Tica Font: "War is manufactured"

PalmaTica Font (Vall d’Uixó, 1956) is the president and researcher at the Delàs Centre for Peace Studies. A graduate in Physics from the University of Valencia, she has been director of the Catalan International Institute for Peace and president of the Catalan Federation of Peace NGOs. She is an expert in defense economics, arms trade, defense budgets, and the military industry. Font is one of the expert voices at the II Peace Conference organized by the Mallorca per la Pau platform and makes it clear that wars are a pretext for doing business.

At a time of global rearmament, talking about peace seems to go against the current. Is it more difficult to defend it today than a few years ago?

— It's complicated, but it has to be tried. Since Putin invaded Ukraine, Russia has been considered an enemy of Europe and the European Union needs a rearmament plan. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether Russia is really a threat. If you compare military spending between the EU and Russia, the 27 spend three times more than Russia. Furthermore, if Putin has been in Ukraine for four years and has not yet won militarily, how are we so sure he will come to Europe? And the EU still wants to spend 800,000 million euros on a rearmament plan between 2024 and 2029. An enemy is needed to justify the annual increase in defense ministry spending.

But the European Union presents itself as a guarantor of peace.

— The methods are softer than those of Donald Trump, who conceives negotiations in an intimidating, coercive manner and with threats of the use of force. But the theory of deterrence remains valid beyond Trump. It is a psychological game. Between Europe and Putin there is a spiral, a more continuous threat: one shows that he has powerful weaponry and the other pretends to have a superior weapon. This is where Europe finds itself, even though it is more careful with its methods.

When the USSR fell, some thought it was a good time to improve Europe's relations with Russia.

— Who has never wanted a good relationship between Europe and Russia are the United States. But Russia is our neighbor, with thousands of kilometers of common border. We need a minimum relationship, not to feel threatened, a neighborly relationship that is not aggressive. We must not interfere in each other's affairs, neither we nor Putin. Mutual respect is needed.

What role do the media play in the normalization of military spending?

— The policy surrounding the media requires creating an enemy, because if you don't have one, the measures you have to apply will not have the support of the population. You must have a propaganda system so that the population considers rearmament to be justified. Then the economy must be put into war mode: the state's priorities must be diverted towards the defense industry to develop new weapons and increase the production and acquisition of armaments. Wars are manufactured and take years to manufacture. But when you set this process in motion, war ends up being inevitable. Now there are European ministers and generals announcing that, in 2030, Russia will invade Europe. But if we have four years to prepare for war, that means we also have four years to prevent it.

Argue that the rearmament proposed by the EU is not even efficient from a pragmatic and economic point of view.

— The agreement is that, in addition to the defense budget of each of the 27, another 800,000 million will be spent, but it does not mention what they will be spent on or how. In this way, each of the 27 armies must prepare for war against Russia alone. It is a brutal waste of resources. Wouldn't a single [common] army be much cheaper than 27? Another inefficiency is that each state maintains the same industries for making armaments, while a single market for production and consumption would reduce costs. Mario Draghi's report [on the future of European competitiveness] points out that 80% of the armaments Europe buys are from abroad: 70% from the United States and another 10% from South Korea and Israel, basically. Only 20% remains in Europe. In this way, European industry will not be able to meet the orders that will be placed with the 800,000 million that are planned to be spent. The industrial growth timeline that should exist is not viable. So 70% of this money will go to the US. But the rulers insist that the rearmament plan will generate wealth in Europe: what wealth? Because it will not stay here. Then there is the issue of prices, because you cannot compete with countries like Korea or China. If we examine third-generation tanks, the German Leopard costs 28 million euros, while the American Abrams costs 17, the Russian costs 4 million, and the Chinese, 2 million. Who does Germany intend to sell these tanks to?

What does the increase in military spending mean for citizens?

— The money for military spending comes from state debt and budget adjustments, which we call cuts. The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, has said that citizens must accept sacrifices. We are talking about pensions, healthcare, education, and social benefits. He says we must accept becoming poorer, that life expectancy should decrease, and that everyone should fend for themselves with problems like disability, because states must prioritize defense spending. Rutte also points out that the European population, which represents 10% of the world's population, spends 50% of the social benefits expenditure, so there is room for us to become poorer. Are we willing? The question citizens should ask themselves should not only be about rearmament, but also whether we want pension, education, and healthcare resources to go to defense.

One characteristic of military spending is the opacity that surrounds it.

— Yes. Arms exports are subject to the Official Secrets Act. The purchases made by the Ministry of Defence should be on the public procurement platform, but a decree has been made so that Defence contracts with Israel are not public. Control is becoming increasingly difficult, even for Congress.

What do you think of the image that Pedro Sánchez projects as a defender of peace and international law?

— One problem with this president is that he demobilizes, because he already says what many people think. But there is a gap between what he says and what he does. He is less of an armamentist, but one thing is will and another is being able to do things. For example, with the extended budgets he cannot restructure them. The Defense budget since 2023 is 14,000 million euros, but by the end of the 2025 fiscal year, he had spent 33,000 through credit modifications. The EU's commitment is to reach 3.5% of GDP in defense by 2035: this would imply reaching 80,000 million euros annually in Spain. If the NATO commitment of 5% were met, spending would have to be 114,000 million. So, either large ministry budgets are touched or it won't be reached. We'll see what happens the next time a budget can be drawn up.

The massacre in Palestine does not stop. Are we facing a structural failure of the international community?

— Yes. Humanity will be ashamed of what has happened and of the silence that has occurred, especially in Europe.

Are we entering a new, more unstable global phase with the escalation in Iran and Lebanon?

— It is a hypothetical terrain. Trump had no clear idea when he decided to attack. He has followed Netanyahu, who was clear about what he wanted and did not achieve it. He wants an Iran like Lebanon, with an army incapable of doing anything (in Lebanon, it only responds to Hezbollah). On the other hand, Trump wanted to reach agreements as he did with Venezuela, with a change of regime and control of Iranian oil. Along with Venezuela, Iran holds the key to Chinese oil. It should be remembered that China has a monopoly on rare earths, so the US needs to have the oil tap. However, the situation in Hormuz has put Iran in a more advantageous position, as it can easily close the strait. It should also be noted that Obama and the EU reached an agreement with Iran in 2015 to limit the development of nuclear weapons and conduct inspections. It was Trump who broke it in 2017.