The Price of War: European Defense and the Military Industrial Complex

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Growing up in Brussels in the early 2000s, I was always told that Europe meant peace. The European Union, lodged in its towering glass buildings, was a symbol of cooperation, dialogue, and human rights. A place where conflicts were resolved through discussions, not warfare. As I grew up, I developed a healthy dose of skepticism towards the Union, the kind that harbors accountability. The kind whose heart beats to the sound of ideals but whose eyes cry at the sight of actions.

And faced with what appears like a wave of militarization, a stream of guns and tanks, those eyes cry.

In 1961, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a farewell address that I discovered some sixty years later. He warned Americans about the “Military-Industrial Complex”, by which he meant a potentially dangerous relationship between the military and defense industry that could threaten democracy and freedom. Hardly a radical leftist, Eisenhower was nonetheless warning his compatriots about the undue influence that commercial interests could have on security policies. Fast forward to today, and it seems like Europe might need to heed that warning too.
European countries, at the behest of NATO, the U.S., and the Commission, are ramping up their defense budgets. And this without any kind of meaningful democratic engagement or public debate.

Instead of a balanced discussion, militarization is being sold as an unavoidable necessity, often through emotional appeals rather than logical arguments. Without doubt, emotions are pivotal in gathering support for militarization. A specter is haunting Europe we’re told, the specter of Russia. “Start spending or learn Russian” is the kind of ultimatum abounding in mainstream discourse. Armament is necessary to defend our ‘European Way of Life”. These appeals and many others frames Europe as a unified civilization to be defended from external threats (Russians but also migrants and any other imagined perturbator to the tranquility of the old continent).

But not everyone buys into this simplistic view. During our panel conversation, Dr. Gjovalin Macaj, assistant professor of Peace and Justice at Leiden University and former advisor to Albania’s mission to the Security Council, challenged this simplistic framing. Instead, he argued that Europe isn’t a fixed space or identity, but an evolving project. Europe is what Europeans make of it, a fluid and dynamic process of inclusion and exclusion that can produce different conceptions of “Europe”. And currently, we can certainly be critical of the conception offer by the EU and many member states. Indeed, Macaj highlights the failure of most European states in upholding basic norms while profiting from conflicts like Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and absolving its architects from responsibility. Is that representative of our “European Way of Life”? It increasingly seems like it.

Another obstacle to the democratic oversight of militarization is the growing presence of arms lobbyist in Brussels and national capitals. Anti-arms trade activist and researcher Wendela de Vries has witnessed and documented the industry’s influence on policy-making, tracing the current militarization back a decade in the European Commission’s trade directorate. She argues that the push to rearm Europe is as much about industrial development as it is about security. With heavy industries struggling and factory workers being laid off, rearming is seen as a way to revive a dying sector. But isn’t this just another example of the Military-Industrial Complex at work? Massive amounts of taxpayer money being funneled into the defense industry, essentially bailing out a struggling economy through militarization?

Now there is also the question of where all this money is coming from. De Vries warns that increased defense spendings will likely cuts to welfare budgets, notably healthcare and education, and more sovereign debt. This raise the following concern: are we addressing a potential existential threat while exacerbating existing ones? Macaj reminds us that decreased welfare spending could aggravate existing grievances and fuel far-right extremism, which thrives on economic deprivation. In our efforts to shield Europe from its externa threats, we might be feeding the monster within. De Vries adds that more sovereign debt will burden future generations already facing the climate and environmental crises past and present generations engineered. Moreover, the business of war is a polluting business, further aggravating the issue. How compatible are these military objectives with the European Green Deal? Surprisingly, there seems to be much less enthusiasm for increasing spending on climate change mitigation. Perhaps Greenpeace should take a page from the arms’ industry’s playbook and hire more lobbyists…

In short, Europe’s rush to rearm raises many questions that deserve more public debate. Are we really making ourselves safer, or are we just repeating the mistakes Eisenhower warned about? If we’re not careful, Europe may undermine the core norms and values (how dear “European way of life”) it aims to protect in its pursuit of the military capabilities it now claims to need. And then, what will be left to protect?

This article was written by Leo Ranieri, head of our youth editorial team SPUI25 in Spe. As moderator of the event, he shares his reflections and takeaways from the conversation. If you want to learn more de Vries’s work with Stop Wapenhandel, check out their website at www.stopwapenhandel.org