You would have to be deaf and blind to be unaware that we are being prepared for war. The message is becoming increasingly difficult to miss. Headlines and stories repeatedly feature common themes: Russia threatens us, war is coming, Britain is unprepared, ordinary people must make sacrifices. Some of that is true: war is coming, the ruling class is unprepared and we will be the class expected to make sacrifices but the threat is not from Russia; it is the economic crisis of western imperialism whose only salve is war.
We don’t need to question if war is inevitable because it has already commenced in many regions of the world; controlled and fuelled by British, US and other European interests. What we need to ask ourselves is whose war are we being prepared for, whose interests are being served, and who will pay the price?
Over recent months our mass media has been delivering an increasingly familiar message that Russia represents an existential threat, war with a major power is becoming more likely, our armed forces are dangerously underfunded and we, the British people, must prepare for sacrifice. Not just financial sacrifice, that is inevitable and already well underway, but the ultimate sacrifice of our own lives and those of our children.
The warnings come from military chiefs, intelligence agencies, government ministers, senior public services and NATO officials and are dutifully amplified across our television screens, newspapers and social media feeds. Different messengers deliver remarkably similar messages and it is worth examining how the narrative is being constructed, what we are being encouraged to believe and, most importantly, whose interests are served by our believing it. If we don’t do it now and we allow the propaganda to serve its purpose, we will become indoctrinated and fall prey to our rulers’ design for our death and destruction.
The threat is coming. Be afraid!
Fear is a powerful political weapon and over the past six months, our media has carried repeated warnings about Russian sabotage, cyberattacks, interference with infrastructure, military aggression and the prospect of a wider European war.
In September, The Guardian reported intelligence warnings that Russia could attack a NATO country within months. The headline was alarming, even though the underlying intelligence assessment described the immediate risk as low. This distinction matters because a possibility presented prominently enough, and repeated frequently enough, begins to acquire the appearance of probability. That’s why they call it propaganda. The BBC has reported extensively on suspected Russian sabotage across Europe, while Sky News has carried warnings from intelligence officials about Moscow’s alleged attacks on British infrastructure.
Allegations are not evidence, intelligence assessments are neither infallible nor independent, and the claims of British security agencies should be subjected to the same scrutiny as those of any other state. Yet instead we are repeatedly encouraged to see Russia as the explanation for an expanding range of problems from energy insecurity and cyberattacks to the vulnerability of our supply chains. How convenient that the deficiencies of our economic system, its dependence on international markets, the deterioration of our infrastructure and decades of detrimental political decisions can increasingly be explained through the actions of an external enemy.
From fear to inevitability
Having established the threat we must then be convinced that war preparations are not simply desirable but unavoidable.
In September, The Guardian reported NATO defence officials’ concerns that European countries were insufficiently prepared to sustain a prolonged war with Russia. Particularly revealing was their concern about persuading populations to accept cuts to welfare spending in order to finance rearmament. There it is. The problem is not merely military preparedness but the unwillingness of ordinary people to surrender more of their already diminishing share of society’s wealth.
On 16 October, The Times reported comments from General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, who warned that Britain’s political leaders would soon need to explain why citizens must accept sacrifices to prioritise defence and security. His words deserve attention: “They’re going to try and explain to our citizens that our citizens have got to consent to sacrifices to prioritise defence and security.” If we have to consent, surely it isn’t consent?
He goes on to say, “But as anyone who is studying the trajectory of world affairs, and the geopolitical system within which our nation sits and thrives, will realise, there is extreme jeopardy in the world at the moment.” Well I study the trajectory of world affairs and the geopolitical system closely and the only extreme jeopardy I see emanates from the west, whose illegal aggressive attacks and crippling sanctions threaten the sovereignty of nations and peace in the world. And anyone who thinks our nation is thriving is clearly not a coherent member of the working class.
What it all tells us is the ruling class recognises the need to secure public acceptance of policies that will have consequences for living standards and public services. People must be persuaded that the sacrifices demanded of them are necessary, reasonable and patriotic and who better to assist with that persuasion than the mass media.
Manufacturing consent
Consider the sources routinely presented as experts on the necessity of rearmament: military chiefs, NATO commanders, intelligence officials, defence ministers and security analysts. People who have institutional and personal interests in the policies under discussion. Yet their pronouncements frequently become the starting point for news coverage rather than propositions requiring independent examination. If the media was seeking to present balanced journalism, as indeed it should, it would ask communists, anti-war protesters, decent unionists and workers for their opinions –but the narrative is carefully curated.
