'Security Has its Price', Former CEUMC Chair Brieger Claims
An interview with General Robert Brieger shows the thought-processes (sic) prevailing in the EU's hive mind
Today, I’ve got a special treat for you—a highly EU credentialed insider speaks to legacy media about the EU, military readiness, enmity against Russia! Russia! Russia! and few other things.
As such, we’ll follow-up on a recent posting about EU politico™ Martin Selmayr—the EU Commission’s éminence gris, less charitably also known as the ‘Beast of Berlaymont’—and his stance about military aspects of EU integration:
So, who is the interviewee? One Gen. Robert Brieger, and here’s his short bio provided by the Austrian Press Agency (APA); for his official CV, click here:
General Robert Brieger (68) was Chief of Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces from 2018 to 2022 and Chairman of the Military Committee of the European Union from May 2022 to May 2025. The committee advises the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and the Political and Security Committee of the EU on military issues.
The below-reproduced interview was conducted by the APA’s Wolfgang Huber-Lang in Vienna Monday, 7 July 2025.
Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine; below the interview, there’s also a bit more about Gen. Brieger…
General Robert Brieger: ‘Security has its price’
For three years, Austrian Robert Brieger coordinated EU defence policy in Brussels. Now the former Chief of Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces is back in Vienna. In an interview with APA, he leaves no doubt about the urgency of the threat situation and the need for increased military and intellectual defence readiness [orig. Verteidigungsbereitschaft]. The Austrian Armed Forces must change from a disaster relief force to a national defence force, and a debate about neutrality is unavoidable.
Via News.at/APA, 8 July 2025 [source; archived]
APA: General, you chaired the Military Committee of the European Union until May. What was it like representing one of only four EU states that are not NATO members? [move on, folks, there’s no spin to be seen here…]
General Robert Brieger: Several of my predecessors were also representatives of neutral states at the time. It was certainly an advantage that there was no suspicion that major national defence interests were lurking in the background [huhum, that would be the Eisenhowerian ‘military-industrial complex’?] Less favourable, of course, is the lack of a certain amount of domestic power. Overall, I think my position as an Austrian officer was good for the whole thing and also brought about respectable compromises—for example in the initiation of the military training mission for Ukraine or the launch of the new naval operation in the Red Sea at the beginning of 2024 [ah, the EU is doing something™ there, too? How’s that going, by the way? It’s called Operation Aspides, which, as per Wikipedia, ‘unlike the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian—a “purely defensive” mission to increase maritime surveillance in the region’ (lol, I’m sure of that—there’s but 1 destroyer, 1 support ship, and 2 frigates involved: that’s how to make a difference, I suppose); here’s the operation’s website; a piece by Al-Jazeera on the occasion of its launch; and a press release on its extension until 2026]
APA: When you were appointed in May 2021, it was literally a different world politically and militarily.
Brieger: The EU’s Common Security and Foreign Policy, which has been in place since 2001 in accordance with a Council decision [that’s a curious reading: it’s a subset of the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) that derives from the Treaty of Nice (2001)], has identified crisis management outside the Union as its main task [as its Wikipedia entry claims, ‘since 2002, the European Union has intervened abroad thirty-five times in three different continents’: trust the EU, we’re totally different than, say, the US or our own past /sarcasm]. A paradigm shift has taken place here. Since the Russian attack on Ukraine, the primary focus has been on defence and territorial tasks in Europe [so, no more venturing abroad to fight demons there, I suppose]. I took office in May 2022, just three months after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine—and I immediately realised that the priorities and expectations towards military and security providers had changed significantly [basically, what Gen. Brieger is telling everyone is that the ‘hoter’ phase of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict—which ‘started in 2014’, as Jens Stoltenberg said in February 2023—is the EU’s 9/11™ equivalent (by which I mean an event that’s certainly a lot more than what is said about it in public and used to foster a quite different agenda; also, lest you wonder: it’s different than 9/11™ as there were not two planes in NYC that brought down three towers, one of which wasn’t even hit by a plane—and even Grok agrees that WTC 1, 2, and 7 are ‘the only steel-frame skyscrapers known to have collapsed primarily due to fire’)].
APA: When Ukraine was invaded in February 2022, anything seemed possible—including a nuclear war. What was the military assessment of the situation?
