Brexit and the return of European militarism

The hypocrite Federica Mogherini: One of the facilitators of future wars. Make a note of it.

At the first EU summit without British participation, held last Wednesday in Brussels, the 27 remaining EU government heads agreed on a paper authored by the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, titled “Global Strategy for European Foreign and Security Policy.” At the heart of the paper is the argument that the EU must become an aggressive world power capable of intervening militarily and, if necessary, waging war independently of NATO and the United States.

The new global strategy document acknowledges the role of NATO in protecting the EU states from enemy attacks. Nevertheless, it states that Europe “must be better equipped, trained and organised to contribute decisively to such collective efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when necessary.”

The document provides some insight into the measures being prepared behind the backs of the European population. Military capabilities are to be improved in a “concerted and cooperative effort.” That this will require a further diversion of resources from social needs is alluded to: “Developing and maintaining defence capabilities requires both investments and optimising the use of national resources through deeper cooperation.”

The paper makes clear that there is no geographical limit to the potential reach of an EU military force. The EU reserves the right to intervene not only in nearby regions such as North Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but anywhere in the world.

The declared interests of the EU include “ensuring open and protected ocean and sea routes critical for trade and access to natural resources.” To this end “the EU will contribute to global maritime security, building on its experience in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and exploring possibilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.”

The drive toward European militarism is pushed above all by Berlin. In an official statement released in recent days, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressly thanked Mogherini “for her commitment and vision in the joint development of the ‘Global Strategy.’” He was pleased to find “key elements of German peace policy in it.”

The thrust of Steinmeier’s “peace policy”—more accurately, war policy—is well established. Together with German President Joachim Gauck, he has been at the forefront of the campaign for German rearmament. At the Munich Security Conference in 2014, he declared that Germany was “too big merely to comment on world affairs from the sidelines,” adding that “Germany must be ready for earlier, more decisive and more substantive engagement in the foreign and security policy sphere.”

Then, on June 13 of this year, he published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine titled “Germany’s New Global Role,” in which he not only declared that Germany was “a major European power,” but also questioned the dominant role of the United States.

Now, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin is using the UK referendum result to advance Germany’s great power aims. In a paper entitled “A strong Europe in a world of uncertainties,” published last weekend by Steinmeier and his French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the British withdrawal from the EU is hailed as an opportunity to focus “our joint efforts on those challenges that can only be addressed by common European answers.”

An inveterate warmonger, Kaplan, along with Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, has been described by American journalist Glenn Greenwald as one of many prominent pundits advocating support for the Iraq War.[7] Source : salon.com

SELECT COMMENTS FROM ORIGINAL THREAD 

• 

  Mirek • 4 hours ago

  There is an air of inevitibility as to the outbreak of a new and even more devastating war, that will encompass areas untouched in the previous two wars. Over one hundred years ago and seventy seven years ogo, to the eruption of 1st and 2nd World Wars, although the objective conditions that led to those catastrophies for humankind are similar, this time, the social and political situation is much worse, the anti-war forces are conspicuous by their absence, the Socialists are in retreat, and militarism much stronger, and in various parts of the globe. One can compare the effect as of global warming, we have been warned by climate scientists for the last thirty years, the signs are there in plain sight, and it just goes on seemingly and remorselessly in its own momentum. Let`s hope that more than cockroaches will survive this attempt on the existence of humanity!

   

  

  Hans Vogel • 6 hours ago

  Regarding Kaplan’s point on who dominates the European continent: it may appear to be Germany, but in fact it is the US. EU member states are all US vassal states. All of them ruled by corrupt cliques either coopted, paid or blackmailed by Washington. There’s no question they will follow the US regime in its pushing for war with Russia. Kaplan’s remarks are misleading and only intended to confuse the public.