Brave Researcher EXPOSES NATO Targeting EU Citizen's Brains | Dr. Jonas Tögel

## Germany war mood and rearmament Europe's drift toward normalization of militarization is not random drift; it is the product of a sustained campaign to reframe threat, necessity, and identity. The conversation with Dr. Jonas Tögel exposes how a simple, repeatable narrative—Russia as an imminent existential threat—has been amplified across institutions to produce a "whole-of-society" orientation toward rearmament. Across media, school curricula, industry directives and public opinion research the message is consistent: rearm, prepare, and accept social change as inevitable. That repetition, institutionalized and financed, creates momentum that is difficult to reverse once civic routines and industrial lines begin to pivot toward defense production. The mechanics are striking. Military planners and public relations efforts no longer speak only to defense ministries; they aim at classrooms, families and workplaces, seeking behavioral as much as policy change. The Bundeswehr's outreach to teenagers—open days, demonstrations, school visits—normalizes military life while framing enlistment as civic and even recreational aspiration. At the same time national surveys commissioned by defense institutions reveal what they seek: a public convinced of danger and therefore of the necessity for costly and disruptive measures. When 60–80% of a population come to regard the military as a primary guarantor of safety, the political space for demilitarizing proposals narrows dramatically. ## Resistance youth and public fear Yet the picture is not monolithic. The younger cohorts, from mid-teens to early twenties, reveal a fissure. The conversation highlights reports that a significant share of youth resist military registration and outreach—failing to fill in Bundeswehr forms and, in some cases, openly protesting the surge in war rhetoric. That reluctance may be rooted partly in generational attitudes toward risk, economic precarity, or a moral refusal to be instrumentalized for geopolitical agendas. More than a generational trait, it is a social signal: many young people simply do not see war as consonant with their lives and futures. At the same time, the public climate of fear feeds aggressive media framing, making dissent both more urgent and more precarious. Students who voice antiwar sentiments can be disciplined or stigmatized; parents and teachers report growing discomfort with military presence in schools; even churches are described as preparing spiritual frameworks for a wartime society. Fear, in this sense, is performative: it compels behavioral conformity and justifies extraordinary policies. Yet the persistence of youth resistance points to an undercurrent of civic agency. The task for peace advocates is to sustain and amplify that agency before inoculation strategies and social penalties dampen it. ## NATO pressure and Europe A central theme in the discussion is how NATO and allied strategic thinking shape European domestic politics. Dr. Tögel underscores that many of the plans driving the current climate are not abstractions but concrete military exercises, war games and doctrinal papers that envisage scenarios in which Europe is the primary battleground. When military analysis treats the public mind as a battlefield—what is called cognitive warfare—the line between external defense planning and internal political engineering blurs. NATO's posture, amplified by Brussels and national capitals, thus has a dual effect: it signals to potential adversaries and it socializes populations into an acceptance of extraordinary preparation. This external-internal feedback loop becomes especially dangerous where industrial and economic planning dovetail with military objectives. Factories are retooled to produce tanks instead of cars; energy and trade policies are reshaped in ways that exacerbate economic strain. The result is a society recalibrated for sustained confrontation. Dr. Tögel warns that such reconfiguration invites reciprocal measures from the other side: remilitarization by one party begets countermeasures, each justified by the other's initial steps. In these dynamics, Europe risks becoming the arena for geopolitical rivalry between larger powers, subordinating civilian welfare to strategic competition. ## Gaza Iran and empire violence The conversation moves from European rearmament to a broader critique of imperial patterns of violence. The framing of current crises—whether in the Middle East or in relations with Russia—often centers on narratives of democracy and defense that obscure longer histories of coercion and strategic interest. Dr. Tögel presses for a candid appraisal of the role superpower strategy has played in shaping Europe's security architecture: policies that present as defensive can be—and often are—parts of a broader effort to preserve spheres of influence and global dominance. Linking Gaza, Iran and European