WAR IS COMING

French President Emmanuel Macron Announces Nuclear Buildup

French President Emmanuel Macron has just shattered decades of French nuclear taboos, and has kicked off another nuclear arms race. (see below)

Proudly standing over a death-dealing French nuclear submarine, the menacingly-named, Triomphant-class SSBN, Le Téméraire, Macron cold-bloodedly huffed and puffed that:

“A single one of our submarines, such as the one behind me, carries with it a strike force equivalent to the sum of all the bombs dropped on Europe during World War II.”

Macron threatened:

“The coming half-century will be a nuclear age.”

Macron promised to increase the number of French nuclear warheads by an unspecified number, and announced that France will extend its nuclear weapons across Europe, starting with eight other European nations.

This will have unimaginable repercussions all around the world, and will reverberate down through the coming years. All other nuclear-armed nations will review their nuclear posture, starting with Russia, and others will be obliged to consider their position as the talk of war, and specifically nuclear war, intensifies.

Macron’s announced the nuclear weapons buildup with its non-nuclear “allies” Germany, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. This represents a historic expansion of nuclear weapons doctrine in Europe. Each new nation covered by the nuclear doctrine of another is one more possibility of using nuclear weapons, and more more target.

Macron stated this new agreement would include joint nuclear drills and ultimately, the potential purportedly “temporary” deployment of French nuclear-capable fighters (and presumably weapons) in allied European countries.

We should pay very careful attention to the ominous and aggressive implications of Macron’s formulation of “Forward Deterrence” regarding nuclear weapons. “Forward deterrence” is a euphemism for forward integration: training, posture, and basing options that move the nuclear threshold from taboo to a planning variable. Thus the political decision to use such weapons becomes a streamlined consideration rather than an unthinkable crisis.

Needless to say there was no referendum in France, the eight other nations, or all Europe for the people to decide if they want war or more nukes. The capitalist rulers decide and we die for their châteaus. Pass the burgundy. So much for ‘democracy.’

This also further signals the accelerating breakup of the post-WWII US-Europe “alliance” under U.S. nuclear domination. Add this to the abandonment of any pretense of nuclear arms control treaties (like the INF and New START).

Peace?

Naturally, all the imperialist liars always claim to be acting in “defense” and merely seeking “peace.” Macron of course claims this is all about keeping “the peace.”

Thus has it always been. All bloody imperialist wars in the modern epoch are waged in the name of “peace.” Putin invaded Ukraine in the name of “defense,” just as Clinton expanded NATO right up to the borders of Russia in the name of peace. And now the United States and Israel bomb Iran in the name of defense and peace. Even Hitler’s invasions were announced to the German people as “defensive” and “peaceful.”

Let us dispense with that blather.

Macron’s announcement is yet one more sign of the imperialist preparations as they march to war, and the pace is picking up.

The historic crisis of stagnating world capitalism (don’t believe the hype) drives the capitalist rivals towards greater mortal competition over a shrinking pie of disputed profits in a zero-sum confrontation to the death over turf for their capital and resources. Each car or phone that China sells is one less sold by the United States or Europe, and so on. And if China is banned from selling its products or loans, then its economy is driven into crisis and implosion. Eventually the competition passes from economic to extra-economic methods.

The so-called, “post-Cold War equilibrium” has long since ended. We are now in a transitional phase of preparations for interimperialist war for world domination.

The war against Iran is part of this interimperialist rivalry, with China ultimately in the U.S. gun sights.

China just lost Venezuela (neither the US nor Chinese imperialists care about the Venezuelan people), and now China will lose Iran as a source of oil. Other than Russia, China’s other sources of oil are all under U.S. domination. This is ominously similar to the position of Japan as Roosevelt cut off nearly all Japan’s access to oil and steel in 1941 to force a war. Surely the capitalist rulers in Beijing must be taking stock of their increasingly vulnerable position.

