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Trump meets with European leaders & Zelensky at the White House, August 18, 2025. |
A Russophobic madness has gripped most of the European Union countries. Pressured by Washington, they have committed to dramatically ramping up their military spending. The rationale is that Europe needs to prepare to confront the supposed Russian threat.
On the level of facts this makes no sense at all. NATO military spending is way higher than Russia’s and NATO military strength, at least on paper, is far greater. And, most importantly, there is zero evidence that Russia wants to attack Western Europe — absolutely no evidence whatsoever! It doesn’t even seek to occupy all of Ukraine, merely to stop NATO from converting the country into a forward base for operations against Russia. But when a war drive is underway and the corporate media is on board, facts are just an inconvenience that can be ignored or explained away.
German-US relations
Germany is at the heart of the NATO war drive. It is not the only country involved but it is the central one.
Relations between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have been tense since Merz criticised Trump for a lack of consultation over the Iran war. Trump has since announced the withdrawal of 5000 US troops from Germany (to be redeployed elsewhere in Europe). Some 30,000 troops and numerous bases and facilities would remain.
The redeployment doesn’t appear to mean any lessening of military cooperation. In fact, military integration is being stepped up:
Germany is embedding a senior U.S. officer deep into its military command structures in a sign of close cooperation that comes despite worsening political ties.
Starting in October, an American colonel will serve at the German Army Command in a key role as deputy head of the Operations Division, where missions are planned and decisions are prepared …
The September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline transporting Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany says it all. Everyone knows that Washington was the culprit. But Germany has taken no meaningful action over the matter even though the loss of cheap Russian gas and its replacement by much more expensive US gas has hit German industry and the German people very hard. Because of this, plus increasing competition from China, especially in the auto sector, the German economy is in a fundamental slump and living standards are under heavy pressure.
Germany’s drive to war
The Rheinmetall arms manufacturer opened a new factory at its existing site in Unterlüss in northern Germany on Wednesday, boasting that once it reaches capacity it could become Europe's biggest munitions production factility.
CEO Armin Papperger said that the production of 155 mm caliber artillery shells would be progressively ramped up, to reach 350,000 units per year by 2027. These artillery shells are in particular demand and short supply in Ukraine, and Europe and NATO members have been scrambling to replenish their stockpiles and increase production capacity.
"So I think next year we would be able to give a minimum of 100,000 [155 mm shells] to Ukraine, and then the next year maybe 200,000 to Ukraine. The rest is for other partners," Papperger told DW on Wednesday.
Guns before butter
German military spending rose by 24% last year. At €97 billion ($114 billion), Germany ranks fourth in the world behind the US, China and Russia. This is according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). And the increase continues, from currently 2.3 to 5% of economic output. That amounts to more than €200 billion a year, about 40% of the current federal budget.
The bill for this massive rearmament program is being presented to the working class in the form of falling social spending, poorer healthcare, lower pensions, lower wages and mass unemployment. Not a day goes by without business associations and leading media outlets demanding that the government must finally “deliver,” decide on “bold reforms,” “break the resistance” and “withstand the anger.”
World War II ended in the final hours of May 8 and the first hours of May 9 in 1945. In an old military academy in the Karlshorst neighborhood of East Berlin, Nazi Germany’s top military brass declared their unconditional surrender to the Allies. Since then, May 8 has been celebrated as Liberation Day.
This year, May 8 was used for a different fight against German militarism. In over 150 cities, school students went on strike against the military service introduced by Friedrich Merz’s government at the beginning of this year. Organizers counted 45,000 young people on the streets.
In Berlin, several thousand kids gathered at the Brandenburg Gate and marched past the Soviet War Memorial. They swung around the Victory Column, a celebration of Prussian military might, before reaching the headquarters of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union.
Police were out in force and detained several young people for saying: “Merz, lick eggs!” (i.e. balls). This has turned into quite a meme since a youngster was arrested at the last school strike two months ago for a sign with this suggestion for the chancellor. This time, thousands were chanting together: “Merz leck Eier!” The police also took umbrage at the slogan: “Merz, you can die on the Eastern Front yourself.”
Authorities have used different repressive tools to silence anti-militarism: Students in Kiel reported being threatened by agents from the VS, the domestic intelligence service, and the BKA, Germany’s FBI. Propaganda for Germany’s army is everywhere, with recruitment officers prowling through schools and pressing charges against students who object. While Merz claims that a trillion-euro armaments program is necessary to protect “our freedoms,” militarism is going hand in hand with attacks on basic democratic rights like freedom of speech.
Drone & missile attacks on Russia
This year Ukraine has dramatically stepped up its drone attacks against Russian infrastructure.
For instance, in April and May there were strikes on the Ust-Luga and Primorsk oil terminals, Baltic ports key to Russia’s exports; the Tuapse oil refinery on the Black Sea; chemical plants in Voronezh and Samara; and ammunition depots in Luhansk and Voronezh. Ukrainian drones have even reached as far as the Urals (1600km away).
The form this escalation has taken is increased ‘Ukrainian’ drone strikes against Russian civilian energy infrastructure. We know from the NYT, hardly a pro-Trump publication, that Trump’s CIA director John Radcliffe radically stepped up his agency’s aid to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy assets over the entirety of 2025.
“Aid” is an understatement. The CIA, with Trump’s blessing, allowed Ukraine to do what Biden largely prevented them from doing. Furthermore, it provides immense intelligence assistance without which these strikes would be far less effective, if not impossible …
… Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy have increased to a level never seen before. According to official Russian statistics, March 2026 saw more Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russia than vice versa — the first ever such case.
