In the last months, several conversations and workshops around All In gave us an insight about a specific strategic moment for Europe, with diverse elements about militarization and war coming together to create unique opportunities. So some of us came together and wrote up what we saw, in “An Anti-Militarization Moment for Europe – a strategy proposal” in late December 2025.

We had one active and one passive pathway for follow-up. We actively reached out to our existing contacts and asked them “Hey, here is what we noticed. Does this make sense to you?”. We also had an online form at the end of the text for anyone else who comes across with the proposal to get in touch with us so that we could connect interested people with each other.

Beside a wide outreach to some hundred organizations and campaigns, we did a couple of dozens of one-on-one meetings and two presentations in events on militarization, in a period of one month.

This short note is a report back from this process (and it might be too abstract unless you read the strategy proposal first).

What I saw in the movement landscape – observations

As we initially thought, there was no single element in our strategy proposal that was seen as a novelty by the organizers in the anti-war and anti-militarization movement. Indeed, the novelty was not any specific aspect, but the coming-together of several seemingly obvious elements producing a unique combination. From their particular viewpoints, everyone was able to see (much clearer than us) what was going on. However, a movement-level viewpoint would reveal a qualitatively different opportunity.

There was generalized, almost automatic, agreement with the text, but a lack of commitment to dare to attempt at a coordinated, movement-level intervention beyond the scope of particular organizations.

More concretely, there are many groups who feel the wind behind them and reacting to it but do not have strategic goals to navigate towards. I will instead highlight some organizations who I found to be more promising from a movement ecosystem perspective.

In terms of platforms and alliances;

• Stop ReArm Europe has solid political foundations (Transnational Institute plus Italian grassroots movement with broad anti-militarization alliances), many NGOs present, as well as student and teacher organizations actively participating. While their width is a challenge to produce a coherent strategic direction, Stop ReArm Europe aspires to be the movement actor to seize the moment and might as well be the best-positioned organization to pull it off. They meet monthly creating a space to both share what is happening at local level, opening to new collaborations between the organizations present, as well are working on a European action moment for middle of June.
• Transnational Social Strike launched very interesting texts lately, countering the silos within the social movements. Led by Interventionistische Linke (DE), Connessioni Precarie (IT) and Inicjatywa Pracownicza (PL), the Transnational Social Strike seems to be gaining some momentum through the anti-militarization moment. However, they did not show interest in taking up the strategy proposal, the reasons for which are unclear to me: perhaps they didn’t see movement-level coordination as their main contribution/function but would rather focus on pushing for an open debate between the different actors; perhaps they found the proposal a mountain too high for them to climb at the present; perhaps it was something completely different. Either way, they are organizing the Europe at War meeting in Cologne on 28 February.
• Peoples’ Platform Europe includes several groups working on anti-militarization in their contexts. These groups in turn are organized into a Working Group, which had already concluded that there was a need for better coordination around anti-militarization in Europe. They are currently finalizing internal processes and might soon provide movement-level elements. They could also mobilize and bring several key local organizations to a international coordination space for anti-militarization.
• For more specific contributions: Freedom Flotilla Coalition has a lot in their plate for obvious reasons – with a flotilla for Gaza on end of March –, but were quite receptive to a larger anti-militarization space. The Surge International is a useful and used network for sharing resources across organizations and movements. World Beyond War is a platform with chapters well beyond Europe that could hold the more transnational perspective of the process.
• There is also the Stop the War Coalition UK (organizing a European meeting in June), the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (organizing sessions around anti-militarization for a gathering at the European level this March) and the Flotilla for Cuba (although this last one is mainly organized by groups in the Americas). Unfortunately we didn’t manage to meet with them as of the time of the writing of this report.

There are also quite some actions being planned. From what I came across, the following dynamics seem to deserve attention:

• Guerre a la Guerre is a French coalition of diverse movements who share the urgency to act against war and militarism. They serve as an umbrella for various initiatives, including direct actions and big mass actions. They will soon be the main actor driving radical social movement in Europe (if they are not already), with repercussions throughout Europe, in a way following up Les Soulevements de la Terre. Groups with similar names are appearing already in Germany and Italy, although they are not in close collaboration at the moment.
• High-school students are mobilizing against compulsory military service. Starting in Germany, and articulating through the initiative of the Italian student movement, they are now capable of calling for joint actions across Europe.
• On 6 February there were major Dock Workers’ Strikes on the Mediterranean region, focusing on Italy, Greece, Turkey and Morocco. Their message was interesting and it seems they will do more protests soon. They are bringing inspiration, energy and a new (or reborn) element to the movement.
• After the experience of United for Climate Justice and The Surge, Extinction Rebellion Spain is now focused on pushing for a European action moment that connects the climate justice, Palestine and peace movement under “Stop killing us: end to fossil and military arms”.
• Geef Tegengas: is a collective based in The Netherlands that uses direct action to disrupt the destructive machinery of fossil capitalism, logistics, and militarization at its core. They are smart, agile and will probably bring novelty for the movement.