So, it is quite notable that Macron’s announcement takes place against the backdrop of the bloody U.S. war against Iran, also an imperialist staking out of turf and future targets. But no call for “peace” by the French and European imperialists. Break out the guns and nukes.

Everywhere around the world all major powers are jockeying for position and preparing for war, led by the rival imperialist powers of the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Europe and Australia, but also including regional capitalist powers from Turkey to Indonesia, India and Pakistan, down to Nigeria and South Africa, each seeking their place at the imperialist banquet table and to dominate their ‘neighbors.’

A gangster turf war like no other. Knives out getting ready for a regular capitalist “Red Wedding” in this imperialist game of profits and power.

Historic Arms Buildup

For the first time since WWII, we are seeing a synchronized military buildup across almost every major and regional power. This isn’t one government, one party, one ‘crazy’ individual. This is a pragmatic response by the capitalist reptiles. Why, it would be irresponsible not to prepare for war, they say. Just in case.

Despite Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, and decades of solemn “promises” by the rulers of Japan and Germany, it must be responsibly assumed that every major imperialist and regional power is already engaged in varying degrees of contingency preparations for a nuclear arsenal—technical, industrial, doctrinal, and political. That includes Germany and Japan, and Australia and Türkiye. Let us recall the nuclear weapons plans of the Brazilian and South African regimes decades past.

Only fools and ostriches would believe it’s not happening today.

The current nuclear weapons arms race began with Obama’s $1.5-$2 trillion 30-year “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, kicked off in 2013-2015 and currently under way. Such are the ‘pacifist heroes’ and Nobel Peace Prize laureates of imperialism. Celebrated as a regular Gandhi, who proudly slaughtered the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, and working class U.S. soldiers, in addition to his “drone” beheadings.

In response to Obama’s nuclear threats and his 2010-2011 “Pivot to Asia” — a de facto declaration of intent to prepare to go to war against rival China — the imperialists in Beijing responded with a massive upgrade of their own military defenses and now an expansion of Chinese nuclear arsenal. They have little doubt as to what US imperialism and its allies are preparing for them.

And in response to imperial Russia’s unprecedented post-WWII 2022 invasion of Ukraine, its European imperialist rivals began historic military buildups, which are now culminating in the expansion of nuclear weapons in Europe, in response to repeated nuclear threats by the right-wing government of imperialist Russia. Rather than cowing their imperialist rivals, Czar Putin has only given them cover to increase their military and nuclear buildup. All in the name of peace.

Our world is over

Those over the tender age of twenty must recognize that the world we were brought up in is over. The decades of assumptions, stand-offs, cold-wars, international institutions, rules and procedures are burning on the trash heap of the post-WWII ‘order.’ Trump and Putin wipe themselves with the UN charter. It is pointless to bemoan or wring hands over the disappearance of the old order, much less harbor any illusions that something will stop them.

We stand naked before their nukes. But we are many. They need us. We don’t need them.

Everywhere we observe huge historic increases in military budgets and war preparations like the years of massive buildups that preceded WWI and WWII.

And we are seeing and will see more proxy wars, regional conflicts, probes and snatch-and-grabs by the imperialist gangsters

The present period is redolent of that which preceded WWI and WWII.

Before WWI was the 1905–1906 First Moroccan or Tangier Crisis, and the 1911 Second Moroccan Crisis (or Agadir Crisis) as German imperialism probed France for war, and then the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars, which led directly to WWI.

Or leading up to WWII was the 1932 to 1935 Chaco War, nominally between Bolivia and Paraguay, but in reality a proxy war between the US and UK over hydrocarbons; the 1937 invasion of Ethiopia by Italy; the Spanish Revolution, which among other things was a runup by the Nazis and Italian fascista; or Japan’s 1937 further invasion of China; or the US “War Plan Red” plan in the 1930s including a projected US first strike with poison gas against the Canadian port city of Halifax, in anticipation of an invasion by the UK, but now as a US spoiling attack to invade and conquer Canada. It was the nice Democrat Franklyn Delano Roosevelt that updated “War Plan Red” invasion plans in 1935 and began that actual preparations down to the very roads to be taken...

