Who benefits from the war drums?
It seems as if the seven trumpets of the Apocalypse have gone mad and are blaring, announcing a new imminent Great War. Heads of government in Europe, ministers "of war", self-proclaimed managers and leaders of society, follow one after the other without interruption to warn us to get ready, to gather our courage and supplies, because war is imminent.
But for there to be war, at least two are needed: one is all of us, the other is the bellicose Kremlin which, under the sulphur baton of the diabolical Vladimir Putin, wants to wipe out civilisation. They claim.
Is there any truth in all this? If we believe what the Spanish Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, tell us, war against Russia is on the doorstep. France boasts of having the best army on the European continent, yes, because it has nuclear weapons; so does Britain. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium also have them, but they belong to the United States.
But what evidence do Margarita Robles, Charles Michel, Von der Leyen or Macron provide? None. Proof are statements by officials in the enemy camp, verifiable documents or leaks of secret plans. Well, there is none. The mouthpieces of militarism assure us that Russia is going to phagocytise Ukraine, invade Poland and Moldova, and extend its war of aggression to other NATO countries by 2026. The latter, according to an alleged German secret service report.
The only tangible and real truth is that there is a war going on in Ukraine. The Russian military is conducting its Special Military Operation (NATO defines it as an invasion), which began two years ago with the entry of Kremlin troops into southeastern Ukraine, in the Donbass region, and the reinforcement of the annexation (recovery for Moscow) of Crimea, which has become irreversible.
Does this mean that, if the Russian army wins this war, forcing the Kiev regime to definitively cede the territories it has occupied in its operation, it will go further, attacking other countries? The spokesmen of European militarism suggest so, but, I insist, there is no hard evidence of this. This leads many observers to believe that there are other interests at stake: economic, financial, industrial and political.
The European war machine is at its zenith. Practically all the countries of the Union, plus Britain and the United States, have increased their defence budgets (including Spain, although in this case, as the analyst Ignacio Cembrero rightly points out, it cannot legally do so because there is no budget approved by Parliament), are buying weapons left, right and centre, and are boosting the production of all kinds of devices to full capacity. They empty their arsenals (obsolete or nearly so) by sending weapons to Ukraine, and refill them with more deadly devices.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty could be in jeopardy. Because some European countries, such as Germany, Norway, Denmark or Sweden, say they fear "Russian threats to use atomic bombs". What threats? Putin has said he is ready to use "all available means" (which would also include the use of nuclear devices) to protect Russian territories, including the four annexed areas of Ukraine. Putin speaks of defensive, not offensive, action.
Who is doing multi-billion dollar business in this wartime climate? The big arms manufacturers, the military-industrial complexes, no doubt. Do they have anything to do with this alarmist atmosphere? This is a question that we ordinary Europeans, we Spaniards, would like our political leaders to explain in Parliament. And not with the childish cartoons of a certain Colin Powell in the UN Security Council to show Saddam Hussein's possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction, just before the United States invaded Iraq, but with concrete, real and verifiable evidence.