Brieger: We noticed very harsh rhetoric on the Russian side, including an implicit threat to use tactical nuclear weapons [basically, Gen. Brieger tells us his opinion of what he thought (thinks) the Russian gov’t said; there is no evidence Gen. Brieger knows (enough) Russian to know for sure, though]. In my opinion, these were political signals [he’s a super-smart™ expert™, isn’t he?]. However, we must realise that the use of tactical nuclear weapons is part of Russian military doctrine [oh, here’s a zinger]. The use of such weapons cannot be ruled out—which gives a certain significance to a nuclear defence shield such as the one currently provided by the USA. I personally believe that the decision-makers in the Kremlin are also aware of the risk of escalation [no shit analysis]. Accordingly, I did not consider the immediate use of these means of deployment to be likely [and thus the good Gen. Brieger dropped a few common talking points, which he himself, within a few lines, entirely contradicted: is this still cognitive dissonance or some other form of mental illness?].
APA: More than one generation has grown up in peace and prosperity in Central Europe [there’s only an un-ending present, sayeth The Party, hence everything before the EU (which came into being in 1992/93 courtesy of the Maastricht Treaty) must be the opposite of what is said: there was the ‘Cold War’ and, of course, poverty everywhere, right? Right!]. Wouldn’t there need to be a change in awareness that this may soon come to an end if we are not prepared to defend it?
Brieger: I fully agree with you. I think that the mental-psychological component of our Western democratic society is a very fundamental factor that is directly linked to the willingness to defend ourselves, and of course it has not escaped my notice that this component has been neglected over the last few decades. A credible defence must be recognisable to a potential opponent [what happened to the notion of the best war being the one that doesn’t have to be fought?]. The Russian attack on Ukraine [which, as Mr. Stoltenberg told everyone, ‘started in 2014’, albeit, in my view, with the US-led colour revolution)] was the wake-up call that prompted decision-makers to set a clear tone. This has also happened in a credible form through increases of the defence budget [i.e., it’s boondoggle bonanza time for contractors]. However, we had to realise that these shortcomings cannot be made up for in the shortest possible time. That is why the efforts to establish a European defence readiness are focused on the years 2030/32 [what happens if an enemy™ attacks the EU before that year?]—in order to drive forward the defence industry, the harmonisation of the armed forces, and also the social learning processes. It must be clear: Security has its price. And it has to be paid. Like an insurance policy [I merely point to where the premiums will come from by citing, once more, former US president Eisenhower’s ‘Chance for Peace’ speech, delivered in 1953: ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.’—This is what Gen. Brieger advocates.]
APA: The image that the [Austrian] Armed Forces have created of themselves over the past decades has been that of a disaster relief organisation. Doesn’t this image need to change radically?
Brieger: Yes, of course. Disaster relief worker is a secondary task—and I must self-critically recognise that the Austrian Armed Forces themselves have placed the sympathetic uniform wearer who is on hand in the event of avalanches and floods in the foreground. A technical relief organisation could be cheaper. As a neutral state, we are obliged to make defence preparations. We have not taken this so seriously and are now faced with the challenge of transforming this reduced armed forces into a deployable army that is also able to act together with international partners [pray tell, what could go wrong here? ‘Deployable’ means massive investments in logistics and ‘compatible’ weapons systems, most likely of US provenance: it’s a tribute, to be rendered to the Empire; so far, no talk of drones, advanced rockets, or the ultimate guarantor of sovereignty—nuclear warheads on a hypersonic delivery vehicle—is heard, hence this is all political posturing by highly un-serious people who, in all likelihood, will end up on ‘advisory boards’ or the like of major defence (sic) contractors before too long]
APA: For many in Austria, neutrality is a sacred cow. Would you like to see a new debate about it?
Brieger: I think the discussion is unavoidable. But if you maintain the status of military neutrality, you have to take more military precautions than a country in a task-sharing alliance [and thus the answer re-directs attention from what has been done since 1995: Austria’s EU accession was only possible due to a fundamental alteration of the constitution by extralegal means (which I consider high treason on part of the former gov’t); since 1995, the relevant parts of the constitution were amended seven times, i.e., this is a claim that something™ needs to be done 30+ years after the fact; also, there’s whole ‘security has its price’ notion, for if, say, a country wishes to remain neutral, that, of course, has its price, isn’t it? That Gen. Brieger guy, he’s either a loon who can’t remember what he said moments earlier or he’s a more or less skilled, if habitual, liar (or both, which is what I think)].