So much for the present-day blather about peace, allies and eternal principles…

They were not disparate or isolated conflicts. They reflected the greater crisis of world capitalism and were heading somewhere. Each was a probe or preparation for the anticipated inter-imperialist great war.

Today, Venezuela and Iran, like Greenland and Panama are about so much more than what they appear. They are going somewhere far beyond their borders and the immediate issues.

The same is true about apparently isolated wars in the past years from Azerbaijan-Armenia (involving Israel, Iran, France, US, Russia and India), Sudan (involving the UAE, Turkey, Israel, Egypt), Libya (involving EU rivals Italy and France, Turkey, Qatar, UAE, and Israel); the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia (involving Turkey, UAE and China); Yemen (involving a direct military clash between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the latter seeking to seize Yemeni territory, while Saudi Arabia is bombing UAE proxy forces in Yemen).

We just saw the same regarding Somalia, where on December 26, 2025, Israel became the first UN member state to formally recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent sovereign state, quickly followed by Turkey opposing such recognition.

Everywhere are growing international turf wars and conflicts. No mater the local issues, each are drawing in conflicting interests from across the globe, as the capitalist ruling families jockey for position.

Or as William Shakespeare proclaimed:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players

Thus our present increasingly begins to resemble that of the runups to WWI and WWII, but with nukes.

Nuclear weapons are being removed from the illusory category of the “unimaginable” and are being normalized as an “option.”

Yet another “cost-benefit” analysis by the capitalist actuaries. The various contending ruling classes are psychologically, politically and logistically preparing their respective populations for an era of confrontation and nuclear weapons.

War is coming.

This is not because of some politicians, or much less ‘madmen,’ but because of the inexorable cold-blooded inhuman “logic” of capitalism in a historic crisis.

Sure, the capitalists would prefer to ‘make a deal,’ but if that doesn’t work they are actively preparing to kill millions in a scramble to protect their property and business interests against humanity.

To deny the horrific nightmare being prepared or to hope the capitalist executioners won’t use the bloody axes in their hands is to only make it inevitable.

But it is not inevitable. We billions of working people will have our say.

Let us not lay our heads upon the executioners’ blocks. Let us not kill our sisters and brothers across the world or die for their foul profits. We must seize the axes and throw down Epstein Capitalist Class that wants to take our children for their machines of profit and death.

We can make a better world. We can prevail.

-Aaron

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Macron shifts French nuclear doctrine by boosting arsenal and involving allies

—The French president pointed to threats from Russia and China as well as changing U.S. defense priorities as reasons for the atomic buildup.

March 2, 2026

https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-announces-increase-in-number-of-frances-nuclear-warheads/

ILE LONGUE, France — President Emmanuel Macron on Monday broke several decades of French nuclear taboos — promising to increase the number of warheads and making explicit France’s role in European security.

Those are some of the most significant changes in French nuclear doctrine since the end of the Cold War.

“An increase of our arsenal is indispensable,” the French president said at the highly secure Ile Longue naval base that houses France’s four nuclear submarines.

Speaking at a podium high above the glistening black “Téméraire” ballistic missile submarine and following a solemn rendition of the French national anthem by the audience of military top brass, ministers and defense CEOs, Macron said: “A single one of our submarines, such as the one behind me, carries with it a strike force equivalent to the sum of all the bombs dropped on Europe during World War II.”

The French president outlined enhanced cooperation with European nations, naming Germany, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, which would include joint nuclear drills and ultimately, the potential temporary deployment of French nuclear-capable fighters in allied countries.

“I believe I can say that our partners are ready,” Macron stressed.

France and the U.K. are Europe’s only two nuclear powers. The French arsenal is both airborne and seaborne, with at least one submarine patrolling the seas at all times. Unlike the U.K., Paris is not part of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, although French presidents have always stressed that France’s vital national interests have a European dimension.

