What looks like bureaucratic dysfunction is actually a class project: turning Europe into a war platform for a collapsing empire. The EU isn’t arming for peace—it’s militarizing for survival.
By Prince Kapone | Weaponized Information
May 22, 2025
Part I – Bureaucrats with Bombs: Lobbyists, Liberalism, and the Quiet Construction of a War Machine
The article in question comes from EUobserver, a Brussels-based outlet that presents itself as a watchdog of European institutions, but in practice reads like the press desk for the managerial wing of European imperialism. It caters to the EU’s revolving door class—the functionaries, consultants, and policy technocrats who believe governance is a spreadsheet and war is just another budget line. It’s not state media, but it may as well be. Funded by European foundations and institutions tied to the European Commission, EUobserver launders imperial escalation through the soft language of reform: transparency, oversight, modernization. No blood. No bodies. Just logistics.
The article is penned by Emily Wegener, whose reporting is aimed not at the people who suffer under EU policy, but at the administrators who implement it. There is no anti-war analysis here, no mention of empire, no connection between policy and plunder. Instead, Wegener wrings her hands over lobbying regulations—as if the problem with arming Europe to the teeth is that the paperwork isn’t in order. As if the real danger isn’t imperialism, but the lack of ethics protocols on missile contracts.
The actors empowered by this framing are precisely those building the next generation of European militarism: Ursula von der Leyen, the European Defence Agency, Rheinmetall, Airbus, and the EU Military Committee—all framed not as architects of rearmament, but as stewards of institutional policy caught in a bureaucratic dilemma. The beneficiaries—arms manufacturers, NATO integrators, and digital surveillance contractors—aren’t interrogated. They’re normalized.
And that’s the real propaganda trick here: turn militarization into a governance issue. The article doesn’t ask why Europe is rearming. It asks how. It doesn’t question the 5% GDP target. It asks who’s lobbying for it most effectively. There’s no mention of NATO, no discussion of the EU’s role in the war on Russia, in border militarization, or in Africa’s permanent occupation. Like in Fortress Europe, what we get is war planning described in the language of strategic management—fiscal discipline for bombs and bullets.
This is imperialist recalibration in its purest technocratic form. The article describes a “defense surge,” but never defines who or what Europe is defending. It describes a lobbying boom but ignores that these aren’t just consultants—they’re war profiteers reconfiguring the EU as a permanent weapons marketplace. Like we exposed in The Great Betrayal, Europe is no longer an empire—it’s a battleground between declining U.S. hegemony and desperate European technocrats trying to keep their seat at the imperial table. The arms race is their ticket back in.
Part II – Rearming the Core: What They Tell You, and What They Don’t
Here’s what the article reports: the European Union is undergoing a massive defense spending surge under its “Ready by 2030” doctrine. Arms manufacturers are flooding Brussels with lobbyists—budgets up 40% in one year. Procurement rules are being “streamlined,” transparency mechanisms are fractured, and vast sums are being allocated without competitive bidding. The justification? Strategic autonomy, resilience, security. The solution? More integration, more contracts, more technocratic oversight.
Now here’s what they don’t say. This isn’t about defense—it’s about imperial panic. The EU is not facing invasion. It’s facing irrelevance. As we argued in The Great Betrayal, the U.S. has discarded Europe as a junior partner and now treats it like a chokepoint to be disciplined and looted. Washington stripped Europe of its Russian gas, hijacked its industrial base through tariffs and capital flight, and then demanded higher NATO spending while signaling it might abandon the alliance altogether. This is not alliance management. It’s imperialist restructuring—and Brussels is responding by militarizing itself into a client-army with delusions of independence.
The article treats the lobbying surge as a governance problem—but it’s a symptom of a deeper imperial project. As we exposed in Fortress Europe, the EU’s military integration isn’t about sovereignty. It’s about building a second-tier NATO: a high-tech garrison state under the illusion of continental control. The real power still flows through Washington, Langley, and Wall Street. Brussels just signs the checks and disciplines the population.
This surge in military spending also echoes the logic outlined in Tariffs and Triads: the U.S. isn’t negotiating with Europe anymore. It’s extracting tribute—from energy markets, tech regulation, and now defense budgets. The EU isn’t asserting autonomy—it’s absorbing the costs of imperial decline.
And then there’s the digital layer. This is not just a military buildup—it’s a surveillance buildout. Dual-use infrastructure like data centers, telecom systems, AI targeting software, and mobility corridors are being pitched as defense necessities. But they’re really the backbone of a militarized political economy. As detailed in When Europe Becomes the Colony, the EU has become a digital vassal to U.S. Big Tech and NATO-aligned cyber strategy. Rearmament simply gives this structure teeth.
So when the article warns about lobbying corruption, it’s missing the bigger picture. This isn’t policy drift—it’s class warfare. The EU is using the language of “readiness” to convert public wealth into private weapons, to cement itself as the junior manager of a dying imperial order. The Global South knows this game well—it’s called debt militarization. Europe is just the latest region to fall under the whip.
