A-Infos (en) Italy, FdCA, IL CANTIERE #37 - AGAINST REARMAMENT - A Class Perspective - CGT Confederal Socio-Economic Cabinet (*) (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The rejection of increased defense spending is often seen as a moral and 
idealistic position, formulated with its back to radically transformed 
international relations, which pose various threats to European 
democracies. Both the government and the media seek to impose a sense of 
urgency through a narrative in which Europe is caught between the 
withdrawal of the US defense umbrella and Russia's imperialist expansion 
toward the West. Ultimately, Europe would face an existential 
threat.[1]Therefore, the debate over the relevance of defense spending 
has been taken for granted, and the issue at stake, if anything, is how 
it is spent: how much, how, for what, and for what purpose are the 
unknowns to be contested. A segment of the left that is positioned or 
orbits around institutional politics-including major trade unions and 
some sectors of academia-embraces this framework, which it intends to 
address. Admitting a rejection of this rearmament, on the other hand, 
would be politically ineffective.

However, accepting this framework implies the assumption of an a priori 
defeat and depoliticizes measures that are not neutral, but respond to 
specific interests. There are strong private capital interests 
surrounding rearmament, especially those linked to industry and defense. 
Beyond the government's interpretation of rearmament, we believe that, 
from a class perspective, specifically our own, the questions we must 
ask are different. And it is on their answers that we must focus our 
intervention.

What are the interests and goals of rearmament?
Rearmament is presented as a dissuasive defense policy to protect the 
formal democracies of European states and the values they are often said 
to represent: the rule of law, civil and political liberty, human 
rights, among others. It would be, to paraphrase Josep Borrell, 
necessary to protect the European garden from the jungle that is 
supposedly present outside it. However, this formulation, with its 
racist connotations, repeatedly and stubbornly clashes with the facts. A 
stark expression of this is the mass grave that the Mediterranean has 
become, or the actions of European states as necessary collaborators in 
a genocide broadcast in real time in the Gaza Strip. Peeling back this 
veneer of cynicism and artifice, we find, unsurprisingly, the matrix of 
private interests behind the increase in defense spending.[2]The first 
of the purposes underlying the increase in defense spending is closely 
linked to large corporations directly or indirectly associated with the 
defense business; This is a business that states could incentivize in 
many ways: by granting subsidies and loans on favorable financing terms, 
guaranteeing a certain volume of public procurement, incentivizing 
defense research and development with tax breaks, and so on. This 
pattern has been repeated in recent years, first with the post-Covid 
reconstruction and the NextGenerationEU program, and now with this line 
of public intervention[3]. In short, a public bailout to support a 
private accumulation dynamic that has recently encountered growing 
difficulties in the European region.

"The military buildup, rather than protecting democracy and 
freedom[...]seeks to guarantee the interests of European capitals."

In the midst of the 2008 crisis, despite popular protests and the fact 
that many governments were in the hands of progressive or left-wing 
parties, transnational private capital and European institutions 
disciplined and liquidated the economies of the Mediterranean periphery 
with strong structural, fiscal, and labor adjustment programs. Why is 
there a willingness today, in the absence of a clear popular demand for 
rearmament, to proceed in this direction by suspending fiscal rules and 
debt limits? This shift in European governance institutions is not so 
much a response to a supposed burial of neoliberal precepts after a 
decade of recipes now recognized as failed, but rather provides evidence 
of the direction of their actions.
The management of the 2008 crisis was not a poor performance for 
capital, to the extent that it socialized losses and disciplined the 
working class. The reorientation of these European institutions in the 
current situation continues to serve the same interests: to generate a 
favorable environment that allows private profitability to thrive. A 
clear example of this can be found in Germany: The country that for 
years was the strictest on spending rules, and which saw its growth 
stagnate after the invasion of Ukraine, has announced a reform of the 
so-called "debt brake" to exempt military spending from deficit rules.
In this context, it must be understood that the nature of states is not 
to pursue the general interest, nor to arbitrate the social conflict 
between capital and labor from a position of externality and impartial 
mediation, but to ensure the dynamics of private capital accumulation.
Similarly, the second purpose underlying the increase in defense 
spending is not only to directly stimulate economic growth through 
spending, but also to ensure the conditions for capital accumulation in 
the medium term. In a context of the dissolution of the international 
order, marked by the undisputed hegemony of the United States, 
instability and competition between blocs for spheres of influence, 
markets, and resources are intensifying. Military buildup, rather than 
protecting democracy and freedom (values that are, moreover, dispensable 
when they conflict with increased private profits), seeks to secure the 
interests of European capital. At this time, increased defense spending 
should not be interpreted as an attempt to emancipate itself from US 
tutelage: the United States is asking its European partners to increase 
spending to increase their contribution to the NATO bloc and cover other 
"flanks," thus allowing them to focus on their main competitor, China, 
and maintain the indispensable support for their main ally in the Middle 
East, Israel, to continue its ethnic cleansing.