militarization exposes patterns rather than isolated incidents. Military interventions, proxy engagements and economic coercion are woven together into a systemic logic that privileges strategic advantage over human security. When public narratives reduce complex conflicts to binary moral claims, the realpolitik drivers—sanctions, arms markets, geoeconomic rivalry—escape scrutiny. A more honest public conversation would examine how empire-level strategies incentivize continual insecurity and how populations in Europe are being asked to absorb the social and human costs of those strategies. ## Peace movement and war messaging Given these pressures, the health of the peace movement becomes an urgent variable. The conversation stresses that the collapse of robust antiwar politics did not happen by accident: a sustained disinvestment in peace institutions, the marginalization of alternative voices, and the normalization of militarized thinking have all contributed. Yet the persistence of dissident youth and independent media shows that alternative narratives still circulate. Reviving a credible peace movement requires more than slogan-making; it demands new forms of truth-speaking that connect lived economic and social anxieties to geopolitics and that make clear who benefits from conflict. Reinvigorating that politics also depends on narrative strategy. The dominant war messaging simplifies and moralizes; it frames opponents as absolute evil and asks citizens to accept sacrifice as virtue. Counter-messaging must be strategic—not merely empathetic—by pointing to concrete consequences of escalation, the economic trade-offs of rearmament, and the historical record of how wars have been sold to publics. Truth-telling about the sacrifices hidden behind abstract talk of “defense” can recalibrate civic judgments. Above all, the peace movement needs to leverage the revealed plurality among the young as a mobilizing base, not simply as anecdote. ## Propaganda tactics and counterstrategy The conversation dissects contemporary propaganda not as crude lies but as sophisticated systems of cognitive engagement. Techniques include inoculation—preemptively branding dissent as conspiracy—flooding social and traditional media with coordinated frames, and embedding military narratives across civilian domains. The advent of AI-driven content generation multiplies reach and speed, enabling automated amplification of select stories and the rapid suppression or marginalization of dissenting accounts. This makes counter-strategy both harder and more necessary. Effective resistance requires matching sophistication with clarity. First, transparency about the methods and objectives of cognitive warfare undercuts its mystique; exposing the sources and circuits of messaging demystifies the process. Second, inoculation must be reclaimed by civil society: educating citizens to recognize manipulative frames, logical fallacies and emotional tactics is essential. Third, building resilient information ecosystems—independent media, civic educatio

Brave Researcher EXPOSES NATO Targeting EU Citizen's Brains | Dr. Jonas Tögel The War-Hysteria in Europe is not accidental. It has been prepared and seeded in the continent's population for a long time through war narratives, propoaganda and actual cognitive warfare plans. Today I speak with Dr. Jonas Tögel, a German propaganda researcher and author. We discuss war messaging in Europe, German military outreach in schools, youth resistance, NATO narratives, the role of the US and EU, the collapse of antiwar politics, and the way propaganda, fear, and media overload shape public opinion. They also discuss public resistance, self-care, and keeping a peace movement alive. Links: Dr. Jonas Tögel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrJonasToegel Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch: https://neutralitystudies- shop.fourthwall.com Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:40 Germany war mood and rearmament 00:10:53 Resistance youth and public fear 00:19:25 NATO pressure and Europe 00:26:34 Gaza Iran and empire violence 00:35:32 Peace movement and war messaging 00:43:04 Propaganda tactics and counterstrategy 00:51:10 Self-care and final thoughts #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies tonight with my friend and colleague, Dr. Jonas Tögel, an Americanist and propaganda researcher at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Jonas, welcome back. #Jonas Togel Hello, Pascal. #Pascal It's great seeing you again. You've been on the channel before, but for anyone who missed that one, you are not only an academic, you also have your own YouTube channel in the German language. If you understand German, then please check Jonas out. He is one of the few German academics who is actually also trying to breach this kind of breakout of the little box that we are in and actually offer his analysis on his channel, where he mainly tries to dissect the