On 29 May, a Russian drone fired at Ukraine crashed into an apartment in Romania, a NATO member state. The incident was immediately seized upon by Britain and the European imperialist states as a reason for more ‘defence’ spending in their reckless drive towards war with Russia.
Earlier in May the British Ministry of Defence held a World War Three simulation at a disused underground platform at London’s Charing Cross station. The scenario was a Russian invasion of Estonia, where Britain has stationed 1,000 troops, triggering war with NATO. The highly publicised event was aimed at conditioning the public: The Sun gleefully showed escalator advertisement boards with mock newspaper headlines: ‘The UK declares war on Russia’ and ‘Our boys off to see Putin’.
Behind such pantomimes are the British ruling class’s cold-blooded intentions to whip up anti-Russia chauvinism and prepare for war. NATO’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine remains one of the sharpest expressions of inter-imperialist rivalry and Britain is one of its main belligerents.
On 10 April the British government announced the revival of the Government War Book. Abandoned after the Cold War, it contained secret plans, regularly rehearsed and updated, for mobilising civilian and industrial sectors for war alongside the military. On 14 April former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, who was picked by Labour in 2024 to head its Strategic Defence Review (SDR) into military readiness, attacked Starmer for ‘corrosive complacency’ on military spending, and preached ‘we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget’. Robertson headed Labour’s 1997 SDR which preceded British imperialist butchery in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
On 22 April Germany announced plans to become Europe’s strongest military by 2039. The German government, which constantly invokes its Nazi past to justify its unashamed pro-Zionism, failed to spot that it had picked the centenary of the Nazi invasion of Poland which initiated World War Two. The historical irony was lost on the Financial Times, which responded with the headline: ‘The welcome return of German military might’, referencing ‘the Russian threat’.
The British ruling class and its mouthpieces are preparing for the return to conditions of inter-imperialist military conflict which darkened the first half of the 20th century. Unless it resists, the working class will once again be made to pay for imperialist war.
George O’Connell
