Europe’s left must unite to oppose NATO’s rearmament and austerity

By John Ross

As Europe approaches NATO’s 24–26 June summit in The Hague, its 750 million people face a decisive strategic choice that will affect their lives for years to come – and one with far wider global impact.

The policies implemented in Europe in recent years have been disastrous socially, economically, politically, and militarily. Europe is experiencing worsening social conditions, its largest war since 1945 in Ukraine, and the biggest rise of far-right authoritarian, racist, and xenophobic forces since the Nazis in the 1930s.

The proposals to the NATO summit would worsen that situation. The key question is therefore whether Europe will continue down this destructive, disastrous path or adopt policies that offer a way out.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has proposed to the 32 NATO members that “the NATO summit… aim for 3.5% hard military spending by 2032” – a 75% increase from the previous 2.0% of GDP target.

Trump calls for even higher military expenditure of 5% of GDP. Rutte opened the door to this by supporting a commitment to “1.5% related spending, such as infrastructure, cybersecurity and things like that. Also achievable by 2032”. The 3.5% plus 1.5% adds up to Trump’s 5%.

The social and political consequences of such a course are already clear. Europe’s economies are nearly stagnant, with the EU’s annual per capita GDP growth averaging less than 1% from 2007 to 2024. The IMF, somewhat optimistically, projects an increase to only 1.3% by 2030. With rising inequality and reductions in social spending due to austerity policies, hundreds of millions of people in Europe have already experienced stagnant or declining living standards. Diverting more resources into military spending, already being accompanied by social spending cuts to finance it, will worsen that situation further.

The political consequences are also clear. Far right and neo-fascist forces, exploiting the worsening conditions, which are actually caused by austerity measures and increased military spending, by demagogically blaming immigrants and ethnic and religious minorities, will gain further strength.

The disastrous consequences for traditional left-wing and progressive parties supporting or enacting these rearmament and austerity policies, even before their support for the new NATO rearmament policies, are already known in major European countries. The SPD in Germany in 2025 saw its vote drop to 16%, the lowest since 1887. In the last elections at which they stood independently, the French Socialist Party gained only 6%. In Britain, the Labour Party, which already received one of its lowest votes since the 1930s at the last election, is now in the polls behind the far-right Reform Party.

In contrast, left-wing parties that have opposed austerity and NATO policies – La France Insoumise in France, Die Linke in Germany, the Belgian Workers Party – have maintained or significantly increased their support.

This disastrous collapse suffered by traditional left-wing parties that have supported war and austerity is extremely dangerous in the context of the rise of far-right parties across Europe.

The reason for the collapsing support for such parties is obvious. Such policies attack the population’s living standards. If parties claiming to be on the left continue to support austerity and rearmament, this trend of decline will just continue.

The only way out of this situation for both Europe’s population and the left is a complete policy reversal to one that prioritizes social progress and economic development.

Following the end of the Cold War, Europe should have focused on fostering economic cooperation and minimizing military tensions and expenditures. This would have created a balanced economic area, equivalent to the US, with a strong potential for growth by combining Western Europe’s manufacturing and services with Russia’s energy and raw materials. What was possible was shown in Asia by ASEAN, which, in a continent that had suffered the worst conflicts of the Cold War, the Korean and Vietnam wars, became the world’s most rapidly growing economic region through a concentration on economic development and the absence of military blocs.

But, because an economically cooperating Europe could have been a successful competitor to the United States, US administrations pursued a path to prevent it – primarily through NATO’s eastward expansion, which was carried out in direct violation of US promises to then-Soviet Premier Gorbachev that NATO would not advance “an inch” eastward after Germany’s reunification. Instead, in 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, and 2020, new countries were added to NATO, and the door was deliberately left open to admitting Ukraine, known to be a red line for Russia due to Ukraine’s proximity to Russia and its position as a historical route for invasion.

Numerous US experts on Eastern Europe opposed this, led by George Kennan, the original architect of US Cold War strategy, who warned NATO expansion would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era”. But their warnings were ignored, with results culminating in the Ukraine war.

Now NATO demands rearmament and cuts in social protection to finance this war.

NATO forces simultaneously expanded outside Europe to participate in wars in the Global South, Afghanistan and Libya, set up numerous organizations and initiatives to prepare intervention in the Global South – such as the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, the Strategic Direction-South HUB, the Liaison Office in Addis Ababa – and has begun to expand into the Pacific – with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea attending every NATO summit since 2022. Such NATO expansion would involve Europe in even more conflicts and more calls for military expenditure.

What is required is the complete opposite – priority to social progress and investment for economic growth. Both require more spending and are therefore directly contrary to a military build-up.

Europe’s need for social spending is obvious. But Europe’s investment, the key to economic growth, has also collapsed. In the EU, investment, once depreciation (the wearing out of existing means of production) is taken into account, has halved from 7.4% of GDP in 2007 to only 3.5% on the latest data. International comparisons show this is enough only to generate 1% annual economic growth.

Additionally, the US is now pressing for further policies harmful to Europe and its people. The US has already enormously damaged Europe by its conscious policy of cutting off Western Europe’s source of cheap energy from Russia, achieved via the Ukraine war and the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, which anyone who looks seriously at the matter knows was carried out by the US.

The Wall Street Journal now reports the US is seeking a “commitment from EU leaders to place new tariffs on Chinese industries” – which would inevitably lead to equivalent retaliation by China, damaging Europe’s economy.

Simultaneously, the US proposes tariffs against Europe’s exports, followed by the imposition of an international trading system, replacing the extremely imperfect WTO with an even worse system in which the US unilaterally decides tariffs and rules!

Europe’s people have already suffered huge blows to their living standards because of US policy. They cannot afford more. On the contrary, Europe should, simultaneously with rejecting increases in military spending and social cuts to finance it, be seeking to regain access to cheap energy from Russia and expanding trade with China as part of a policy of economic recovery.

Faced with the disastrous proposals to the NATO summit, the left across Europe has begun to coordinate activity against increases in military spending through establishing Stop ReArm Europe. It is vital that all forces across the continent opposed to NATO’s policy further strengthen activity and cooperation.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War. John Ross is Senior Fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China and winner of both China’s highest prize for foreign writers on China and for foreign experts working in China. His most recent book in English is China’s Great Road. He is a member of the international No Cold War campaign organising committee. He was previously director of economic policy for the mayor of London.