Some people prepare for a weekend getaway, others plan their holidays. And then there’s the European Commission, which invites EU citizens to “prepare for possible crises and emergencies.” Seasons change, viruses mutate, but emergency remains. Just like someone at the supermarket hides ten bottles of whiskey under a box of salad to avoid looking like an alcoholic, Brussels slips war among “emergencies”—alongside pandemics, natural disasters, cyberattacks, and climate crises—so as not to look belligerent. But alas, the bottle sticks out of the bag, and it’s all too visible.
In theory, the new “Preparedness Union Strategy” aims to strengthen the resilience of European citizens. In practice, it urges families to stock up on essential supplies—water, food, medicine, batteries—for at least 72 hours. As if the looming storm were not a hurricane, but an unnamed, yet unmistakable war. All this comes with informative platforms, civil drills, and the promotion of a full-fledged “culture of preparedness.” Too bad the scent of war lingers heavier than that of canned goods in a bomb shelter.
War is in the air—but no one dares say it
The real question is: why should we fear war in 2025 more than in any decade since WWII? Not even during the peak of the Cold War, with nuclear missiles pointed at our heads, did European citizens receive official calls to hoard supplies. Yet today, as casually as one recommends a gym membership, we’re advised to prepare for life without running water for three days.
But there is a method to the madness: a psychological conditioning is underway—a soft indoctrination into seeing war as an inevitable, perhaps even desirable, outcome. Much like the pandemic benefited Big Pharma, or the climate crisis fuels the green economy, war is being repackaged as a necessity. “Preparing” isn’t just about canned beans; it’s about mentally training ourselves to accept everything: rearmament, censorship, and the idea that dissenters are a threat.
Fear as a tool of governance
Control through fear is an age-old sociological tactic. Michel Foucault understood it well. But so did Don Luigi Sturzo, who warned in 1949: “When the State invades everything, even the freedom of the soul is at risk.” And indeed, this EU “preparedness strategy” smells exactly like that kind of invasion. On one hand, it builds the specter of a Russian threat; on the other, it lays the groundwork for special laws, systematic censorship, homogenized media, and new forms of forced mobilization of thought.
We’ve seen this movie before. It’s called the pandemic. And no—it wasn’t a documentary.
The script is already written
Let’s recall the structure:
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Exaggeration of the threat
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Celebrities reciting the same lines on every network
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Demonization of dissent
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Emergency laws on information
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Paternalistic appeals to sacrifice “for the common good”
Now the virus is replaced with war, but the method is identical—scientific, relentless.
It’s no coincidence that just as citizens are told to prepare for “everything,” the EU:
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Arms Ukraine down to the last euro
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Blocks diplomatic pathways
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Pressures the U.S. not to negotiate with Moscow
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Labels any peace proposal as “pro-Russian”
Meanwhile, authoritarian maneuvers are normalized: from cancelling elections in Romania to an attempted assassination of the Slovak prime minister. All in the name of democracy, of course. As Piero Calamandrei once said: “In the name of liberty, chains are forged.”
The war economy, the anesthetized mind
One must ask: has war become the new strategy for Europe’s economic revival?
Welfare has been replaced by weapons. Public spending now buys missiles, not medicine. Peace is an obstacle. And the so-called “culture of preparedness” is merely a refined form of collective anesthesia, where fear justifies everything: from coercive control to forced taxation, from censorship to the erasure of dissent.
As Pasolini warned: “One realizes too late that death began the moment one started obeying.”
Inviting citizens to war
Let’s not pretend we’re blind—or naïve. The call to stockpile is not a genuine act of protection. It’s yet another step in a long campaign to condition Europeans—not to defend against a real danger, but to accept a politically constructed one. Citizens are being turned into mental laborers for the war industry. We are not being taught peace; we are being trained for necessity.
And here’s the most disturbing part:
When populations are conditioned to expect war, without it being declared, they are already participating in that war—unknowingly, unwillingly.
Because to act as if war is imminent without naming it strips people of their ability to judge clearly. It feeds fear, cultivates resignation, shuts down debate, and primes the masses to rationalize any future move: sanctions, censorship, militarization, economic sacrifice. Everything becomes “necessary,” “inevitable,” “just.”
Those who prepare the psychological ground for war, while pretending to avoid it, are already complicit.
This narrative of “preparedness” does not make us more resilient—it weakens us. It replaces liberty with reflex, critical thought with obedience, and peace with well-branded panic. As Norberto Bobbio reminded us: “Democracies are not defended with lies, but with truth.”
So let’s say it clearly:
No real emergency is so heavily pre-advertised—unless it is being made permanent.
The war they refuse to name has already begun—in our minds.
But those who resist orchestrated panic, who prepare not for blind obedience but for clear discernment, will be the last to guard what remains of European civilization.
Because—to put it simply—if they are preparing us for war without saying it, they are not protecting us: they are using us.