Shutterstock: edited by Busra Öztürk
By James DeBurghe for New Cold War, July 6, 2023.
Various high ranking members of the US government, Senators, Congressmen, the CIA, the Pentagon, and a multitude of US Government funded think tanks have made abundantly clear Washington’s policies and aims globally in terms of economic and military intentions to support and protect US hegemony.
These policies are designed wholly and solely to thwart the actions of other world powers that threaten US hegemony. Hence we see economic and military actions aimed at Russia and China and diplomacy shaped in the form of carrot and stick aimed at lesser powers that support the initiatives of Russia and China.
Carefully interwoven with these policies was a clever plan to ensure that Europe would suffer an economic decline that would ensure US supremacy in energy supply and boost the US internal economy by attracting European businesses to re-locate to the USA. The US has long wielded enormous influence upon both the domestic and foreign policy of the EU and UK.
Thus the war between Russia and Ukraine was at its core a cleverly constructed provocation by the US, relying upon the expansion of NATO and neo nazi, racist and Ukrainian ethnic nationalist violence against ethnic Russian, Russian speakers, people who favoured a close relationship with Russia and the two Donbass republics to provoke Russian interference in order to protect its own security and to prevent the massacre of the opponents of the Ukrainian regime. These events were long in the planning and execution by the USA as from 1991 NATO expansion was planned and from 2004 onwards the US supported, trained and armed the Ukrainian military and neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. The imposition of sanctions and support for the war by NATO countries cleverly drained the coffers of the EU and UK at the cost of the living standards of their citizens. The US destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline destroyed any hope of Europe rebuilding ties with Russian cheap energy. European productivity plunged with the added benefit to the USA that all the weapons sent to Ukraine were mainly replaced by orders on US weapons manufacturers. American and EU/UK sanctions on Russia had very little effect on Russia but as mentioned backfired badly upon Europe and the UK and even triggered an increase in already rising inflation in the USA.
US activity against China also began in the early 2000s with the placing of US missiles in Australia. This led to a large gap in the Chinese missile defence shield that was plugged by turning sandbars in the south China sea into military installations that housed long range radar linked into China’s defence network. These actions were loudly defamed by the USA who claimed China was trying to prevent the right of free navigation through the south China sea. The next step was to provoke anti Chinese sentiment in Taiwan by supporting the election of a pro-independence president of the Island who, incidentally, is a former employee of the unofficial US embassy on the Island. In this the US swept away the agreements made in the 1970’s and 1990’s in which the USA formally recognised Taiwan as a part of China. US provocation and aggression continued included inciting the Indian army to provoke incidents on its disputed border with China (the Indian military is very pro USA unlike its government) Economic warfare in the shape of sanctions and raised tariffs followed on along with a tirade of anti Chinese propaganda in the US dominated western news media. Further military provocation by the US along with further sales of arms to Taiwan have brought the situation in the Pacific region very close to all out war.
In all of the above we see the dead hand of the USA pushing the world ever closer to a major war solely to protect its own self declared hegemony and the preservation of its so called ‘rule of International law’. It pays no heed to the UN Charter or any other international legal body unless it serves its own interests.
So now I come to the big question – Where does the left wing, the socialists stand in all of this.
The answer is all to depressing. In the west, which is seeing living standards decline rapidly, increasing poverty and increasing civil unrest, the majority of the mainstream socialist organisations support the US policy. Even some of those who would call themselves Marxist socialists fail to stand up and condemn the destructive course their governments follow. Many condemn Russia and give only lukewarm support to China, laced with reservations. They ignore evidence and hard facts, close their minds to reality, fail to research issues fully, and fail to question why their news media only shows one side of the story. They even fall into the trap of repeating the false propaganda that emanates from the USA and others. Worse still their comments often demonstrate and alarming trend of describing Russia and Russians, China and the Chinese, in racist language. Some of these organisations support China but not Russia, some support Russia but not China. It is that insanity that demonstrates that these organisations are blinkered by their own prejudices and fail to see the common links in current affairs. They often spend more time fighting one another than they spend trying to make a political statement to the public.
Elsewhere in the world the situation is happier with a resurgence of socialist governments in south America and a rejection of US induced enmity in the middle east. BRICS and the SCO are working to bring the nations of the global south together. Anyone who listened in detail to President Putin’s last annual address to the Russian Federation cannot fail to see the return of socialism in Russian internal policies.
But sadly in the west even in organisations that claim unswerving support to the Marxist socialist cause we begin to see back-peddling, and insidious outside pressures and infiltration weakening their policies and their voice in support of Marxist socialism and anti-imperialism. A failure to see black from white and the resulting slip into the chasm of insidious grey tones that are mere academic double talk.
There is an urgent need for more robust and international Marxist organisations to emerge that represent the real benefits of Marxist socialism and are competent to get that message over to people in words that resonate with ordinary people on the street.
What happened to the millions world wide that took to the streets to protest against the US invasion of Iraq and the lies of the Weapons of Mass destruction propaganda.