various ways in which currently, in German and European mainstream media, the propaganda is being used. And he doesn't just rant about it. He actually has a lot of background on it. He wrote several books, one of them being this one here. It's also a German title. It translates to "Cognitive Warfare," in -- 1 of 17 -- which Jonas actually analyzed—and we talked about that in one of our last discussions—how NATO itself is actually using and preparing to use cognitive warfare, not just against the enemy abroad, but also against its own population from within, which is the scariest part. And he’s written about propaganda for quite a while now. And I'm very happy to have you back. #Jonas Togel I'm glad to be back too. It's always a pleasure to be on your channel, Pascal. #Pascal So let's talk a little bit about what's actually happening in Europe, because, you know, I've had a lot of messages or a lot of talks recently about how this war euphoria, especially in Germany, is getting worse and how the media narrative about an upcoming war with Russia is getting worse and worse. And what's even worse is that I just had a discussion with Stanislav Krapivnik saying that the Russians now believe the Germans, and they're getting ready for war too. So we are headed toward a self-fulfilling prophecy. Can you maybe tell us a little bit where we are in Germany with this relentless drive toward war? #Jonas Togel Well, we are at the point where I think it's becoming more and more difficult to sort of find an off- ramp, because the narrative that has been built over the past few years, and the narrative that supports this war, is very simple and it is very dangerous. Because it is basically a narrative that says Russia is a big threat. And then you have studies—I mean, this is a very simple narrative—but it is: Russia is going to attack Europe and Germany in the next couple of years. And you might ask yourself, OK, why do they know that Russia is going to do this? And if Russia is so strong, then why are they waiting for us to prepare a couple of years? And then, when we're ready, then the Russians come. So it's not a very intelligent narrative, I might add. But it is being pushed on all channels. Not all channels—like YouTube channels like yours, of course—are a very valuable exception to that. And there's good alternative information, but that is not for the majority of the people. So we have this narrative being built up that we have to defend. And now what we can see is that the militarization that you've just mentioned sort of penetrates all aspects of society in a way that is a little bit like COVID-19, where you say, OK, we need to fight this virus now. Schools have to fight it. It has to be fought at home. It has to be fought at work. The whole society basically has to shut down, has to get ready for this fight against COVID now. It's similar. It's like an all-out societal change that is taking place. And that is not me saying this, but when you read the papers of the military analyzing the situation, what has to be done, they talk about a whole-of-society approach. So if we talk about cognitive warfare, if you talk about this mind -- 2 of 17 -- shift that has to take place, this is a whole-of-society approach. And then it goes into all venues. So we have schools where, you know, I have people when I give talks and there are like hundreds of people, and there's always a couple of parents there who say that they are very worried because now the German army, the Bundeswehr, is coming to the schools. And they are recruiting young people, you know, young schoolchildren, 14, 15, 16 years old, because they tell them the story. You know, this is kind of cool if you go to the Bundeswehr, and we have these cool tanks and you can visit them. You know, they have open-door days where you can go to the Bundeswehr, you can sit in those tanks and planes or whatever. And it's sort of like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts—let's have fun. And people, you know, they enlist. So this is what's taking place in schools right now. You have the narrative that's being pushed in schools that whatever sort of conflicts with the official narrative is branded as a conspiracy theory and should be rejected. You know, this is... we could go into depth now, but this is what's called inoculation. So you want people to block conflicting information, and you want them to be set straight on this NATO narrative. Then we have, of course, the media, where we have targets. We have all kinds of media channels that keep pushing this narrative of the great Russian threat and that we have to rearm. And of course, we have, and let's not forget about the economics. We all know it's about the economics, stupid. That's what, you know, was said in the 90s already. So, the economy is going downhill, obviously. Europe and Germany are on a suicide mission. They're shutting themselves off from the cheap energy that has sustained the economy for