Achieving peace with more weapons?
On 15 May 2025, Pope Leo XIV stated: ‘There can be no peace without genuine disarmament. The right of every people to defend itself must not lead to a general arms race.’
One day before his death, Pope Francis said exactly the same thing. But also on 15 May 2025, the new German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul issued a blank cheque to the US President for his demand for higher military spending. According to this, German military spending is to rise from two per cent of gross national product today to five per cent in the future. That would amount to around 215 billion euros per year.
Germany triggering a new arms race?
Where this money is supposed to come from is as unclear as the impact it will have on military spending in Russia or China. Does Germany, of all countries, want to trigger a new arms race? NATO countries already spend about four times as much on armaments as Russia. Can peace be achieved with more and more weapons? With this demand, Christian Democrat Johann Wadephul is ignoring not only the demands of the last two popes, but also the proposal of former CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl to ‘create peace with fewer and fewer weapons’. Above all, Wadephul is suppressing the lessons of German history, in which the German army twice laid half the world in ruins in the last century.
What are the beautiful words of mourning at Mrs Friedländer’s coffin worth when they are followed on the same day by fatal policies that forget history and despise human beings?
Putin’s terrible and illegal war of aggression in Ukraine, the wars in Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere cannot be ended with more and more weapons, but only through dialogue and talks, through ‘de-hostility’.
We will only achieve peace ‘if we unlearn violence’ (Heribert Prantl).
The terror of war can only be overcome through negotiated solutions, not by repeatedly preparing for the next war through rearmament. Negotiated solutions and compromises are the fundamental prerequisites for a just and lasting peace. The current negotiations in Istanbul at least suggest that we are moving in the right direction. And now, of all times, more than double the German arms expenditure? In difficult situations, negotiations can and must be negotiated. Only in this way can we overcome the old, disastrous motto ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’ and learn that ‘if you want peace, prepare for peace’.
After 1945, Germany and France, with the level-headed statesmen Adenauer and De Gaulle, proved that even centuries-old hostile enmity can be overcome. Why should this not also be possible between Russia and Ukraine? Or between Israel and Palestine? The overwhelming majority of people want peace, not a new arms race.
Eighty years after the Second World War, it is time to learn that Russia also belongs to Europe and that we all live in a common European home. Contacts with Russian politicians, such as those sought by SPD politician Ralf Stegner in recent days, are not ‘treason,’ but rather a prerequisite for formal talks with Russia and between Russia and Ukraine to take place soon.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also willing to meet with President Vladimir Putin for dialogue. In this situation, it would be more sensible and perhaps also helpful if Germany sent signals of dialogue instead of signals of rearmament. Those who want solutions must promote the idea that in the nuclear age, there can only be common security on our continent of Europe. For a nuclear war would be the last war in human history, because afterwards there would probably be no humans left to wage war.
Source
Franz Alt 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
