Senior NATO officials warn that European governments must prepare for war with Russia. The EU could have only three years before Russian President Vladimir Putin starts bombing major European cities.

Amid the disastrous Ukrainian counteroffensive, the failure of the US government’s agreement to continue funding the war and the growing popularity of Donald Trump’s candidacy, some European nations and NATO are stepping up alarmist rhetoric against Russia in what looks like a desperate attempt to prolong the conflict and ensure the steady flow of money to the Western military-industrial complex.

Dutch Lieutenant Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, claimed last month that NATO countries are preparing for the possibility of all-out war with Russia within the next 20 years. These statements appeared to be coordinated with an interview published in The Times on 28 January, in which Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, commander of NATO’s military logistics centre in Germany, warned that the military alliance must be prepared for possible Russian missile attacks on Europe in the event of an all-out war with Russia.

Sollfrank and other NATO generals doubled down on the alarmist rhetoric by warning that a direct military confrontation with Russia could occur as soon as within the next three years. In the same vein, Bauer said that people would have to prepare for compulsory military service in the next two decades, “It is the whole society that will be involved, whether we like it or not”, while praising Swedish army commander-in-chief General Micael Bydén for declaring that all Swedes need to mentally prepare for the possibility of war as the country moves towards NATO membership.

In the same week, retired General Sir Richard Sherrif, a former NATO commander, said in Sky News interview that the time has come to “think the unthinkable” and consider introducing conscription to prepare the country for a possible ground war. He added that even if Russia is defeated in the war against Ukraine, it will remain determined to rebuild another Russian empire.

We learn from history we do not learn from history

This ploy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s war cheerleaders is hardly original; Benjamin Netanyahu has for months been trying to justify the continuing genocide in Gaza by comparing the Palestinian resistance to Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists and warning that they pose a threat to the Western world.

The same scaremongering propaganda that is regularly used against Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons programme, which at the same time fits in with the lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction with which the invasion of Iraq was sold to us. Moreover, we are now discovering that fear campaigns about the communist threat to justify countless coups and military interventions did not go out of fashion with the end of the Cold War.

And yes, it is not out of the question that the West’s current policy of confrontation with Russia will eventually drag the continent into a war over much of the territory of the European Union. Even so, the solution has to be centred on avoiding, not promoting, armed conflicts, and facilitating a peace agreement in Ukraine, instead of castrating the negotiations to perpetuate a war that is highly profitable for certain actors and lobbies.

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