Roads to War: The EU’s Security Action for Europe Fund
As the world was readying for the Second World War, the insightful humane Austrian author Stefan Zweig made the following glum observation: “Openly and flagrantly, certain countries express their will to expand and make preparations for war. The politics of rearmament is pursued in broad daylight and at breakneck speed; every day you read in the papers arguments in favour of armaments expansion, the idea that it reduces unemployment and provides a boost to the stock exchange.”
This is not so different from the approval by European Union countries on May 27 of a €150 billion loan program known as the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) borrowing scheme. A press release from the European Council stated that the scheme “will finance urgent and large-scale investments in the European defence technological and industrial base (EDTIB)” with the intention of boosting “production capacity, making sure defence equipment is available when needed, and to address existing capability gaps – ultimately strengthening the EU’s overall defence readiness.”
The statement also makes a central rationale clear: that SAFE will enable continued European support for Ukraine, linking its defence industry to the program. Despite not being an EU member, Kyiv will be able to participate in the scheme. Interestingly enough, the United Kingdom, despite leaving the EU, will also be able to participate via a separate agreement.
Disbursements to interested member states upon demand, considered along national plans “will take the form of competitively priced long-maturity loans, to be repaid by the beneficiary member states.”
The scheme further anticipates the types of weaponry, euphemistically titled “defence products”, that will feature. As outlined by the European Council on March 6, these will comprise two categories: the first covering, amongst others, such products as ammunition and missiles, artillery systems, ground combat capabilities with support systems; the second, air and missile defence systems, maritime surface and underwater capabilities, drones and anti-drone systems and “strategic enablers” including air-to-air refuelling, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare.
The broader militarisation agenda is confirmed by linking SAFE with broader transatlantic engagement and “complementarity with NATO.” It will “strive to enhance interoperability, continue industrial cooperation, and ensure reciprocal access to state-of-the-art technologies with trusted partners.” Significantly, the emphasis is on collaboration: a minimum of three countries must combine when requesting funding for SAFE defence projects.
There seems to be something for everyone: the militarist, the war monger and the merchants of death. Global Finance, a publication dedicated to informing “corporate financial professionals”, was already praising the SAFE proposal in April. “The initiative has the potential to transform the business models of many top European defense groups – like Saab, which has traditionally relied on contracts from the Swedish state to grow its sales.” What a delight it will be for such defence companies to move beyond the constraints on sales imposed by their limiting governments. A veritable European market of death machinery is in the offing.
The fund is intended for one, unambiguous purpose: war. The weasel word “defence” is merely the code, the cipher. Break it, and it spells out aggression and conflict, a hankering for the next great military confrontation. The reason is traditional, historic and irrational: the Oriental despotic eminence arising from the Asian steppes, people supposedly untutored in the niceties of European good manners and democracy. Not that European manners and democracy is in splendid health. A mere glance at some of the candidates suggests decline in institutional credibility and scepticism. But we can always blame the Russians for that, deviously sowing doubt with their disinformation schemes.
The initiative, and its tightening of ties with arming Ukraine, has made such critics as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sound modestly sensible. “We need to invest in our own armies, but they expect us to fund Ukraine’s – with billions, for years to come,” he declared in a post on X. “We’ve made it clear: Hungary will not pay. Our duty is to protect our own people.”
The approval of the fund by the European Commission has also angered some members of the European Parliament, an institution which has been treated with near contempt by the European Commission. European Parliament Presidente Roberta Metsola warned Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier in May to reconsider the use of Article 122 of the EU Treaty, which should be used sparingly in emergencies in speeding up approvals with minimal parliamentary scrutiny. Bypassing Europe’s invigilating lawmakers risked “undermining democratic legitimacy by weakening Parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions”. The Council’s resort to Article 122 potentially enlivened a process that could see a legal case taken to the European Court of Justice.
The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) has also supported a legal opinion repudiating the Commission’s cavalier approach in approving the fund. According to that tartly reasoned view, Article 122 was an inappropriate justification, as the threshold for evoking emergency powers had simply not been met.
Ironically, the rearmament surge is taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, at both the behest of the Trump administration, ever aggrieved by Europe not pulling its military weight, and Moscow, characterised and caricatured as a potential invader, the catalyst for decorating a continent with bristling weaponry. The former continues to play hide and seek with Brussels while still being very much in Europe, be it in terms of permanent garrisons and military assets; the latter remains a convenient excuse to cross the palms of the military industrial establishment with silver. How Zweig would have hated it.
Squabbling Siblings: India, Pakistan and
Operation Sindoor
On April 22, militants from The Resistance Front (TRF), a group accused by Indian authorities of being linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, slaughtered 26 tourists in the resort town of Pahalgam in the Indian administered portion of Kashmir. This came as a rude shock to the Indian military establishment, which decided that rebellious sentiments in the region had declined. (In March 2025, an assessment concluded that a mere 77 active militants were busying themselves on India’s side of the border.)
