eastern and Western technocrats play Risk with human lives, we pretend not to see the elephant in the room: this war, like all wars, exists because someone profits from it. And that someone isn’t us.