War being the New Peace, Nordic Leftists Celebrate Militarism

More about the status of the increasingly delusional 'Left™' in the North and elsewhere in Europe.

Sigh.

A few days ago, I posted a brief recap about the insane propositions emanating from left-liberal circles in Norway:

Our Sick and Lunatic Elites

I had planned to follow-up on this one by posting what I’m putting below, but then former German foreign minister and Social Democrat (sic) Sigmar Gabriel called for German troops to be deployed in Ukraine…

So, here’s a brief update from the discursive frontlines; translation and emphases mine, as are the bottom lines. Sigh.

---

Tanks to be Produced in Norway For the First Time

‘This could be the start of a new Norwegian industrial fairy tale’ [orig. eventyr], says Minister of Defence Bjørn Arild Gram (Sp).

By Lena Erikke Hatland, Ole Marius Trøen Journalist, and Kristine Kjendalen, NRK, 11 June 2024 [source]

37 of the 54 main battle tanks Norway has ordered from Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann will be assembled at Ritek in Levanger.

The agreement was signed in Oslo Militære Samfund on Tuesday morning.

The plan is that Ritek will not only assemble the Norwegian Leopard vehicles, but also become a Nordic hub for maintenance, repair and upgrading of the Nordic Leopard fleet.

So says Minister of Defence Bjørn Arild Gram (Sp [yes, a ‘social democrat’]).

An Important Step

In 2023, the government decided to purchase 54 new Leopard 2 A8 NOR tanks.

According to the Ministry of Defence, this is the most modern and digitised tank ever made, and a very important step in strengthening the Norwegian Armed Forces.

‘According to the plan, the production line will be maintained after the Norwegian tanks have been manufactured, so that Ritek can continue to produce tanks for export to other countries’, says Gram, adding:

This creates ripple effects, jobs, and value [sic] creation in Norway. It also strengthens our preparedness because we gain workshop capacity and expertise that will enable us to support the new tanks coming to Norway, which are among the best in the world.

‘A Great Day’

The agreement will help to strengthen NATO’s and Europe’s capacity to increase the production of tanks in the future.

The ministry points out that Ritek is centrally located near important logistics hubs in the centre of the Nordic region.

It is also an area with access to the specialised workforce that the company needs to grow.

‘This is a great day for Ritek. We’re happy and proud to have been awarded such a major contract’, says chairman Edgar Fossheim [small wonder].

‘There aren’t many companies in Europe that make tanks—so this is very special’, says Anita Ravlo Sand, Mayor of Levanger, adding:

And unfortunately, it’s something that’s in great demand. It’s an important product that needs to be produced, and I’m pleased that Ritek has been given this opportunity.

Ritek was founded in 2003 by former employees of the Norwegian Defence's technical workshop, and has assignments for both the Armed Forces and civilian customers.

They have almost 60 employees.

‘There is a need for increased heavy manufacturing capacity in the Nordic region, which the agreement can facilitate. The contract signed here today will strengthen the industrial cooperation between Norway and Germany, while also strengthening Europe’s resilience and security of supply’, says the Minister of Defence.

---

Bottom Lines

Instead of adding my own musings, I shall cite at-length from John Flynn’s As We Go Marching (1944), specifically from Part Three, Chapter IV (but I highly recommend reading the entire book):

Far more important than war is the preparation for war. Indeed war itself is often a by-product of this preparation and of the circumstances which lead to preparation. Preparation for war is far more effective than war as an antidote against unemployment. War produces a more complete result but it is temporary, passes swiftly, and leaves behind it immense dislocations. But preparation for war can go on for a long time—for forty years in Germany and France and Italy. War or preparation for war establishes the government as the one big customer for the one big industry to which almost all industries become tributary: the armament industry. Preparation for war—national defense, it is called—can take a million or more men in this country in peacetime out of the labor market and put them in the army while at the same time three times as many can be drawn into the industries which provide them with tanks, planes, guns, barracks, food, clothes, etc., all paid for by the government with funds raised largely if not altogether by debt.

Just a brief comment: these few lines explain, much better than anything else, why ‘the Left™’ consistently favours such policies: because it enlarges ‘the state’ and thus advances the left-wing aims.

One more snippet from Flynn to drive home that point:

War as an economic instrument is possible because it is possible to work up a moral support for war—or for national defense. War produces its economic effects wholly by sending the government off upon a gigantic spree of spending borrowed funds. It would be possible to obtain the same effects by spending borrowed funds on any other sort of project. But there is, as yet, no project behind which the necessary moral energy can be generated.

Here’s a thought for you to ponder: ‘Climate Change™’ failed in that regard; hence, escalation of the Ukrainian mess is the fall-back position to advance the over-arching aim of totalising public-private partnership control.

Seen in this light, the current war fever becomes quite…intelligible.