Questioning rearmament in a world increasingly incapable of diplomacy

By Andrea Tornielli

"The increase in economic resources for armaments has once again become an instrument of relations between states, showing that peace is only possible and achievable if it is based on a balance of their possession. All this generates fear and terror and risks overwhelming security because it forgets how a 'conflagration could be started by some chance and unforeseen circumstance'”. 

These words were spoken less than two years ago by Pope Francis on the 60th anniversary of Pacem in Terris, and they are just as relevant today, in light of the situation in Europe. The European Commission has announced a plan that will mobilize around 800 billion euros for the defence of the EU. "ReArm Europe" is the name of the plan, which evokes tragic moments of "fear and terror" from the recent past.

Over the past three years, Europe has, unfortunately, also demonstrated an inability to take diplomatic initiatives. It has only seemed capable of supplying arms to Ukraine, which was unjustly attacked by Russian troops, but not of proposing and pursuing concrete negotiating paths to end the bloody conflict. And now, following similar initiatives by other world powers, Europe is preparing to invest the exorbitant sum of 800 billion euros in weapons. These funds are not being used to combat poverty, to finance programmes that could improve the living conditions of those fleeing their countries due to violence and misery, to enhance welfare, education, and schools, to ensure a humane future for technology, or to support the elderly. Instead, they are being used to fill arsenals and thus the pockets of arms manufacturers, even though military spending by EU countries already surpasses that of the Russian Federation. Is this really the path to ensuring a future of peace and prosperity for the Old Continent and the entire world? Does the arms race truly guarantee our security? Is this really the key to rediscovering and retrieving our roots and values?

Instead of establishing a global fund to finally eliminate hunger and promote sustainable development worldwide - using a fixed percentage of military spending - as proposed by the Pope for the Jubilee Year, plans are being made to stockpile new weapons, as if the nuclear arsenals already in storage were not enough of a threat to unleash a catastrophe capable of destroying humanity many times over. As if the "Third World War fought piecemeal" prophetically evoked by the Pope a decade ago were not the real threat to avert. Rather than striving for an active and constructive role in peace efforts and negotiations, the European Union risks becoming unified only in the escalation of rearmament.

This reflects, yet again, what Pope Francis in April 2022 called the "pattern of war," which leads to "making investments to buy weapons" while saying "we need them to defend ourselves." The Pope pointed to the loss of the "surge of goodwill” for peace that had characterized the period immediately following World War II. He bitterly observed that "Seventy years later, we have forgotten all that… the pattern of war has imposed itself again. We are incapable of imagining another pattern. We are not used to thinking of the pattern of peace anymore.”

Wouldn't it be necessary to have leaders who, instead of focusing on rearmament, revive that spirit and commit to dialogue to end the war in Ukraine and other conflicts? Two years ago, speaking in Budapest, Pope Francis posed a crucial question to European and global leaders. He echoed the words spoken by Robert Schuman in 1950: " The contribution that a structured and vital Europe can make to civilization is indispensable for the preservation of peaceful relations," because "world peace cannot be ensured except by creative efforts, proportionate to the dangers threatening it." The Pope then asked: " At the present time, those dangers are many indeed; but I ask myself, thinking not least of war-torn Ukraine, where are creative efforts for peace?"

The expected and foreseeable geopolitical shift with the change of leadership in the White House could have led to a common initiative along the lines suggested by the Pope, aimed at ending the carnage taking place in the heart of Christian Europe. Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin recently stated in an interview: "Authentic peace arises from the involvement of all parties. Everyone must have something; in a compromise, no one can have everything, and everyone must be willing to negotiate. Otherwise, peace will never be stable and lasting. We must return to this approach; otherwise, the world will become a jungle, with nothing but conflicts and their terrible consequences of death and destruction."

Instead of "ReArm Europe," shouldn't the only real plan, the only realistic appeal to launch today be "Peace for Europe"? We ask this while echoing the Pope's words, spoken last Sunday from his room in the Gemelli Hospital: “From here, war appears even more absurd.”