Likewise, where are the questions about NATO’s unnecessary and increasingly aggressive expansion; where is the history of hostile western intervention; where are the considerations and consequences of escalating military confrontation; where are the suggestions for diplomatic alternatives to war; where is the sustained scrutiny of the enormous profits available to arms manufacturers when governments commit billions more of our taxes to military expenditure; where is the serious examination of whether the interests of Britain’s working class have anything in common with the geopolitical ambitions of the British state?
Such questions are conspicuous by their absence from much of mainstream reporting so it must be down to us to think of and ask them before we find ourselves regurgitating their war-mongering arguments mindlessly.
Our sacrifice, their profits
What I find particularly offensive is the spectacle of Britain’s ruling class demanding sacrifice from us. Millions of people are already struggling with housing costs, energy bills, inadequate public services and stagnant living standards yet the same political establishment that repeatedly tells us there is insufficient money to meet these needs is preparing to redirect tens of billions of pounds towards military expenditure. Who buys that crap!
Since November 2025, several new weapons manufacturing plants have opened or been announced in Britain, producing or preparing to produce tank barrels, artillery components, military drones and other equipment for war. The government is also planning at least six additional munitions factories.
The drive towards rearmament creates profitable opportunities for private capital, sold to us as skilled jobs. Well there are plenty of skilled jobs required to build a decent society. What we want is an economy that fulfils our needs, not one focused on propping up the military-industrial complex. We must never forget that military production is an industry, weapons and people are commodities and war preparations create markets. We want to rebuild Britain’s capacity to undertake meaningful and useful production.
It is also worth acknowledging that those who manufacture weapons are not those who will operate them, and those who profit from military contracts are not those whose sons and daughters fill the ranks of the armed forces. Conveniently, in a recent article about compliance with military conscription it was suggested we might adopt models similar to those used in Greece and Switzerland where severe fines present a genuine disincentive not to serve. Should such a system be adopted, it would offer a convenient ‘out’ for the wealthiest sections of society whilst throwing poor working-class youngsters to the slaughter. The call is for all Britons to be making sacrifices together. Bullshit!
Preparing the population
This month the government launched its Be Ready campaign, encouraging households to maintain emergency supplies of food, water, medicines and other essentials sufficient for three days. Notice how it is conveniently sandwiched between severe weather and cyberattacks. Just like suggestions that young people were willing to do national service was actually them being open to “a year-long, paid programme with charities, community organisations, emergency. services or the armed forces”. i.e. military service was presented last. The media manipulation machine at work again.
When advice about household resilience appears alongside repeated warnings of Russian aggression, military confrontation and the necessity of national sacrifice, it builds a wider atmosphere of escalating fear where war preparations become part of everyday life. What was once extraordinary becomes ordinary – they call it the new norm. We are encouraged to think about war not as a political catastrophe that must be prevented, not as a ruling class solution to its economic crisis that we must oppose with every fibre of our being, but as a practical eventuality for which our only recourse is to prepare – and then die.
Whose side are we on?
We are being prepared for sacrifice, that much is not even being concealed any longer. Military chiefs openly acknowledge that public consent must be secured, while politicians and media commentators increasingly present rearmament as an urgent national obligation. But consent requires understanding, and understanding requires more than the repetition of official warnings from what we all already agree are corrupt politicians, public servants and corporate capitalists.
We should be asking who benefits from the military expenditure, whose interests Britain is defending, why public services must suffer and why diplomatic alternatives receive so little prominence. Above all we must reject the proposition that loyalty to our country means unquestioning loyalty to those who rule it.
The workers of Britain have more in common with the workers of Russia, Ukraine and every other country than with the capitalist interests that profit from our exploitation and send us to fight their wars. Our task is not to prepare ourselves obediently for the sacrifices demanded by our rulers but to develop the class consciousness necessary to recognise those demands for what they are – a recognition that we are no more than expendable commodities in their pursuit of plunder and profit. We must challenge the propaganda and organise collectively against impending imperialist war.
When the ruling class tells us that we must all make sacrifices for the national interest, the first question every worker should ask is: whose national interest, and why should we die for it? And if that question is tickling your tongue, investigate and join the British chapter of the anti-fascist international. It is workers who make and move all the supplies for war, workers who fight, and workers who distribute the propaganda lies via the media channels, so if we choose not to participate, the war machine is crippled.
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