What I saw in the movement landscape – meanings

Reflecting a little bit on what movement strengths already exist, what is missing and what are the most crucial challenges for the moment at the moment, I’d like to write down a few bullet points to serve as feedback to the movement. I do not have experience in anti-war and anti-militarization organizing. This might mean that perhaps I did not grasp some aspects that are obvious for organizers. It might also mean that certain aspects are more visible to me than to someone who is embedded in the topic. Let’s hope that the latter is (also) true so that this section would be useful.

1. European movements are missing crucial angles about global geopolitics and global movement building. Too many groups have too little (if any) awareness, analysis and concrete strategies in relation to aggressions towards the Alliance of Sahel States or to countries in Latin America. If we us the word “solidarity” not in the sense of showing support but in the sense of the movement being one solid unit against a common enemy, then it is not present in organizers’ daily practice.
2. The rift between Western and Eastern Europe is not being addressed sufficiently. This was the biggest practical challenge for me as I had strategy conversations, but it turns out it is also a major obstacle for experienced organizers.
3. The feminist movement in Europe is absent (it is also reported to be very weak in each territory). There is a tacit agreement on the connection and on the politics, but I didn’t see any organized groups present in the discussions. In addition, no one mentioned 8 March as a moment to consider with respect to anti-militarization. (Meanwhile there is a manifesto for an anti-imperialist 8 of March Strike, but it is coming from outside Europe.)
4. The low coordination capability within the anti-war / anti-militarization movement is hard to miss. Several European action moments exist, several conferences are being organized, many people talk about the need for coordination; but these people somehow do not seem to talk with each other. Almost every month from January to August there will be a European-wide conference for anti-militarization. These are separate events repeating the same conversations, and will therefore have difficulty setting next steps.
5. Organizers seem to have a difficulty of holding strategic diversity. Tactical and strategic disagreements are carried over to become obstacles to build a common direction. An movement-ecosystem approach could help mitigate this problem. To unblock this problem the movement needs to have unity and common agreement at a level that is not tactical nor strategical: a common vision and movement direction would do the work.
6. There is interest and mobilization among students as well as dock workers, which gives energy to existing groups. We need to explore this more carefully.
7. Anti-war movement has decades of experience. It also has recent waves of politicization from climate justice, high school students and Palestine movement. This means that an inter-generational awareness and organizational culture will be necessary to coordinate all important movement actors.
8. There already exist broad alliances at the national level in key countries of Europe – at least in France and Italy and partially in Spain and Germany –, which can be used as a leverage for a transnational momentum.

What next?

In the “An Anti-Militarization Moment for Europe – a strategy proposal”, we were very conscious and clear about the extent of our role in this process. All In is not the organization that would implement a strategy of this kind: it doesn’t aspire to be and it doesn’t need to be. We searched for existing movement actors to consider the proposal, and offered back-end support to build a coordination capability. In a somewhat dialectical process, we made ourselves first essential (the ability to identify a movement-level opportunity) and then obsolete (having conversations, connecting groups and organizers, and letting them take the lead). Our job as the All In crew is effectively finalized with the webinar on 9 February wrapping up the process and delivering the conversation to key organizers we met along the way. They will take it up from here on and new curious developments are on the way. Below is therefore just a brief overview of what we already know and whom to follow for next steps.

1. Shaping the gathering of the Transnational Social Strike Platform on February 28 in Cologne, Germany: The minimal plan is to have face to face conversations about strategy and analysis. It will be up to the participants to use the opportunity of being together to give consequent next steps! In the short-term it could probably be the optimal space for agreement on a strategy mem that gives orientation to the movements, something like “We should emphasize this; avoid this wording; focus on demands like this; temporarily demote mentions to this; etc.”. Such an intra-movement contribution could be signed by some groups and circulated within the movement networks. More about the gathering, here.
2. Invest in and transform STOP ReArm Europe: This network brings together hundreds of anti-war organisations, think-tanks, and progressive movements in Europe; has school strikers as well as “veterans” of the anti-globalization movement. This is already a place for exchange what is happening in different countries, having a joint calendar of actions and mobilizations, with some underlying common slogans, and perhaps some shared talking points. They further showed openness and flexibility to transform themselves to be a space for groups to take a serious commitment to work together for the following year under the same agenda, building a movement-level intervention in Europe directed against militarisation. We are not sure if this is possible – nobody could be. But some serious conversations about this are already taking place; and active support and involvement by additional groups could make this feasible. You can join the campaign by subscribing their manifesto. (Their next induction call is on 25 February and other dates will follow).
3. European action moment in June: We realized that several big action moments are being planned for June, that are not aware of each other:
   • Stop Rearm Europe is planing a European moment of actions;
   • Extinction Rebellion Spain is planning with other European groups an action moment titled “Stop killing us: end to fossil and military arms”
   • I also heard of other action groups independently.

This situation could be turned into a European week of action with a common slogan and a common call-out. Organizations would commit to alliance-building and to investing resources to go transnational. (This could be discussed inside the Stop ReArm Europe meetings even if the week of action can become broader than that.) We are connecting the different groups thinking about it. If you are aware of other platforms planning mobilisations for June, let’s bridge them! For now, contact Stop ReArm Europe to get looped in.

I hope this short note gives a relatively informative overview of what is going on in the anti-militarization movement scene in Europe, and contributes to existing and emerging efforts to build a stronger movement.