Monday’s speech is the result of months of work with European allies, an aide close to Macron said.

The French president first opened the door to a strategic nuclear dialogue with European allies in 2020 — but the proposal initially gained little traction. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 underscored the danger posed by Moscow, while Donald Trump’s reelection as U.S. president raised questions about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees.

That’s prompted a host of European countries, including Germany, Poland and Sweden, to recalibrate their security strategies and become more open to Macron’s ideas.

However, Macron underlined that France has no intention of trying to replace American nuclear weapons and NATO as the ultimate guarantors of the continent’s security.

“It was clear from the outset to us and our partners that this effort would be in addition to NATO’s nuclear mission,” Macron stressed.

In a nod to his domestic audience, he insisted that the final control of whether to launch nuclear weapons would remain firmly in the hands of the French president, who will also continue alone to define the country’s so-called vital interests.

Over the weekend, Macron was criticized by both far-right National Rally leader Jordan Bardella and conservative Les Républicains chief Bruno Retailleau about his nuclear dialogue with European allies.

Héloïse Fayet, a researcher specialized in nuclear deterrence at the French Institute for International Relations, described the speech as “successful ... in a constrained political context with strong opposition in France. There is a good balance between the emphasis on French sovereignty and the contribution to European security, with a new concept of forward deterrence that already seems to be understood by the allies.”

France currently has about 300 warheads, about a tenth of the size of the U.S. and Russian arsenals. Macron said France would not specify how many weapons it has or how many it plans to add, only adding the increase was needed to maintain the arsenal’s “credibility.”

“This is not an arms race ... it is essential that our adversaries, or combination of adversaries, cannot even glimpse the possibility of hitting France without the certainty of suffering damage they would not recover from,” the French president warned.

Ticking clock

Macron — who has only 14 months left in office and could be replaced by Bardella in 2027 — is moving fast, stressing that joint nuclear programs should start already this year, including hosting European allies in “strategic locations” and joint exercises.

France and Germany announced a joint “nuclear steering group” to discuss doctrine and “the appropriate mix of conventional, missile defense and French nuclear capabilities“ in their strategic cooperation.

“Today, a new phase in French deterrence may therefore be taking shape. We are embarking on what I would call forward deterrence,” the French president said. That means increasingly including European countries in France’s deterrent — starting with participation in nuclear drills.

“It will ultimately provide for the circumstantial deployments of elements of our strategic air forces to allied countries,”Macron added, referring to the squadrons of nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets.

His pledges are aimed at ensuring that the next French president will not be able to easily row them back, a high-ranking French official said after the speech, adding that the address was actually “more consensual” than meets the eye.

No president would dare reverse an increase in nuclear warheads, the official stressed.

Several European leaders reacted positively to Macron’s speech, including Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Paris and Berlin want to take “concrete steps, including, among others, with a conventional German participation in French nuclear exercises.”

Germany and Belgium are also part of the U.S. nuclear-sharing agreement through NATO, where their warplanes are equipped to carry U.S. bombs. The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey are also part of the program, and Poland has expressed interest in joining.

The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kirstersson said Macron’s initiative “can help complement collective capability” in an online post. “It hasn’t been as important to strengthen Europe’s collective defense capabilities since World War II as it is right now,” he wrote.

Polish PM Donald Tusk said: “Poland is in talks with France and a group of closest European allies on the programme of advanced nuclear deterrence.”

According to Macron, nuclear deterrence will play an increasing role in the world.

“The coming half-century will be a nuclear age, and France will play its full part in it, continuing to strengthen itself,” he concluded.

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Western countries see World War III coming

—Voters in leading allied states broadly support higher defense spending, but balk when faced with policy trade-offs.

February 13, 2026

https://www.politico.eu/article/world-war-iii-defense-spending-europe-poll/

BRUSSELS — Western countries increasingly believe the world is heading toward a global war, according to results from The POLITICO Poll that detail mounting public alarm about the risk and cost of a new era of conflict.

