Babel War

1. Introduction

Our European governments, led by the European Commission, have lately been seized by a bellicose obsession, spreading like wildfire the idea that our countries were in great danger and that the Russians (yes, them again) might invade us shortly. In their grave voices, one could already hear the tank tracks crushing women and children in our blood‑soaked countryside.

Hence the imperative need to devote a good part of our hard‑earned (and heavily taxed) money to developing a war machine capable of resisting these bloodthirsty invaders, and to do so urgently (while knowing that it would take us ten years to make up for lost time). The long‑abandoned production of tanks, planes, weapons, cruisers and assorted submarines was to resume as soon as possible, on pain of being forced into unconditional surrender. And not forgetting drones, of course, since these little snoopers have become indispensable to any well‑conducted attack.

All this in the context of an “old‑style, obviously” war: “air/land/sea”, in which young people give their lives, with a smile and the sense of a duty accomplished, in the mud and blood of the trenches.

A nuclear war is not even conceivable, you see: one, two, three, lights out and it’s all over… For everyone, including our dear leaders who could not, at that point, slip into the skin of little tin‑pot Churchills and deliver long warlike speeches, gazing into the distance, to their populace on the brink of famine and deprived of Netflix. No, that won’t do! They must survive to rebuild the world after the apocalypse! That is their great destiny!

In short, let’s rule out nuclear war.

Next, after this re‑industrialisation focused entirely on armaments, and therefore on equipment, you still need hands to take up the assault rifle and shoot at the bad guy opposite… And as accurately as possible, otherwise you will be the nasty guy opposite.

The professional armies that today constitute our bulwark and our capacity for intervention abroad do not have enough men to contain a powerful invader on an immense front. So we will have to resort to good old conscription: “Enlist, re‑enlist. Come and die for your homeland… Er, yes, the one that taxes you to the hilt, lies to you and gives you very little in return… Yes, yes… That very one… Come ooon, guys, sacrifice yourselves, will you…”

What on earth will the recruiting sergeants say to invite young people of every stripe to give their lives? The promise of a swift return of TikTok and Instagram? I am not making fun of this young generation, quite the contrary: it has better things to do than die for the vainglory of paranoid, narcissistic and egocentric leaders, who were not damn well able to offer them great destinies and fine projects during the period of peace…

So we will need a whole basketful of yokels to offer our dear homeland practically free cannon fodder. Off you go, three months of training and go get riddled with bullets and shrapnel at the bottom of some godforsaken hole… To gain a few metres of ravaged land where nothing grows any more and where all life has already disappeared. That is the real destiny that will be offered to your sons, your daughters, your brothers, your sisters, your friends… War, in other words.

2. What nobody is talking about

At least as far as I know… And yet it literally leaps out at me: the problem of languages!

All national armies speak their native language: nothing could be more normal… So everything is simple: the orders, the implied meanings, the messages…

As far as I know, Europe is not yet (and perhaps never will be) a nation. It is a kaleidoscope of 27 countries speaking 24 often very different languages!

And they want to make it ONE single army. How is it going to communicate?

Obviously, professional armies commonly use English, chosen not because of the number of native speakers but because NATO is what it is, led by the Americans, and because the equipment, and therefore the manuals and other instructions/programming, are written in this language that has become universal… A sort of Esperanto without its philosophy. And spoken, at any rate, from the officers down to the non‑commissioned officers (in principle only).

As a result, operations carried out within strict frameworks in which each nation has a very specific role to play pose no major problems. We are among “pros”, after all!

But think of an old‑style war, on the ground, where thousands of guys are  jointly conducting an assault, a battle, or even a retreat… Thousands of young people of all backgrounds, cultures and different levels will have to coordinate, support each other, protect each other, save each other’s skins?

Let’s assume that after three months of training they have all acquired basic English (and why English in that case, by the way: only the Irish are native speakers of it now)… I am still willing to go along with that. Just the basics, so young people  incapable of understanding or interpreting an order that is even a tad complex! First problem.

Then let’s assume once again (I feel as if I am in Jean‑Marie Bigard’s bat sketch) that they are all able to understand English fairly well… That still leaves the problem of accents!!!

