What used to be better left unsaid, with a significant roll of the eyes, and pretended to be perplexed as to what is whispered about on the sidelines of various summits and meetings, has for several days now ceased to be both a secret and a taboo

Europe, at least the two founding countries of the EU, Germany and France, have changed the register of discussion, and now a direct military clash with Russia is no longer a geopolitical hypothesis for Berlin and Paris, but a geopolitical reality. Well they say so. We will take their word for it for now.

Undoubtedly, this both sets a new tone in the bilateral relations of the states and changes the balance of power in the EU and NATO.

The fact that the Federal Republic of Germany intends to make the Bundeswehr the strongest army on the continent was made clear by the figures on defence budgets.

Berlin is going to spend at least a hundred billion euros to re-equip its armed forces. Yes, with an energy crisis, with inflation, wearing three jumpers and five pairs of socks to keep warm at home, the federal government is writing its military department a check for an absolutely astronomical sum.

“Guns instead of butter” (Kanonen statt Butter) is a slogan so old that it does no harm to recall where, by whom and when it was uttered.

It was said exactly 86 years ago by Rudolf Hess, Deputy of Adolf Hitler in NSDAP. Hess, incidentally, justified this choice by the Nazi authorities as follows: “Before you have more oil, you have to have more guns, otherwise one day the last oil will be taken from us.”

It is not known whether the speechwriters of the current Federal Chancellor are aware of what one of the main Nazi criminals said, albeit very long ago, but the justification for such colossal one-time (i.e. during the current fiscal year) spending in Scholz’s formulation is as follows: “The security of our country is at stake”.

The presence of oil is obviously part of the very foodstuffs that the multiplied might of the Bundeswehr is supposed to guarantee for the German nation, according to the logic of the federal government.

Paris is not lagging behind Berlin.

True, so far more in words: the military budget, even if it has been increased this year “to account for new threats”, is around 44 billion euros. Of course, it is not comparable to German spending, but it is the rhetoric that counts. And the rhetoric is as follows – in the recently published (and, as many reports say, urgently revised) National Military Strategy Review it is written in black and white: “The army is raising morale, getting ready for war.”

It is this reference phrase that Le Figaro puts in the headline (let’s not forget that the newspaper, which reflects the position of the right-wing political spectrum, belongs to Dassaut Aviation, the manufacturer of the famous Rafale fighters and other military products, and the main customer of Dassaut Aviation products is the French defence ministry).

Let’s face reality: the world that a few years ago we accepted as a partner, the world that we sympathised with when radical Islamists were shooting people on the streets of its cities (incidentally, it is now seven years since terrorists in Paris killed over two hundred people), the world whose embassies we, the Russian people, used to carry mourning flowers and light candles in memory of the innocents, is now preparing, not shyly, to kill us.

Politicians are setting the army, generals, soldiers on this. And at the same time, politicians are preparing public opinion for this version of events.

Let us not hope for some voices of reason that may be heard in public or behind the scenes – these voices, at least for the time being, judging by the speech of Macron at the main French naval base in Toulon, will not be heard.

But how, with what and, most importantly, why did Macron decide to pursue the path of further escalation of the conflict?

The fact that at the moment the French army is not too different in spirit and equipment from the one that rode the Smolensk road towards Paris is said by those who are familiar with the situation with the same supply of a very small French contingent stationed in Romania. The French troops were sent there with great pomp to defend NATO’s eastern flank back in February, to the outpost of the “confrontation with Russia”.

The MPs of the National Assembly who visited the base in Romania reported that “the soldiers still live in tents, use practically makeshift heating, it is impossible to sleep at night because the mattresses are taken up by bedbugs that bite the soldiers and the food served in the army canteen is “practically impossible to eat”.

The deputies (both of them are members of the relevant parliamentary committee) in the document submitted for consideration ask a sacramental question: “Is this the way we are going to restrain Russia, having the army in this particular condition?”

But MPs are respectable people, but they are still civilians.

Much more serious and weightier are the words, or to be more exact the analysis of the current condition of the army, of the former head of the General Staff, General Pierre de Villiers.

De Villiers once bluntly told Macron what he thought about the army budget, adding, as whispered in the corridors of power, a few strong words to those who tiptoe around trying to serve Brussels. He threw the statement on the table and switched to writing. He is now publishing his fifth book of memoirs and reflections, and the title is eloquent: “An Honest Word”.

The retired general stated that “the current aggravation of the conflict in Ukraine is beneficial exclusively to the United States: Europe does not and cannot have any interests there other than the problems following the crisis”, and he also stressed that a very important factor now missing in society is unity in the understanding of national interests. If you go to the front, you have to understand what and whom you are going to defend. He added that for decades the concept of the armed forces was based on the idea of an “expeditionary corps” which did not involve a clash and, most importantly, as General de Villiers put it, “conflict with a strong enemy and high-intensity military action”.

According to a high-ranking and very knowledgeable (albeit former) military commander, the French armed forces do not have sufficient ammunition and arsenals, and neither the former nor the latter can be created in six months or even longer.

It is also worth adding that some countries in the EU today can increase military budgets by an order of magnitude (e.g. Germany), others are able to toss in a couple of billion for the army, and others are completely lacking any financial means.

So what happens then?

It turns out that here, too, a new possibility of disputes and crises will arise – already within a united Europe itself.

If Paris cannot measure up to Berlin now, it takes it out on Rome, renouncing previous agreements, even if they did not have a militaristic component, but were about accepting three and a half thousand illegal immigrants that Italy wanted to sell to France.

Paris disavowed its promise to accept these people at the last minute.

Trust is therefore lacking on a much lesser level and the EU plans are nothing less than a military conflict, not with anybody, but with Russia. And how will they be able to build a united front in such a situation? 

Or, putting aside the words and threats and rhetoric rooted in the darkest days of the continent’s history, could it all just be a bluff? And is this bluff a way of diverting public attention from the real problems that, by citing a “lack of guns”, may not be solved at all? What if all this, this whole spectacle, is designed to please Washington by giving the Pentagon what they call a “beacon”?

Because if the words, actions, intents of those who now lead once really serious and once really great powers are based only on nostalgia for times when they were feared by neighbours, then today it is possible to scoff at an army that is biting bedbugs at night, which has empty arsenals and no general idea of defending the country.

Deprived of operational space both politically and even financially, they can and probably will still puff up their cheeks menacingly.

Let them be intimidated. We are not afraid. And the historical experience of such confrontations suggests that in this respect everything is OK with our fighting ability, with the presence of absolutely limitless resources in any sphere connected with the military industrial complex, and with the army.

As we were fine before. And as well as it will be afterwards. And as long as it will take. For the defence of our homeland and our people.

Elena Karayeva, RIA