Living worse to live more securely?[4]
Given the fragile foundations on which an economically stagnant European 
Union has been built in recent years, the urgency of a discretionary and 
ambitious recovery by public institutions is being channeled through 
various intervention channels. But how long will states, caught between 
low economic growth and high levels of public debt,[5]last? The state's 
fiscal crisis could be a problem, despite the relief valves that can be 
provided by the temporary suspension of fiscal rules and the debt ceiling.
Where can the revenues be obtained to finance this active role of the 
state if external financing is mediated by private actors?
The potential mismatch between revenues and expenditures in the context 
of rearmament will have to be covered by foreign debt, but a progressive 
increase in this debt without a solid growth basis could generate 
distrust in the ability to repay. It is not possible to sip and puff at 
the same time, and a choice will have to be made between spending on 
weapons and butter.[6]
Indeed, a certain economic stagnation and the deterioration of welfare 
states in Europe are triggering a growing difficulty in fully 
integrating a growing portion of the population. The European economic 
decline is
accompanied by the pauperization and proletarianization of the so-called 
middle classes in these Western societies. Although the intensity with 
which this phenomenon manifests itself varies from state to state, a 
general trend can be identified in advanced European economies. Growing 
segments of the population reproduce themselves in a more precarious 
way, when they are not directly excluded from the usual economic support 
circuits: employment or state social protection. This is most clearly 
evident among the most vulnerable segments of the population, which in 
turn are those experiencing the highest demographic growth: the migrant 
population.
The growth of the non-European migrant population is another general 
trend, particularly marked in the last 15 years in the Old Continent and 
destined to increase. This population is increasingly fleeing massacre 
zones for places considered safe or where they at least hope for a 
better future.
But when they arrive in Europe, especially in countries like Spain, they 
find it extremely difficult to integrate economically.

Rearmament against whom?
In this reading of the current situation, it is worth asking whether, in 
addition to allocating resources to private enrichment, there is a 
desire to strengthen and refine the state's apparatus of control, 
discipline, and repression. This growing excluded population and its 
political response to this condition will pose a threat to capital in a 
context where the authoritarian and disciplinary retreat of Western 
states, such as that of Spain after the 2008 crisis, is already evident.
Contexts of crisis and militarization, which generate a state of fear 
and alarm among the population, often serve as a pretext and pave the 
way for a rollback of rights and political and social freedoms.
In other words, they serve as an alibi to legitimize, in favor of a 
greater good, social setbacks that would otherwise be unacceptable. In 
other words, they serve as an alibi to legitimize, in favor of a greater 
good, social setbacks that would otherwise be unacceptable. Rearmament 
helps pave the way and sharpen the tools to do so.
All of this, moreover, is organized around the narrative of security. A 
concept whose meaning is expanding and in which the most violent, 
authoritarian, and/or exclusionary private and state discourses and 
actions are justified and legitimized on this widespread terrain. Faced 
with an existential threat, but also to safeguard economic
interests or the sovereignty and integrity of the nation, any action 
that compromises freedoms and rights is legitimized.[7]
The EU covers approximately two-thirds of its energy consumption with 
imports from outside the EU bloc and imports more than 90% of its oil 
and gas.
What role will this rearmament play in a context of growing scarcity and 
heightened geopolitical tensions over the control and hoarding of 
dwindling energy and material resources? Can this rearmament serve to 
continue ensuring the influx of energy and monetary flows from the 
global periphery, while simultaneously blocking the entry of people at 
borders? This security framework only reinforces tendencies that are 
already emerging, but will likely express themselves in the future with 
more explicit violence, for which European states will be better 
prepared thanks to rearmament.
In short, the left (grouped together in its various political, 
ideological, and organizational projects) is currently in a weak 
position, struggling to effectively influence an agenda and decisions 
over which it has
little capacity to act.
However, it is possible to take advantage of the unfolding framework to 
pursue different paths.
A final question, the answer to which can guide the direction, is 
whether increased defense spending or rearmament contributes to 
improving or worsening the balance of power of our class, whether it 
puts us in a better or worse position to face the war that capital wages 
against us daily.

*) La Brecha - May 2025 No. 33
[1]This has been the view of high-level European leaders such as former 
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and, until recently, the EU High 
Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell.
[2]The recent "Report 71: The Business of Banks in Global War. Ranking 
of Armed Banks 2025" by the Centre Delàs d'Estudis per la Pau lists some 
of the large companies and banks behind the defense business.
[3]Organizations such as the Observatory of Multinationals in Latin 
America (OMAL) and the Observatori del Deute en la Globalitzaci (ODG) 
have analyzed in recent years the transfer of public money to increase 
the profits of large companies.
[4]The introduction of this framework by some media outlets is not 
anecdotal. The newspaper El Confidencial headlined an article on March 
27, 2025: "Would you be willing to live worse to live in security? All 
the sacrifices that Europeans will make."
[5]EU states have significantly increased their debt levels to socialize 
the losses caused first by the 2008 crisis and more recently by the 
pandemic crisis.
[6]Josep Borrell put it this way: "Everyone prefers butter to cannons, 
but sometimes if you don't have cannons, you don't have butter."
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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