Across all five countries polled — the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France and Germany — the vast majority of respondents think the world is becoming more dangerous. The outbreak of World War 3 is seen as more likely than not within the next five years by American, Canadian, French and British respondents.

The share of voters predicting a new global conflict has risen sharply since independent pollsters Public First asked the question in March 2025. “The changed attitudes of the Western public in under a year reflect a dramatic move to a more insecure world, where war is seen as likely and alliances are unstable,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First.

But The POLITICO Poll also revealed limited willingness among the Western public to make sacrifices to pay for more military spending. While there is widespread support for increasing defense budgets in principle across the U.K., France, Germany and Canada, that support fell sharply when people learned it might mean taking on more government debt, cutting other services or raising taxes.

“Our polling shows the growing concern about war does not give leaders license to spend heavily on defense,” said Wride. “If anything, voters are now less willing to make the trade-offs needed to improve military security. So European leaders are left in a bind — unable to rely on the U.S., unable to use that as a reason to invest domestically, and under higher pressure to urgently solve this for a world where conflict feels closer than before.”

The findings, based on surveys of more than 2,000 voters in each country between Feb. 6 and Feb. 9, lay bare the challenge facing NATO leaders as they try to strengthen security at a time when public finances are tight.

That struggle will shape discussions among politicians from across the world as they head to Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference starting Friday.

With no sign of an imminent end to Russia’s four-year all-out war against Ukraine, and the U.S. taking military action in Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Africa under President Donald Trump, many voters see a growing risk of global conflict.

The pattern is particularly stark in the United Kingdom, where 43 percent believe a new world war is “likely” or “very likely” to break out by 2031 — up from 30 percent in March 2025. Nearly half of Americans — 46 percent — think a new world war is “likely” or “very likely” by 2031 — up from 38 percent last year. Among the five countries, only people in Germany think on balance that a third global war is not likely in the next five years.

When it comes to individual nations engaging in military action, U.S. respondents were the most likely to think their own country will be at war within the next five years, followed by respondents in the U.K. and France.

This suggests NATO’s nuclear powers may be more braced for conflict than other nations, and that Trump’s “president of peace” image is not convincing voters at home.

At least one in three people in the U.S., U.K., France and Canada believe a nuclear weapon is likely or very likely to be used in a war in the next five years.

Russia is seen as the biggest threat to peace in Europe, while Canadians see Trump’s America as the greatest danger to security. In France, Germany and the U.K., the second-biggest threat is seen to be the U.S., which respondents cited far more often than China.

What will it cost?

A majority of voters in France, Germany, the U.K. and Canada said their country needs to spend more on defense, with that sentiment strongest in the U.K. and Canada.

But the question is how to pay for it. The POLITICO Poll found support for more defense spending fell when people were invited to consider whether that funding should come from cuts to other budgets, taking on more government borrowing, or raising taxes.

The French and German publics are now less likely to support higher defense budgets within the context of a spending trade-off than they were last year, according to the results.

In Germany, defense spending was one of the least popular uses of money, ahead of only overseas aid.

In 2025, 40 percent of the French public and 37 percent of the German public said they would support increased defense spending when the trade-offs were mentioned. This year, backing for that fell to only 28 percent in France and 24 percent in Germany.

Both countries are now more likely to oppose spending more on defense when they have to consider how to pay the bill.

The POLITICO Poll showed there is also significant public skepticism about creating an EU standing army under one central command, an idea that has been mentioned by the European Commission. The proposal received support from only 22 percent of people in Germany and 17 percent in France.

Mandatory military service was most popular in Germany and France, where around half of people support the idea.

This edition of The POLITICO Poll was conducted by Public First from Feb. 6 to 9, surveying 10,289 adults online, with at least 2,000 respondents each from the U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany. Results for each country were weighted to be representative on dimensions including age, gender and geography. The overall margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points for each country. Smaller subgroups have higher margins of error.