The historic crisis of capitalism is beginning to have visible effects at all levels. Imperialist and inter-imperialist conflicts driven by regional powers are leading to open wars. Russia's attack on Ukraine is fuelling the remilitarization of the European bourgeoisie. The genocidal war launched by Israel has resulted in neocolonial “peace agreements” in Palestine, while American imperialism is once again using military coercion in Latin America while practising an inhumane blockade against Cuba. There are other wars against peoples and minorities in Yemen, Burma, Sudan, Congo, Syria, and the African Sahel.
The actions of the USA, kidnapping Maduro and his wife in Venezuela and threatening to invade Greenland in January 2026, add to the destabilization and the view that rearmament is necessary.
The Fourth International and its section reject the capitalist concept of “security” which requires even greater deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Europe is already heavily militarized and reeling from years of austerity and cuts to public services. But when it comes to money for the arms industry there is more than enough to go around.
Liberal “democracies” are becoming increasingly authoritarian; business leaders are looking for ways out of their structural crisis of profitability, guaranteeing greater profits without this translating into social development; the green transition promised by the elites has been transformed, without public debate, into an exponential increase in military spending at the international level.
The drive to war is not separate from the rise of racism and fascism across the continent, or the expansion of Frontex and the Asylum and Immigration Pact; mass surveillance, militarization of borders and attacks on refugees are what the ruling class plans for all of us as the climate crisis deepens and society becomes less stable. Racism and fascism are on the rise in Europe, and capitalist states are being reinforced. In Europe, this translates into a hardening of policy against migrants. Not only at the borders, but also within European countries and on the routes to them.
In fact, the European Union is in the midst of an unprecedented increase in military spending: up to 800 billion in four years. To this end, it proposes to relax the ever-present rules of fiscal discipline, allowing the 27 member states to take on debt; to encourage new loans to states through the reform of the European Investment Bank (EIB); and even to divert money earmarked for cohesion funds to military spending. The same people who said a social Europe was unaffordable now promote a Europe of war, militarism, and barbed wire.
This is a real paradigm shift that aims not only to boost arms spending but also to promote European reindustrialization in a military way, while continuing to destroy public services and social protection. A vision of European defence set out in the Strategic Compass for Security and Defence document that is no longer based on peacekeeping, but on the protection of critical infrastructure, energy security, border control, and the protection of “key trade routes.” In other words, protecting European colonial interests by ensuring the “strategic autonomy” of the EU, whilst ultimately still subject to the designs of the US empire and NATO as its armed wing. A European Union that has continued to facilitate in various ways the delivery of weapons to Israel to carry out the genocide of the Palestinian people.
In this way, the oft-heralded transformation of the production model, as well as the energy transition necessary to comply with decarbonization plans, have been buried under the bombs. But the European arms race, in addition to highlighting the failure of greenwashing, represents an acceleration towards the abyss of the climate emergency. Essential and scarce materials are now being used in European rearmament plans, resources which would instead be needed to ensure an ecosocialist transition. European rearmament, like the race for generative artificial intelligence, represents a veritable accelerated race toward the climate abyss.
Remilitarization and the closure of borders have become the keystone of the new “Europe as a power” project in the context of the global polycrisis, complementing the market dogmatism that has prevailed until now. Putin's imperialist invasion has served as a catalyst for the militaristic offensive of European rearmament, based on the construction of a strong sense of insecurity.
A shock strategy, with drums of war in the background, is being used by European elites not only to fulfil their long-standing goal of European military integration, but also to reinforce a model of oligarchic and technocratic federalism. Because our struggle is not for an EU independent of the US, Russia, and China – based on reinforcing its own imperialist and colonialist strategy – but rather for building an ecosocialist European horizon that constructs a relationship of solidarity and mutual support with other peoples.
Without an independent internationalist policy, the working class and the peoples of Europe are doomed to be puppets in the hands of the great powers; the economy will focus even more on the military industry and ecological plundering, and the working class will be nothing more than cannon fodder in the hands of warmongering governments.
For all these reasons, we call on the peoples of Europe to rise up against the rearmament and war economy promoted by the EU and its governments. They must seek internationalist alliances to confront the risk of a new world war and the nuclear threat on the horizon.
We must commit ourselves to an anti-militarist and internationalist policy that rejects imperialism in all its forms.
We reject nationalism and national prejudice. Our political project is to unite the peoples of Europe, from Russia to Ireland, from Norway to Italy in a combined fight against their capitalist governments and imperialism.
We must oppose any increase in military budgets in our countries and wage an internationalist struggle against the new military service proposals that are part of the militarization process.
We must link the climate fight to the struggle against militarism, an ecosocialist future is incompatible with any process of imperialist rearmament.
We fight to end the arms trade and to convert arms manufacturing to social production.
We demand the dissolution of NATO and CSTO military blocs
In this situation, slogans such as “war on war,” “down with militaristic budgets,” and “against military service” must serve to politically arm an anti-militarist movement that aims to limit the ability of our bourgeoisies to advance a rearmament that encourages the growth of the far right, increases internal and border repression, and brings the possibility of war closer.
Only an ecosocialist world can end the threat of war, instead we focus humanity’s efforts on improving life for everyone, ensuring our resources are democratically distributed fairly to ensure the good life, one beyond endless exploitation and authoritarian oppression.
We must support the mobilizations and strikes against imperialist rearmament that is being led by workers’ organizations in countries such as Italy, and mobilizations such as those that will take place on March 5 in several cities in Germany and on March 28 in Rome.
War on war: for internationalism and solidarity among the working and oppressed classes around the world.
25 February 2026