April 6, 2024 (EIRNS)—Former Director of the UN Office Against Drugs and Crime Pino Arlacchi exposed Schachtian economics without naming it by name, in an article he wrote on Europe and the United States for Il Fatto Quotidiano, appearing today. He stated that the military spending announced by NATO will be paid for by massive austerity.
Arlacchi, a professor of sociology, wrote, “The NATO secretary’s request for a €100 billion fund for Ukraine alone may be just a taste. The problem is, where will the €300-400 billion in additional annual spending needed to finance a NATO that meets the American demand come from? Where will two European countries like Germany and Italy, which have so far spent little more than 1% of their GDP on defense, get these funds from?”
After noting that the U.S. military budget, over a trillion dollars, is already financed by Europeans who buy U.S. debt, he stated, “the money to binge on NATO will not come from a declaration of Europe’s economic and financial independence toward the United States. The money needed to defend us against a completely invented threat—Putin’s Russia—will have to be found elsewhere. Given the now 50-year stagnation of European capitalism and the absence of a plan to revive the commercial and industrial power of the countries of the Union, the usual path of austerity will be tried. With the bottom of the barrel now reached.
“Reducing wages, salaries, pensions and social spending in the name of sacrifices for a nonexistent war can be a very dangerous game. Taking to the streets this time would not only be farmers, yellow vests and resolute pacifists, but also masses of citizens impoverished by the policies of a cowardly, inadequate European elite and servants of others’ interests
“But, looking ahead, there could also be the formation of an alternative pro-European majority, capable of breaking with bellicose orientations, setting aside the fraud of an ‘enemy Russia,’ continuing to reduce, instead of increase, Europe’s defense spending. And do away with austerity.
“Hopefully, this prospect will be realized before the great damage looms on the horizon.”
