Militarisation Is KILLING The Collective West From Within | Dr. J. Oberg and Prof. D. Gibbs

Originally published on Mar 11, 2025.
Ursula von der Leyen just announced a lovely-sounding policy under which the block would "ReArm" and make 100s of billions of Euro's available for member states to militarise to their teeth. With no plan on why this is necessary or how it should be achieved, numerical spending goals on militarisation is another absolut fully that will end in a complete meltdown if it is not stopped in time. But the chances for that are slim, as Europe constantly learns the wrong lessons from its own history.

But that begs the question: Why is there always money for military spending and never for social well-being? How are the warmongers constantly disenfranchising their own populations for the benefit of the Euro-Atlantic Military Industrial Complex?

To discuss this, I’m talking today to two fantastic colleagues who have both been on this channel before but not together yet. I’ve got with me Dr. Jan Oberg from Sweden and Professor David Gibbs from Arizona State University in the USA.

While Jan Oberg has been working a life-time on peace research and is an outspoken critic of militarism, Dr. Gibbs, who’s a historian, is now working on a new project he calls “Guns, Butter, and the Politics of Permanent War”.
I thought the two are probably great conversation partners so here we are to discuss this topic: How there always seems to be money for war, but not for social spending. A very topical issue considering that the EU just announced more funding for weapons, presumably by cutting back on social spending.