Imagine for a moment the hell of combat: bullets whistle, shells fall, planes skim the treetops, unleashing their missiles and machine guns, drones buzz on all sides, you are covered in mud, you are more afraid than ever before, your buddy is spilling his guts next to you, screaming… And over a crackling radio, a Polish captain barks an order at you, an Italian yokel from some southern backwater, with his strong Slavic accent… In that din, in that hell, do you think everything will be clear? And your reply, in your Italian accent, to this Pole you have never seen — do you think he will understand it? The same can be said of a Swede and a Portuguese, a Frenchman and a Croat, etc…

Imagine for a moment the carnage in store! At every level and for no reason!

A memory of 14‑18 (you know, the “war to end all wars”, a promise that held for only 22 years): some Flemings still reproach today’s French speakers for having caused more Flemish deaths in the trenches because the orders were given in French by mostly French‑speaking officers and the Flemish did not understand them. One example among others. Because I am not sure that at the same time a very “British” officer was understood by the Scottish yokel amid the din and the cries of pain on the battlefield. Fortunately, the whistle already existed…

Some will point to today’s technology, simultaneous translation, artificial intelligence that will solve all that… Well, yes, in a living room, relaxing between two TV series, but in the hell of combat everything has to be instantaneous, every second counts, and even with simultaneous translation it will not work. I am certain of it. And in any case there remains the immediate understanding of an instruction in a language spoken with a strong accent that the digital translator may well misinterpret! Not to mention the state of the networks!

As for the division of tasks, as practised in interventions by professional soldiers where functions are allocated by country: some deal mainly with logistics, others with transport, others again with patrols, etc… This division, in the context of a generalised, global conflict, the one we are being told is coming and which I personally do not believe in for a single moment, this division will be practically impossible, given the immensity and complexity of such a front.

So, to my mind, the fantasy of an effective European army in a hard, frontal conflict seems as far from reality as the nuclear war that would wipe out almost every form of life on the planet… So much the better for the ants and the scorpions: they could not do worse than us.

All this is being put in place just to frighten us. Just to save the skins of incompetent politicians, incapable of running their nations. Just for the pride of a peroxide‑blonde Valkyrie and her henchmen… No thank you. Especially since, believe me, their children, husbands, sisters, brothers and friends will be safely tucked away and exempted from sacrifice for a non‑existent homeland.

3. The only solution: PEACE.

Rather than going along with this programmed absurdity, let us revolt, let us rise up and together apply all the pressure needed to say NO: no to war, no to useless sacrifices, no to death. The means exist: stopping paying our taxes, refusing to vote or to submit to inept regulations… Given that petitions and demonstrations are useless. I pity those who have not yet realised this.

Let us come together to resist these warmongers who have never even held a water pistol in their hands and who think they are in a video game in which they are the heroes. Let us demand that they find peaceful solutions, that they finally have the dignity and the strength to assert themselves on the world stage with intelligence, vision and honesty.

Enough of the schemes, the petty games between enemies. We pay them dearly every month to be effective and ensure our well‑being, not to send half of our youth to their deaths!

Means of pressure exist if they are intelligent and if everyone plays along, not like recently, when everything carried on “on the quiet”, with private interests being put ahead of a just sanction that was proclaimed but never applied.

What has become of diplomacy, agreements, reasonable arrangements? Far from these clownish antics that have brought us to our knees more than our adversaries (if they even exist - we have not yet been attacked, I would point out). Where are our dark forces that would allow us to wage a powerful cyber battle with high‑flying hackers who would make our enemies tremble without shedding a drop of blood? Ah yes, I forgot, they have all fled abroad to escape our ridiculous regulations and our microscopic salaries, taxed ad libitum!

In short, if we do not act NOW and stand up against these hidden internal forces that want to sacrifice us for their sole profit and survival, well then, it is our young people who will perish in the hell of a combat that will in any case end around a table one day or another, in the hushed calm of circles that have lost nothing.

All we will have left are tears, a traumatised youth and a devastated world…

Make your choice.

Watson, 22 March 2025

The opinions expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BAM!

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