TO THE average person, militarisation means giving more money to the army and this destroys our society. And they are right.

Every single euro spending for armament is missing for social justice, for good education, for a good transport, our health system or the social ecological transformation.

And we can see that exactly this currently happens in Germany: from 2029 Germany will spend every second euro of the federal financial budget for military issues. And at the same time they tell the people they must work longer, they should be less sick and they are supposed to waive a good pension.

Widely debated issues include the elimination of public holidays, the restriction of continued wage payments in case of illness and the abolition of the eight-hour day. The federal government wants to turn back the clock. It wants to return to a 70-hour workweek. It wants to raise the retirement age to 73, and it wants people to pay upfront for doctors’ visits.

This doesn’t happen by coincidence. It happens because the government is willing to spend more than €200 billion per year for the military. The chief economist of public service union ver.di, Dierk Hirschel argues that the scope for public services and social issues will be largely exhausted from 2027. This will completely destroy the society.

But militarisation means quite more than spending money on armaments. The so-called Defence Minister Boris Pistorius demands that Germany should be made ready for war. And therefore we currently experience a complete militaristic penetration of the society. That means that the government tries to introduce a militaristic logic into the society by military advertising on pizza boxes, at bus stops and in public swimming pools. But the real problem is, that they prepare every single area of the society for war.

The government published a so-called “green book” in which it played out the scenario of a war attack. It argues that in the case of a war, 1,000 injured soldiers per day would have to be expected.

That means that the military hospitals are not sufficient to care for such a large number of soldiers. Thats why they discuss how to place the healthcare system under the command of the military. And in the “green book” it argues that the people must be prepared for significant restrictions in the civilian healthcare system.

Similar effects exist for postal delivery, the public transport system and education. There are laws which require teachers to invite soldiers into classrooms so that children can be prepared for military — and this not voluntary, it’s an obligation. They discuss the introduction of a new subject called “Wehrkunde,” perhaps to let our kids throw dummy hand grenades, crawl through mud and train shooting — as we can already see in the Baltic states.

And a few months ago it was announced that a small town in the south of Germany organised a holiday camp for six to 12-year-old kids together with the German military.

They also destroy society by destroying the fundamental democratic rights. Students will be expelled from school if they speak out against conscription. Journalists are publicly defamed when they take a position different from that of the federal government. And there are new emergency legislations which prohibit the right to strike in the state of tension.

And also the new world order created by the US invasion of Venezuela won’t just increase the state of lawlessness and violence in international relationships, but it will also have an impact on the domestic situation, as we can see in the increase in police violence.

Our governments tell us a lot of lies about a planned attack by Russia, possibly in two to three years. These lies are a part of the militarisation, which destroys our societies through mistrust, hate and Russophobia.

This is an attempt to turn the people, who actually don’t want to have anything to do with war or warmongers, into allies. And they need the people as allies. If people strike against social cuts, the government cannot wage war. That’s why they say: we cut your pensions, we let you work longer — but we do this for your security, because we want to be well-prepared, if Russia attacks Nato.

Surveys show that the fear of a Russian war has increased. And this happens also, because the Greens or the Social Democrats, who mobilised against warmongering in the 1980s, have now become warmongers themselves. This weakens the peace movement, because it lost its infrastructural backbone.

How can we disrupt the war machine? In my opinion three things are crucial. The first thing is: see the contractions of the ruling class. They need our agreement to a policy that makes us poorer und only offers insecurity. Socialists must make these contradictions visible.

The second thing: we must be aware of our history and the strength of our class. The first world war was stopped by the European working class. This is the reason, why the ruling class sought an alliance with fascist forces in order to crush the workers’ movement before they started the second world war. They wanted to make their profits undisturbed by war waging. That’s why the peace movement has to be anchored in working-class organisations and must argue for an anti-war policy in the trade unions.

And third: we should be aware that we are probably on the eve of a new great war, because capitalism is in a deep and existential crisis.

This crisis is so deep that there is probably no solution within the system. That’s why we have to connect our activities against war with a socialist perspective — because this gives the people hope.

What we have to understand is that war is an intensified class attack that must be answered as a class attack. Rosa Luxemburg said more the 100 years ago: socialism or barbarism.

If we look today at the horror of Gaza, we must recognise Luxemburg was right. The ruling class leads us in a barbaric world with authoritarianism, war and violence. The contradictions of our times push for solutions outside our system. This is associated with big dangers, but also with lots of opportunities in the class struggle.

We must seize these opportunities — and discuss socialism with pride and self-confidence.

Ulrike Eifler is a German trade union activist and part of the “Nie wieder Krieg — Die Waffen nieder” peace initiative. She will be speaking at the CND webinar event “Welfare not Warfare: How Militarisation is Destroying Our Societies” on Wednesday January 14 2026 at 6pm. Also speaking will be Marc Botenga MEP, Parti du travail de Belgique, Member of European Parliament’s commission on security and defence; and Alex Gordon, vice-president of CND UK, former president of RMT trade union and co-author of the Alternative Defence Review.

To register for the event go to cnduk.org/events.