Ukrainian strikes on Russian ports and energy infrastructure led to a temporary halting of Russian energy exports in the first half of April. According to Reuters, it was the largest such decline in six years. Russia has already recovered, but the fact remains that it is bearing real costs, costs that the Biden regime never tried to impose on Russia at such a scale.
Washington has immense leverage over Ukraine. It could cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine — Ukrainian military officials regularly state that every one of their long/mid-range strikes behind enemy lines is coordinated minutely by the Americans. All this can only be done through the satellite imagery and other intelligence provided by the Americans.
Washington could cut off Starlink access to the Ukrainian army, or even threaten to do so. Only about 10% of the Russian army used Starlink, but when Washington cut that off to them at the start of 2026, it led to somewhat serious problems for the Russian army, and temporarily successful local Ukrainian counterattacks.
Ukraine’s army, meanwhile, is almost entirely dependent on Starlink. Without it, Ukrainian battlefield logistics would collapse. It would be a true catastrophe.
Attacks on Russian tankers
The war is spreading even beyond the borders of Ukraine and Russia. Russian oil tankers have been harrassed in the Baltic and the English Channel. They have also been physically attacked. Last November, for example, four explosions rocked a Russian oil tanker anchored off Dakar in Senegal. And in March this year a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean was heavily damaged by a suspected Ukrainian naval drone attack. Clearly, these attacks were either carried out directly by the West or with its intelligence assistance.
Recently, an uncrewed Ukrainian drone boat was discovered in a cave on the Greek tourist island of Lefkada. Southfront reported that this type of craft “is used for reconnaissance and strike missions, measuring 5.5 meters in length with a 150-200 kg warhead, top speeds up to 43–45 knots, and an operational range of 400-430 nautical miles. It can operate for up to 60 hours using a GPS-aided inertial navigation system, and an electro-optical system with satellite communication.” Most likely, its mission would have been to attack another Russian oil tanker in the Mediterranean. It is not clear how the vessel got to the Greek island but it was presumably transported there by a mother ship.
Ukraine setting up arms plants abroad
Ukraine is also setting up factories for military production outside the country. The attraction here is that the enterprises are (presumably) safe from Russian attack. Such facilities have so far been set up in Britain, Denmark and Germany. Maintenance of military equipment is also carried out in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Russia has published a list of joint drone production companies and their addresses. It has made it clear that these enterprises are legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces.
War on Iran & war on Russia
Anyone who thinks US imperialism is a better option than the regime in this or that country is seriously deluded. Western imperialism, and US imperialism in particular, is the number one enemy of the human race. It is fundamentally responsible for the truly horrible, unjust world we live in. This has to be our starting point.
In Iran, for instance, any regime change that the US supports there will be worse than the current setup. Washington doesn't want democracy, it wants a pro-US dictatorship or failing that, just chaos and disintegration (like in Libya). Irrespective of their attitude to the regime, most people in Iran appear opposed to the US-Israeli aggression. The public displays of opposition to the US-Israeli attacks (street rallies, crowds of people protecting infrastructure with their bodies) are a clear indication. (The mood in the Iranian diaspora is clearly much more mixed.)
We should apply this same approach to Russia as well. One can be extremely critical of the Russian regime but we have to grasp the basic reality here. The country is under heavy attack by the US-NATO bloc — as I have tried to show, it is verging on an all-out war — but many people get confused by the wall-to-wall propaganda and the spurious arguments pumped out relentlessly by our politicians and the corporate media: Putin is uniquely evil; Russia is imperialist; Ukraine is bravely fighting for its national rights; after occupying Ukraine, Russia will attack Europe; and so on and so on. I think all these arguments are dead wrong. Russia is fighting a defensive war to confront an existential threat.
The other side of the propaganda coin is that there is absolutely no honest treatment of Ukraine by the mainstream media. The country's political system is staggeringly corrupt, with a large part of Western aid being siphoned off or monetised by various actors, from Zelensky's inner circle down. Real fascist elements play an outsize role in the military and security services. To guarantee a steady supply of cannon fodder in the face of huge (unacknowledged) losses by the army, a brutal and corrupt press-gang system sweeps people off the streets to send to the front, where maiming or death awaits them. This body snatching is generating massive public hostility and even armed opposition.
Socialists should be completely opposed to the West’s aggression against Russia. In particular, we should oppose all military aid to Ukraine (weapons, intelligence sharing, training — everything). The struggle in Ukraine is well described as a proxy war since for the West its real purpose is not to somehow defend Ukraine but to weaken and defeat Russia.
The Putin regime notwithstanding, a defeat of Russia at the hands of the US-NATO gang would be a tremendous setback in the fight for a better world. It would greatly embolden US imperialism and increase the odds of a US attack on China. Russia itself would become a colony of the West and possibly even be broken up.
What many leftists can see clearly in the case of Iran, they have great difficulty recognising in the case of Russia.
Where will it end?
The US and NATO have committed everything to the war on Russia. They cannot afford to lose. A loss would be regarded by the West as an utter catastrophe. Hence, they continually escalate even though there is the risk that at some point this may touch off a nuclear apocalypse.
And, of course, all this insanity takes place in the face of onrushing climate change brought about by the West’s fossil fuel addiction. If unchecked and not prepared for, this will end up destroying most human life on our planet. This is the crisis we should be mobilising all our resources to confront.