APA: Austria’s defence budget is one percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). At its most recent summit, NATO decided to increase this to five per cent. Wouldn’t that be totally unrealistic for Austria? [once more, I’ll re-direct you to Eisenhower’s ‘Chance for Peace’ speech: that money can be spent, but it’ll come from other parts of the budget]:
Brieger: As a non-NATO member, we are not obliged to do so. I think the 5 per cent requirement is a very strong demand, even within NATO. I believe that its main aim was to appease the current US President [isn’t appeasement the wrong attitude to, historically speaking, prevent maniacs from going to war?]. I think it’s a 5:5 trade-off: we are aiming for the 5 per cent, while the USA continues to take the obligation to provide assistance in Article 5 of the NATO treaty seriously [which is why I call NATO a tribute extraction scheme; also, is it too far off to mention Francesca Albanese being placed on the US sanctions list while the Al Quaida types in what once was Syria are now off these sanctions list?]. I don’t dare to predict whether this will work out in the balance with other social necessities [which is code talk for ‘I kinda know that if we cut social spending, da people might become so unhappy that they’ll throw the bums in gov’t out’], which certainly exist. But you have to know that Russian [defence expenditures] are currently at 8.9 per cent of GDP, albeit at the cost of a completely inferior standard of living [another example of the common, if misleading, trope of Russia being little more than a proverbial ‘gas station with nukes’ as the late John McCain put it; adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity, the Int’l Monetary Fund finds the Russian economy to be larger than that of Germany, France, and the UK (just sayin’)]. The introduction of a war economy in Western Europe is not realistic [so, you fellers wanna talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk, is what you’re saying, although, as Gen. Brieger must surely know, the EU Commission is hard at work to establish just that, a ‘war economy’] A lot would be gained if we managed to integrate the European defence industry more closely so that we could limit the incredible diversity of types [which means: boondoggle bonanza time for lobbyists, advisors, and their ilk, incidentally, types like the retired Gen. Brieger].
APA: Wouldn’t that have been part of your job in the EU?
Brieger: A number of steps have been taken in which the Military Committee was able to participate under my chairmanship. There is a clear political intention on the part of the EU to strengthen the so-called defence industrial base. The most important thing would be a common market for defence equipment, and measures are now being taken to this end, from the 150 billion of SAFE (Security Action for Europe) [omitted here is the fact that these are common EU Bonds, which are technically illegal under the Maastricht Treaty, but who gives a shit at this point in time?] to the easing of the stability criteria in order to reach the 800 billion euros over the next ten years [which was achieved by declaring military investments ‘sustainable’, i.e., Green™] that the Draghi report and the ReArm-Europe programme envisage by 2030. Initially, the primary goal was to support Ukraine [by 2030, mind you: that’s another revelatory note as to just how deeply un-serious these people are] in order to achieve the first defence success, which has thankfully been achieved. Now the aim is also to replenish the reserves that have been dramatically reduced by supporting Ukraine through joint procurement [one more time, say it loud: it’s boondoggle bonanza time]. My last major report, which I submitted in mid-May, also dealt with the establishment of appropriate structures for the territorial defence of the EU. Article 42 (7) of the EU Treaty provides for a common duty of assistance—but it is necessary to think about how this should actually be implemented [see this article by Henna Virkkunen for further particulars] in the event of an emergency and how it should be harmonised with NATO [I mean, given the huge overlap between the EU and NATO, a certain modicum is unavoidable (provided either institution continues to exist), but: should it?]. This involves greater military mobility between the member states as well as shorter decision-making processes. If 27 member states spend weeks debating whether they should help each other, this will not be a credible solution [oh, sure, let’s outsource the lighting of the fuse to experts™: shall we re-consider the Covid shitshow for some lessons learned™ in this regard?].