Part III – The Garrison in Brussels: This Isn’t Autonomy, It’s Armed Dependency
What Brussels is building isn’t “strategic autonomy”—it’s an imperial subcontract. Strip away the buzzwords and press briefings, and what you have is a war economy being assembled in real time: not to defend Europe from foreign attack, but to defend a collapsing imperial order from rebellion, realignment, and revolt. As we outlined in The Great Betrayal, the U.S. is no longer a partner to Europe—it’s a captor. And now Brussels is doing what all loyal captives do: arming itself, not for freedom, but for continued relevance.
The defense surge isn’t a glitch—it’s the feature. What the article calls “lobbying” is the institutionalization of a permanent war economy. Contracts for AI targeting systems, quantum command networks, drone fleets, and cyber-resilience platforms aren’t being fast-tracked because Europe faces a military threat. They’re being rolled out because capital needs new frontiers, and military infrastructure is the only growth sector the EU can still subsidize without popular revolt. It’s Keynesianism with missiles. Fortress Europe isn’t just a metaphor—it’s the blueprint.
And this fortress doesn’t stand alone. It sits on top of the digital scaffolding we exposed in When Europe Becomes the Colony. Big Tech monopolies supply the servers, write the targeting algorithms, and manage the information flows that power this new garrison state. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft don’t just sell software—they operationalize imperial infrastructure. Brussels may be building a war economy, but Silicon Valley provides the nervous system.
So let’s be clear: this isn’t sovereignty. It’s hyper-imperialism. Europe isn’t breaking free from Washington—it’s militarizing under its shadow. The EU’s “defense surge” isn’t about autonomy—it’s about preserving a seat at the imperial table, even if it’s the kids’ table. Just like we showed in Tariffs and Triads, Brussels isn’t charting a new course. It’s just paying higher tribute for the privilege of pretending it has one.
This is why the article’s obsession with lobbying rules is so dangerous. It frames the problem as bad governance when the truth is far worse: we are witnessing the full consolidation of militarized imperialism under a liberal mask. Procurement scandals and WhatsApp bribes are the least of it. What’s happening is the transformation of the EU into a weapons distribution platform—one that will serve NATO abroad and enforce austerity at home. It’s a war against the periphery, yes—but it’s also a war against Europe’s own working class.
Part IV – Disarm the War Bloc, Arm the Struggle: From Brussels to Bamako, the Battle Is Joined
We stand in full ideological unity with the workers, migrants, students, and revolutionaries across Europe and the Global South who are already fighting the militarized austerity now being coded into EU budgets. What the European ruling class calls “defense” is nothing less than a preemptive war on the future—a last-ditch effort to shore up imperial power through surveillance, logistics, and permanent war readiness. It’s not about Russia. It’s not about China. It’s about discipline. As we said in Fortress Europe: the walls aren’t being built to keep threats out—they’re being built to lock the exploited in.
This is a structural pivot toward hyper-imperialism—where liberal technocrats hand the reins to arms dealers and data brokers while pretending they’re saving democracy. The fight isn’t over lobbying reform. It’s about whether war becomes the permanent organizing principle of European life. And for those of us organizing from below, the task is urgent.
We call on revolutionaries, defectors from empire, anti-war organizers, and militant workers to act:
- Expose the EU’s defense economy as a class war project. Link rearmament to rent hikes, wage suppression, and public service cuts. If your school’s underfunded, follow the money to Rheinmetall.
- Disrupt the war machine’s supply chain. Identify the data centers, shipping ports, telecom corridors, and railway junctions being militarized under the guise of “infrastructure.” Organize local campaigns to block, sabotage, or retool them for people’s needs.
- Build transnational militant coalitions. Connect French rail workers refusing to load arms with German students occupying drone manufacturer offices. Coordinate with Global South movements resisting EU militarism—from Palestine to the Sahel to the Indian Ocean.
- Amplify aligned campaigns like the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT), Black Alliance for Peace (especially their AFRICOM-focused work), and the No to NATO coalition. These forces are already mapping the terrain. Join them. Strengthen them.
- Forge a new narrative of defense. One rooted in dignity, not domination. One where defense means healthcare, food sovereignty, climate justice, and cultural liberation—not data centers for drone warfare or roads for tanks.
The EU says it’s “ready by 2030.” We say the people must be readier. This war economy is not inevitable—it’s being built by hand, in your name, with your tax euros, in your neighborhoods. And that means it can be unbuilt. From Brussels to Bamako, Naples to Niamey, let us forge a new kind of internationalism: anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, abolitionist—and armed not with missiles, but with memory, militancy, and the will to tear down every last command center of empire.
As Walter Rodney taught us, “The age of the permanent war economy is the age of permanent revolution.” Let’s make it so.
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