The 27-nation European Union this week unveiled a five-year plan "to get ready for war" with Russia.

The so-called "Roadmap on European Defense Readiness 2030" sounds like a war manifesto and a self-fulfilling prophecy, putting the EU on a disastrous collision course with Russia.

It is incredible that such an ominous direction is being blatantly dictated by an unaccountable elite in Brussels. Eighty-five years ago, the Third Reich had a plan to rule over Europe by dominating the Soviet Union. The EU elite are carrying on the plan.

As for the "defense readiness" (that is, "war readiness") roadmap, the future is already here, not in five years. The EU is presently on a disastrous collision course with Russia.

Like the United States, the European Union has been at war with Russia through its proxy regime in Ukraine since February 2022, and before that, going back to the 2014 coup in Kiev.

Over the past four years, the EU has supplied nearly €180 billion of taxpayer money to weaponize a NeoNazi regime in Kiev. As we noted in last week's editorial, that vast allocation (and waste) of resources is far greater than the EU's own member nations have received for developing their economies and societies. When has the European public had a chance to vote on that? Decisions are being made by an elite cabal.

Unlike the Trump administration, the European Union under the influence of arch-Russophobes like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, has shown absolutely no will for finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. With honorable exceptions, most of the European governments are pushing the war hysteria. So, too, are the European media, as are the American mainstream media. Russia is the evil aggressor, no diplomacy, no dialogue with Moscow, no surrender, and so on. It's war-on-autopilot.

The European bloc, at least at the official level, is completely dominated by NATO and intelligence agencies' propaganda portraying Russia as the enemy. The CIA and Britain's MI6 are no doubt pulling the strings and Europe is dancing like a pathetic puppet.

President Donald Trump held a two-hour phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Thursday during which the two leaders agreed to meet in Budapest in the next two weeks. The meeting is a follow-up to their summit in Anchorage on August 15, to try to end the hostilities in Ukraine.

The EU leadership is implacably opposed to any such diplomacy. They were disconcerted by the meeting in Alaska because Trump treated Putin with respectful diplomacy. The latest news about a summit in Budapest is also peeving EU leaders. They are clamoring for Trump to deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, which they will pay for. This is aimed at ensuring that diplomacy gets blown up.

Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, the European Union has undergone a retrograde transformation to become a militarized bloc defined by obsessive hostility towards Russia. The EU is increasingly a clone of the NATO military alliance. Historically, the European Union stood for peace through neighborly trade and commerce. It was intended to have evolved from the ashes of the Second World War, ensuring that war would never happen again on the continent. In 2012, the bloc was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Not that that award means much, but it serves to illustrate the absurdity.

Over recent months, the EU has become fixated on a feverish war mentality. The economies of the 27 nations are increasingly marshaled by military production and spending. The whole purpose of the bloc is being defined as an existential confrontation with Russia. It seems significant that Von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have Nazi skeletons in their family wardrobes. The Baltic states, too, which have emerged as belligerent influences on EU policy, have nefarious links to the Nazi past.

The war mentality reached fever pitch in Von der Leyen's State of the Union address on September 10. She opened by declaring that "Europe is in a fight" with Russia. She said it was a fight for "freedom and independence," and she united the cause of the EU with Ukraine against Russia.

"Europe must fight... because Ukraine's freedom is Europe's freedom," she claimed.

Von der Leyen, the former German military minister, and the European Union's most senior official, who is unelected, was declaring that the bloc was at war. Now, not in five years.

In recent months with intensifying emphasis, the EU's intelligence agencies (CIA, MI6 clones) have been warning of war with Russia as imminent, and there has been a suspicious surge in drone incursions in Poland, Estonia, Romania and Denmark, which have been blamed on Russia without any evidence.

All the while, European leaders and NATO chief Mark Rutte (a former Dutch prime minister, and an abject clone if ever there was one) have been calling for massive increases in military spending to "counter the Russia threat". In March, Von der Leyen floated the figure at €800 billion for the bloc to spend on "defense".

In 2014, the combined EU military spend was less than €200 billion. It now stands at €340 billion. That is an increase by 70 percent over a decade.

The roadmap unveiled this week sure enough delivers on Von der Leyen's earlier astronomical figure. It is planning a total EU spend on military of €800 billion - more than double the current level and four times the level the EU spent 10 years ago.

This is insane and unsustainable. If it doesn't escalate into an all-out war in Europe, the least damaging effect of such wanton militarism will destroy European nations from economic and political collapse.

It is clear that major decisions have been made behind closed doors to take the EU in a direction towards increased militarism where the civilian economies are transformed into war economies. That's great news for military corporations and politicians who are sponsored (bribed) by lobbyists. European citizens are the losers and they are not being consulted about their fate. Their societies are being drained of vital resources, which are being sucked up by militarism and corporate investors.

To pull off this grand theft and deception, the EU relies on unelected bureaucrats like Von der Leyen, Kallas and Rutte to whip up Russophobia and "war fears". The mainstream media plays its part by peddling intelligence propaganda to manufacture public acquiescence.

However, there is pushback to the craziness. The rise of populist (that is, more representative and democratic) parties is demonstrating contempt for the undemocratic EU ruling class. The protests in France throwing the government into chaos are motivated by disgust at the economic cutbacks for public services and workers' rights while Paris throws billions of euros propping up the proxy war in Ukraine.

To their credit, governments in Hungary and Slovakia are speaking out against the warmongering of the EU towards Russia. Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico have criticized the militarization of Europe and are consistently calling for diplomacy with Moscow.

It is significant that Trump chose to meet Putin in the Hungarian capital for their next meeting, chaired by Orbán who described the event as "great news for people who want peace".

The European-NATO leadership is displeased by the Budapest venue because it suggests following a diplomatic option instead of a policy of war-on-autopilot.

The Russophobic Euro elites are trying to railroad the continent to war. They can see no other way of doing international relations. They have committed the EU to war and dictatorial war spending that is criminal. They, therefore, cannot allow peace and diplomacy to succeed because that would be an admission of their criminal warmongering.

But their way is leading to the abyss.