Rearmament as a Symptom

The issue of rearmament is a complex one, without any single or clear-cut answer—as the previous essays have already shown. Faced with such complexity, the first, almost healthy instinct is to ask questions, to believe that by refining and finally asking the right question, the right answer might begin to take shape.

That, perhaps, is what lies behind the first text in this series, which is, at its core, a collection of questions: what is war today? What purpose does it serve? Are there alternatives? What would the cost be? More broadly, what would its impact be? These are clearly contextualized questions—meant to make us think and reflect—but even so, the initial feeling remains dominant: that this is a situation too complex for any of those questions alone, perhaps even for all of them together.

And maybe that is where one can begin: by going beyond words, into the emotions that animate them. In these times when rationality is held up as the highest virtue, when analyses abound—rigorous, often correct—we should remember that what truly drives people are emotions. Some of the most rigorous reasoning in the world ultimately runs up against the emotional and personal investments of those who produce it. This is not to say those analyses are therefore useless or invalid; detachment, too, is a way of feeling.

Of course, there are many kinds of emotion, and acknowledging that they guide our thinking—both as individuals and as nations—does not necessarily give us a rulebook for action. That is why we might start from something smaller: by exploring the emotions expressed in this very collection, and seeing where that lens might take us.

Read "Para Bellum", from the Phase I of our Idiotic Research.

Among these texts, we find many charged with indignation and protest—sometimes in prose, as in Fear as the Architect of Power, sometimes in poetry, as in Poetics of Dissent and To Die Naked, Warm, and Free. Beyond their differences, they all express a particular way of living the question of rearmament—one that goes deeper than opinion. Reading them, what I sense above all is a profound distrust of those in power.

To the extent that such a total rejection of dialogue with “the system” risks becoming self-referential, I see in these positions a kind of short-sightedness—one not unlike that of the system they denounce. Still, I recognize their value: they show investment, expression, and passion. It is the responsibility of the political class to engage with them. Yet, as I don’t feel a natural affinity with that stance, it’s not the one through which I can best understand my own emotional response. There is another feeling, however, that I do relate to—different from the anger of those texts, and also from the caution of the first.

What should one feel when their homeland—and many of us grew up proud to call ourselves Europeans—seems to be turning more and more into a burden? It’s in the final text, written by someone far more directly involved in the matter, that I find a sentiment far less celebrated than those expressed elsewhere in this series.

Although that piece begins from a global, and more specifically American, point of view (since when something is “...exploitable but not profitable... it becomes ballast”), to clarify my perspective I’d like to complement it with one from within—from the point of view of the European vessel that has been branded as mere ballast.

What I see, what I feel, is a Europe whose rudder has broken.Politically, we are heirs to a time when we steered from the conviction that we were the closest thing to a true peace among nations—the Pax Europaea described in Armed Europe, the second essay in this collection. Of course, self-interest always existed—no one is naïve enough to believe otherwise—but that belief still led us to take on a guiding role.

Even if we weren’t always the champions we imagined ourselves to be, that belief pushed us to act decisively, as any leader must. Whether or not it was right to claim such a role is less relevant than the fact that we were, by and large, perceived as a model to follow—however reluctantly.

That conviction once made us act with resolve. And it’s here, I think, that the issue of rearmament expands into something broader—and where another kind of emotional response takes shape, one I’ve seen shared by many people, young and not so young.

Read here "Europe Ballast", from the Phase I of our Idiotic Research.

Put simply: when Europe makes weak decisions, or applies obvious double standards (no European politician, however cynical, can truly believe that Israel is merely “defending itself”—to take a current example), our actions lose force and clarity. We lose credibility—not only with other nations but also with ourselves.

The question of rearmament is symptomatic of something larger. Too often, two levels are confused: strength and militarization. There’s a feeling that if we rearm, we’ll be stronger—and therefore more credible, more respected, more heard. But respect doesn’t come from power; it comes from acting decisively within the limits of one’s power.

Think of a teacher with no clear, high standards consistently applied: students won’t respect them, no matter their authority, no matter the occasional outburst. What Europe lacks today is that same rigor, that same demand for consistency and consequence. Whether we rearm or not is secondary—the real problem lies in the fact that the question keeps being raised, over and over, without any real progress.

It’s true that militarization might make us more independent, more prepared—but the problem lies further upstream. It’s also true that refusing militarization would honor our humanistic and diplomatic traditions—but the problem lies upstream there, too. Independence means little if we are paralyzed in exercising it, and diplomacy is hollow without credibility.

Europe’s problem is that most of its foreign actions in recent years have been half-measures—too often lacking rigor, demand, and consequence.

I’m not cynical enough to think the matter is simple. It’s obvious that part of the problem lies in the Union’s very structure—far more democratic than most people assume—particularly in the requirement of unanimity in decision-making, in the culture of compromise, and at times simply in the desire to protect one’s citizens. Even taking all that into account, the outcome should still be a difficult decision, not a lack of one.

If the European mechanism is jammed, then it falls to the continent’s main nations to find an alternative—decisive and, crucially, united. A Europe of variable geometry, as Delors once put it, might be a concrete solution.

Beyond that brief suggestion, I’m not here to offer a rigorous analysis—there are already plenty of those. Data and case studies might change the available options, but they wouldn’t change the underlying feeling of impotence—the emotional core that shapes my own political engagement. What could change it, instead, are actions: courageous, difficult, decisive ones.

I don’t claim to have the best interpretive key. For the survival of the European vessel—both as entity and as idea—perhaps one path will prove right and another wrong. But what’s certain is that its future does not lie in paralysis.

It’s a curious semantic coincidence that when the rudder breaks, the only way to steer a boat is by shifting the ballast—from port to starboard—depending on where you need to go. Perhaps that’s the stage we’re in now: trying to keep alive the belief that once carried us this far. But when even that delicate balancing act becomes too hard to sustain, then the vessel is simply adrift—drunken, not unlike the one Rimbaud wrote of, wishing at the end of its voyage that its keel would shatter, sinking to become ballast itself.

Rearmament as a Symptom