APA: Isn’t a decision needed sooner rather than later as to whether either every EU member must also be a NATO member in future, or whether the EU must also become a strong defence community because the USA can no longer be relied upon in future? [ah, ye olde Anti-Americanism is rearing its ugly head once more: while I personally think this is quite deplorable (for different reasons: given these EU lunatics, I shudder at them making decisions w/o or against the US; also, we note, in passing, that the APA journo™ just suggested to break the Austrian constitution (Ireland’s, too, for that matter) and to shoe-horn Dublin and Vienna into NATO without much, if any, consideration of anything related to both constitutional law or the necessity of, in Austria’s case, of a referendum with 2/3 of the electorate voting in favour…]
Brieger: These are, of course, the questions on the agenda. EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius also says quite bluntly [t’is the same guy who is now paying for journos™ to go to Brussels on ‘defence trips’]: the EU has to raise the money, NATO has the military structure and the operational plans [basically, the plan™ appears to be for the EU to assume the role of the paymaster of the piper (NATO, and by extension, the US): I’m sure this will turn out just dandy]. A synergetic approach must be found here [oh, the EU politicos™ would so very much love to be taken seriously by US planners: too bad that the US is merely a bishop or the like, as opposed to the EU being pawns, on the globalists’ chessboard]. One example: NATO’s capacity targets are confidential information that is not officially available to the EU. Even though 23 EU countries are NATO members! At the end of my time in Brussels, we have now requested information from all EU member states individually. But this does not solve the basic problem of the lack of communication. As long as a NATO country is standing on the brakes here because of divergences with the EU, this will not change [I see two options here: either the EU swallows NATO or vice-versa, although the latter option only becomes realistic once the US quits NATO (which I think it might); and then Canada can join the EU—as none other than The Economist came out in favour of in January 2025 (‘Europe needs space and resources, Canada needs people. Let’s deal’): Lebensraum is now sought in the West, as opposed to the East] Equally, the need for Europe to be able to defend itself will not change. The Americans are not hiding the fact that they see China as their main competitor and that their main strategic interest lies in the Indo-Pacific.
APA: I’ve recently heard several statements such as, ‘We’re running out of time’, or ‘This may be the last summer of peace’ [as military historian Prof. Sönke Neitzel (U Potsdam) mused].
Brieger: There is a consensus in the EU that Russia poses an acute threat to Europe for the foreseeable future. In my opinion, it will only be possible to analyse whether Russia could actually put this into practice once the war in Ukraine is over [so, as long as that quagmire continues, we’re kinda safe, eh?]. However, we are dealing with a regime that is pursuing certain imperial ambitions [see, unlike the EU (which intervened abroad over 30 times since 2002 while Russia didn’t), the threat is Moscow]. In this mindset, territories such as Ukraine and possibly also the Baltic states belong to Russia. When I was allowed to visit the Baltic States, I naturally found a completely different threat perception there than in Western Europe. The only question is whether the risk is accepted and what the long-term strategic goals are [whose? Russia’s or the EU’s?].
APA: In your view, how can the war in Ukraine be ended?
Brieger: The bad news is that the complete restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty is militarily unrealistic [now that’s a bombshell admission, if there ever was one; let’s watch the journo™ fumble once again…]. Politicians have probably learnt that by now. I don’t see many possibilities in terms of operations and capacity to bring about a decision in Ukraine's favour, not only in Crimea but also in eastern Ukraine. According to the analyses available to me [shouldn’t you, you know, disclose these analyses if they aren’t public?], Russia is in a position to continue this war for at least another two years [funny enough, so many military experts™ (like, e.g., Dr. Markus Keupp of the Swiss Military Academy/ETH) were ‘dead-sure’ about Russia collapsing shortly for over three years now (funny that, German-born Dr. Keupp didn’t even do military service)]. How the conflict can be ended, however, can only be answered politically. The initiative lies with Washington and Moscow, and hopefully also with Kiev. Unfortunately, I see few seats for the EU at this negotiating table [there’s a bit of realism so sorely lacking, esp. once compared to, say, the in(s)anities spouted by EU politicos™, such as Kaja Kallas and her ilk].
APA: [EU Defence Commissar] Kubilius says: We are not at war, but we are not at peace either.
Brieger: We are already at war with Russia at a level below conventional war: through disinformation, through cyber attacks, through the financing of certain groups. There are hundreds of examples that show us that there is a great need to make European societies more resilient.
APA: What lessons has the military learnt from more than three years of war in Ukraine? Was it foreseeable that drones would dominate the fighting to such an extent?
