by Gudrun Dometeit

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Sometimes these days you can get dizzy. In view of the figures that are being thrown around as if they were five-euro chips at roulette. 150, 500, 800 billion euros ... who is offering more? These are all amounts that mainly revolve around the topic of defence, in Europe, in Germany - money that is to flow into the upgrading of armies, into the production and purchase of weapons. EU Commission President and former Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen says she wants to rearm Europe. After the green and clean deal, the martial deal is now likely to follow.

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According to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), rearmament has long been underway: Between 2020 and 2024, European arms imports increased by 155 percent. And for the first time in two decades, the majority of US arms exports during this period went not to the Middle East but to Europe. Some would even like to see their own nuclear weapons on German soil; the presumably next Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is at least considering sharing nuclear weapons with French nuclear weapons.

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Experts recently warned of a “serious threat of war” in autumn as a result of the Russian-Belarusian “Sapad” manoeuvre, which is taking place on the territory of Belarus. After similar exercises in 2021, Russia finally invaded Ukraine. And military historian Sönke Neitzel shared on television the fears of Lithuanian colleagues that Moscow could use the manoeuvre and the associated preparations to attack their country. If Russia were to conquer the so-called Suwalki Corridor between Lithuania and Kaliningrad, NATO would only be able to supply Lithuania via the Baltic Sea. “Perhaps this summer is the last summer that we will still experience in peace,” Neitzel oracles.

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Is it still working?

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I am not a peace dove, nor am I naive. Of course, all the armies of Europe need some energy boosters. And, of course, Ukraine still needs support. But I am increasingly appalled that the discussion about Europe's security is still almost exclusively about rearmament and confrontation. That no scenario is too gloomy not to be conjured up. That even science gets stuck in the logic of the military. Is no one in this country working for peace?

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Where is the outcry of the peace movement in all this? Does it still exist at all? Or has it lost its words in horror at the irrevocable apocalypse? A few undaunted, mostly older, peace activists still regularly protest at the airbase in Büchel against the US nuclear weapons stationed there. In the 1980s, millions - led by Green Party co-founder Petra Kelly and Bundeswehr General Gert Bastian - took to the streets against the stationing of US medium-range nuclear missiles. The last Green pacifist may have been theologian Antje Vollmer, who died in 2023.

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Building peace without weapons? It's not just out. Whoever says that ends up at best in the corner of dreamers, Putin understanders or conspirators, at worst in the corner of AfD and Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht. Not only the peace movement - or what is left of it - but also the so-called political center has left both parties with no need to protest and develop alternatives against the war in Ukraine.

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Statements such as those made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has just negotiated a ceasefire with Ukraine, seem like a ray of hope. Diplomacy is the only solution to this war. Both sides must realise that there is no military solution, he said. Russia cannot conquer the whole of Ukraine and it will obviously be very difficult for Ukraine to push Russia back to where it was in 2014 within a reasonable period of time.

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Perhaps we simply have to overlook Donald Trump's blackmail and brutal negotiating methods - if they at least help to stop the bloodshed.

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