Anxiety about future wars

Although it's the Christmas holidays and it seems like everyone should be happy, the latest CIS poll It says that the main concern of Spaniards for the next ten years is war, above unemployment or climate change. A quarter of the surveyed population said this, but it doesn't explain the reasons for this fear.3.5% are concerned about international tensions, economic conflicts, the power of China, ideological radicalization, and totalitarian regimes, but this percentage is too small to interpret the first question.

Another CIS survey from November showed more responses, although still insufficient. People were asked if they felt fear, for all intents and purposes, and 23% said yes. When asked what kind of fear, the top concerns were... current wars and conflicts (76.8% of people who felt afraid). To another question, about whether Spain could be involved in a war in the coming years, 57% of people said it could be with Russia, 42.2% with Morocco, and 30.4% with the United States. 47.3% also believed that in the next five years an external power could attack a country in the European Union, with a clear reference to Russia, and almost half of the people surveyed believed that it was necessary to strengthen the military capabilities of the European Union.

I wouldn't want to trivialize the reason for so many people's fears, because they have them for a reason, but it is necessary to clarify some of the factors that have influenced this concern. Because Spain is not Ukraine, nor Venezuela

First and foremost, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Atlanticist sectors—and especially the NATO Secretary General—have repeatedly stated that Russia could invade other European countries within five years, and that this would reduce GDP, even if it meant cutting social spending and further weakening the already deteriorating welfare state in Europe. Furthermore, since Trump took office, he has pressured Europe to allocate 5% of its GDP to defense, falsely arguing that the United States has traditionally defended Europe with its military presence on the continent. He overlooked the fact that it is the parliaments of each European country, not the US, that approve military budgets in a sovereign manner, not by copying the needs of the world's great power, which, moreover, despite having interests worldwide, does not allocate 5% of its spending to military purposes, but rather 3.4%. Therefore, if you don't have this imperial ambition, you don't need to spend so much on weapons.

The second issue concerns the fear that Russia will invade European countries in the short term. This is a monumental lie, a strategy of the military industry because we buy more weapons (Trump says we should buy them from companies in his country). For this reason, they insist on the danger that all Europeans face, when Russia already has enough to do maintaining its annexed positions in Ukraine. Beyond that, Putin has no capacity to invade any of the surrounding countries, much less to declare open war on NATO.

There is a whole strategy to instill fear in the people of the continent, to return to the Cold War, militarize societies, and make the doctrine of offensive deterrence a reality: to have a "lethal capability," in the words of the NATO Secretary General. Ordinary people should have more and better information about these international realities so they can reason about what is or is not feasible, differentiate between the possible and the probable, and not be deceived, so they don't believe what makes no sense.

No, we won't have any war in Europe for at least five years. But if we continue to militarize, we will lay the groundwork so that, in the face of any conflict that arises, we put the military option on the table as the first option, setting aside political and diplomatic action to resolve conflicts, just as they learned at the end of the previous Cold War.