Brieger: There has indeed been a fundamental change in combat technology and tactics. In fact, the use of drones has intensified immensely. Measures and countermeasures in the electronic spectrum are in an arms race. The Ukrainians say that there is no point in the EU acquiring a million drones now, because they will be obsolete again in a month [that’s quite literally true, albeit politicos™ are busy buying new main battle tanks, which is about as sane as buying new capital ships for the navy]. Then there is the whole aspect of artificial intelligence and robotics. This development is irreversible. Until now, a foxhole was protection. You can forget that. We also have to rethink combat service in the armed forces.
Bottom Lines
And thus—the interview abruptly ends, just when Gen. Brieger starts talking about the really important stuff. I suppose that these are things no-one really likes to talk about.
We note, in passing, that virtually all things with political implications mentioned by Gen. Brieger fundamentally contradict the nonsense spouted by politicos™ at all levels. These levels of political and cognitive dissonance are both un-bearable and speak louder than any statement uttered by the EU’s politicos™.
What else is relevant here?
Gen. Brieger’s Wikipedia entries in English and German are also relevant here; from the former we learn the following:
Robert Brieger (born 21 November 1956)[citation needed] is an Austrian General of the Austrian Armed Forces and the current Chairman of the European Union Military Committee (CEUMC). Brieger was previously the Chief of General Staff of the Austrian Armed Forces.[1][2] On 19 May 2021, Brieger was selected as the next CEUMC.[3] He took office 16 May 2022.[4] In 2024 Der Standard reported that, in response to a false post claiming that German corpses had been dug up at the Rheinwiesenlager and “passed off as Jewish corpses in order to manipulate the number of victims of the Holocaust”, Brieger wrote “[a]bove all, it is a concealed chapter in the history of the victors”.[5][6]
This ‘revisionism’ is quite an allegation levelled at the then-Chairman of the EUMC: it’s foundation is an exposé™ by notorious leftist Branch Covidian Colette M. Schmidt whose article appeared in Der Standard on no less a date than 20 April 2024 (Hitler’s birthday, by the way; I’m sure this is a coincidence [/sarcasm]): it’s basically because Gen. Brieger commented on someone else’s Facebook posting under his real name: whatever Gen. Brieger’s political and/or personal convictions, I’m unsure this is a relevant aspect of what looks like a witch-hunt.
Further evidence for this consideration comes from Gen. Brieger’s German Wikipedia entry—see if you can spot his real™ thought-crime:
According to chats that became public in 2024, Brieger is likely to be politically associated with the FPÖ [Brieger is 68 now, hence, until his retirement, he stayed out of politics]. Observers in the media assume that Brieger owes his promotion by Mario Kunasek and the Kurz I government to his proximity to the FPÖ [of course, competence cannot play any role in these legacy media assumptions]. Army ministers from other parties would presumably have favoured other candidates, although specific names have been circulated in this context.[23] [funny enough, that evidence™ is the same as the allegation of ‘revisionism’ in the English version; the origin of these allegations (smears) is the website ‘Stoppt die Rechten’, run by former Green politico™ and MP Karl Öllinger]. Brieger has come under additional criticism since it became known that he is in a large number of Facebook contacts of a retired police officer who attracted attention as a Holocaust denier.[24] [this one links to yet another piece by Colette Schmidt and Martin Tschiderer, calling out Brieger’s spouting of ‘Russian propaganda’, him being ‘a security risk’, and additional virtue-signalling from, no less, more Green™ politicos™]
In one of his first statements as Chief of Staff, Brieger aligned himself with the FPÖ by identifying ‘mass migration’ as the ‘greatest current threat’ to Austria’s security[25].
See, that wasn’t too hard to spot: Gen. Brieger is apparently a rather sane professional who once was clear-eyed and outspoken about the real problems.
Then he became Chairman of the Austrian General Staff before he advanced to the top-level EU Military Committee. And once there, his convictions™ (sic) changed from mass-migration to shouting ‘Russia! Russia! Russia!’
Whatever or whoever changed Gen. Brieger’s mind, he could come clean now—and to be fair, to a certain extent, he does so—but for reasons known perhaps only to him (and his paymasters), his statements are obfuscatory, highly misleading, and, frankly, a disservice to the citizenry and the body-politic at-large.
Still, I think the above interview is worth your time and attention, if only because it provides a few insights into the inner workings of the EU hive mind (sic).