decades. And now they somehow need an economy to survive. And what do you do? You switch—you have the lines that produce automobiles, and you can easily switch them to produce tanks. And that is what's happening right now. So it's wherever you look, it's what you said—wherever you look, it is threatening, it's dangerous, and it is scary to see what is happening. And I've just recently looked at the—it's called Bevölkerungsbefragung—so you have like a survey. Yeah, for the whole of Germany, from the German army, from the Bundeswehr. And they found out—well, first of all, they know, and they know very well, and they write this very clearly—that we need this perception of the Russian threat. So that is at the heart of this whole change that is going on. We need people to believe that Russia is a big threat. They write that, yeah. And they have, you know, items. They send people—thousands. There's a lot of money behind it. Thousands and thousands of people go to homes in Germany, and they lead interviews on that. You know, what do you think of the Bundeswehr? What do you think of Vladimir Putin? What do you think of the German military? Do you think that we should rearm? Is defense spending a good idea? Roughly 300 questions are being asked, and the results are presented in a paper. And they found out basically that the mind shift is working. So you have roughly 80%—80%? Eight out of ten people in Germany think that the Bundeswehr is a very valuable and respected institution. And you have roughly two-thirds think about that—that’s between 60 and 70% of the people in -- 3 of 17 -- Germany. They are fully convinced that there is this great Russian threat out there against which we have to rearm, prepare, defend, and sort of change our society to not be overwhelmed by Russia. And as you have pointed out, if you look at this from sort of the ego perspective and you try to take all different sides into account, that's what you've just said. For the Russians personally, this remilitarization of Germany and of Europe is, of course, perceived as a threat, because you cannot rearm just defensively. The other side is always going to think, and with good reason, I might add, that, you know, this looks kind of offensive to us, and that you have these steps that the other side is preparing as well. I know that you've talked about it, and we could go on forever. You have Ukraine being allowed to target Russian energy, and if you push Russia towards, you know, 80 feet— what’s the largest nuclear power in the world going to do? So wherever you look, it's madness. #Pascal I mean, even worse, like Stanislav Kropivkin just made that point. It's not just that Ukraine is allowed to strike Russian oil. It's that Ukraine is enabled to do so, right? And Ukraine uses all of this NATO data and infrastructure in order to target these things. And the drones that are being thrown at Russia are basically made in Europe. And Europe is very proud of that, that they're helping Ukraine and that Rheinmetall is helping Ukraine to produce this weaponry. And the Russians are saying, like, well, how long are we still going to take this from countries that are saying that they're preparing for a big war with us? Anyway, it's getting worse and worse. The Russians are now at the point where they think of what to strike in Europe, and you know, Europe is going to get its Russian first strikes because the Russians are now ready to do that. I mean, this is now at the point of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's, um, I don't know, it's quite—it's super frightening. And I was hoping that you would tell me that what Matthias Desmet calls a mass formation, that we are not that far downhill, but apparently even schools and so on. And Ulrike Gerold told me that the evangelical churches are getting ready for war in Germany. So the drive, the drumbeat, seems to be overwhelming, huh? #Jonas Togel Yes, it is true. But I would stress the fact that it's always the people who are the decisive factor in the end. And the hearts and minds of the people, and this is what the military knows, is the new battleground of the future. That is why we have cognitive warfare. That is why we have fifth- generation warfare in the U.S. These are all similar programs that focus on changing people's perceptions of reality. All of it is becoming AI-based and fueled at this point, where you have sort of automatic narratives being generated, content being pushed out, flooded into social media and all that. But let's not forget that at the heart—and this is my view—people don't want war. The majority has never benefited from wars. -- 4 of 17 -- The majority is not going to benefit from this war. That is, you know, as we have said, it is not yet there. So something that is not yet there can be stopped. And it can be stopped with people saying, we want this to stop. And this is where, you know, everybody comes in. So it's for us to say, is this really a good idea to go t