The feeling of cooling tensions induced an air of complacency. Groups such as the TRF, along with a fruit salad of insurgent outfits – the Kashmir Tigers, the People’s Anti-Fascist Front, and the United Liberation Front of Kashmir – were all spawned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 2019 revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted Kashmir singular autonomy. TRF has been particularly and violently opposed to the resettlement of the Kashmiri pandits, which they see as an effort to alter the region’s demography.
The murderous incident raised the obvious question: Would Modi pay lip service to the 1972 Shimla Agreement, one that divided Kashmir into two zones of administration separated by a Line of Control? (A vital feature of that agreement is an understanding that both powers resolve their disputes without the need for third parties.)
The answers came promptly enough. First came India’s suspension of the vital Indus Water Treaty, a crucial agreement governing the distribution of water from India to Pakistan. Pakistan reciprocated firmly by suspending the Shimla Agreement, expelling Indian military diplomats, halting visa exemptions for Indian citizens, and closing the Wagah border for trade.
Hindu nationalism proved particularly stirred, and Modi duly fed its cravings. On May 7, India commenced Operation Sindoor, involving what were purportedly precision missile attacks on nine militant camps in Pakistan and the Jammu and Kashmir area controlled by Islamabad. The operation itself had a scent of gendered manipulation, named after the vermillion used by married Hindu women to symbolise the durable existence of their husbands. Two female military officers – Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh – were tasked with managing the media pack.
The Indian briefings celebrated the accuracy of the strikes on what were said to be the sites of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen. Thirty-one suspected terrorists were said to have perished, though Pakistan insisted that civilians had been killed in this apparent feast of forensic precision. India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would have none of it: Indian forces had only “struck only those who harmed our innocents”.
The next day, it was operations against Pakistan’s air defence systems in Lahore that stole the show. The inevitable Pakistani retaliation followed on May 10, with the Indian return serve against 11 Pakistani air bases. What followed is one version: Pakistan’s military broke into a sweat. A cessation of hostilities was sought and achieved. Armchair pundits on the Indian side celebrated: India had successfully targeted the terrorist cells supported by Pakistan. If one is to read Anubhav Shankar Goswami seriously, Operation Sindoor was a stroke of genius, threatening “the Pakistan Army’s strategic shield against terrorists”.
More accurately, this was a lovely little spilling of blood with weaponry between callow sibling throats, a pattern familiar since 1947. The two countries have fought four full-blown conflicts, two over Kashmir. Along the way, they have made the world a lot safer by acquiring nuclear weapons.
There was something for everyone in this retaliatory and counter-retaliatory feast. India claimed strategic proficiency, keeping censorship on the matter tight. Pakistan could claim some prowess in shooting down five Indian jets, using Chinese weaponry, including the J-10. With pride and pomp, they could even appoint Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir to the post of Field Marshal, an absurdly ceremonial gesture that gave the impression that the army had restored its tattered pride. It was to be expected that this was ample reward for his, in the words of the government, “strategic leadership and decisive role” in defeating India.
The only ones to be notably ignored in this display of subcontinental machismo were the Kashmiris themselves, who face, in both the Pakistan and Indian administered zones, oppressive anti-terrorism laws, discriminatory practices, and suppression of dissent and free speech.
Ultimately, the bickering children were convinced to end their playground antics. The fact that the overbearing headmaster, the unlikely US President Donald Trump, eventually brought himself to bear on proceedings must have irritated them. After four days of conflict, the US role in defusing matters between the powers became evident. Kashmir, which India has long hoped to keep in museum-like storage, away from the international stage, had been enlivened. Trump even offered his services to enable New Delhi and Islamabad a chance to reach a more enduring peace. Praise for the president followed, notably from those wishing to see the Kashmir conflict resolved.
In one sense, there seems to be little reason to worry. These are countries seemingly linked to sandpit grievances, scrapping, gouging, and complaining about their lot. Even amidst juvenile spats, they can bicker yet still sign enduring ceasefires. In February 2021, for instance, the militaries of both countries cobbled together a ceasefire which ended four months of cross-border skirmishes. A mere two violations of the agreement (how proud they must have been) was recorded for the rest of the year. In 2022, a solitary incident of violation was noted.
A needlessly florid emphasis was made on the conflict by Indian political scientist Pratap Bhanu Meta. This was an encounter lacking a “decisive victory and no clear political end”. It merely reinstated “the India-Pakistan hyphenation”. In one sense, this element of hyphenation – the international perception of two subcontinental powers in an eternal, immature squabble – was something India seemed to be marching away from. But Prime Minister Modi, despite his grander visions for India, is a sectarian fanatic. History shows that fanaticism tends to shrink, rather than enlarge, the mind. In that sense, he is in good company with those other uniformed fanatics in uniform.
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