N°15-07/08/2021 The end of World War II with the capitulations of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945 and Japan on September 2, created a new balance of power on a global scale.
US imperialism emerged stronger from the war while the countries of Europe were considerably weakened. For its part the USSR, which played a decisive role in the victory against Nazism, suffered human and economic damage on a gigantic scale and it is under these conditions that the USA launched a war that was cold only in name to bring it down. In this struggle led by a hegemonic US imperialism, the European countries aligned themselves under the banner of the USA, whether through their membership in NATO or through the construction of a unified economic space, anticipating the European Union, dominated by a Marshall Plan paving the way for the economic interests of US monopolies. At the same time, the Chinese revolution, national liberation struggles and decolonization processes, largely supported and made possible by the support and very existence of the USSR, were significant events that helped to change the balance of power between the imperialist powers, the socialist countries and the emerging nations on the international stage. Although the dissolution of the USSR, allowed an extension of capitalism on a planetary scale, it did not however erase the competition within the imperialist system; on the contrary, it exacerbated it, especially as the vigorous rise of capitalism in Asia and particularly in China which, by becoming the second world economic power, challenges the domination of the United States over the current world order. These trends have consequences on the relations between capitalist states. This is what we will try to examine in this article.
While the major trends in the evolution of the balance of power between the main powers – USA, China and the imperialist alliances, the European Union, are at work in new conditions since the disappearance of the USSR, the Covid 19 pandemic has accentuated their features. The intense struggle between the imperialist powers to "boost" their economy with trillions of dollars, the use of vaccines as a diplomatic weapon... reveal the severity of the ongoing confrontations. In essence, it is possible to say that the major conflict that characterized the "cold war" between what was called the "Western bloc" and the "socialist camp" eminently centered on Europe, has moved to the Asia Pacific zone where the sharpening of the clashes within imperialism, mainly between the USA and China is exacerbated by the rise in economic and political power of China in the face of a relative decline of the USA and therefore of their ability to rule world affairs. Clashes within imperialism are in the very nature of its existence, today we say in its DNA. The struggle for domination, for the control of raw materials, of the means of communication and circulation, of the markets, of the labor force... are essential to capitalist accumulation and the realization of profits. Over the past thirty years, while Europe and the US have enjoyed a long period of peace, they have "imported" conflicts into their near and far periphery. In fact, the last thirty years have been marked by so-called asymmetric wars where there is little doubt as to the military winner in view of the imbalance of the forces present. Thus, from Afghanistan, to Iraq via Syria, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Sudan, Libya... and closer to us in the Balkans, in Yugoslavia, in Ukraine...Western imperialist forces under NATO's leadership have imposed on states and peoples the law of their military force. However, unlike in the pre-world war period, these imperialist powers did not find political solutions capable of exempting them from a long military presence, as shown for example in Afghanistan and in Iraq. These deadly conflicts have been accompanied by a rise in armaments policies and presently by an evolution of the military strategy towards what is called high intensity conflicts that do not exclude the recourse to nuclear weapons. What is examined and planned is direct conflicts between the imperialist powers themselves. This is what the US is preparing for vis-à-vis China. This new doctrine, linked to the sharpening of the clashes within imperialism, is openly discussed and prepared by the increase in military budgets and the conditioning of the citizens. That is the case in France through reports to the National Assembly and articles in reviews dealing with strategic issues. While the great imperialist powers, the USA and China stand out with their economic and military capacities, the European countries and the European Union itself are downgraded. From leading imperialist powers until the end of the First World War, they lost their supremacy and therefore their ability to set the pace and they are well and truly following behind US imperialism within NATO. This is verified by their participation in all peripheral conflicts for decades. The major question that arises from this observation of the increasing dangers of military confrontation is: are we powerless in the face of this? The answer is no, because everything will depend on the combined action of peoples to refuse this deadly march. For that to happen, these questions must first come to the public eye, especially when the parliamentary political forces are trying to hide most of them, preferring long discussions over a vegan day in the school canteens!
Then it takes the rallying and the struggle of peoples to demand an end to the arms race without forgetting that the root cause of the threats is in the very nature of capitalism which, as Jaurès wrote in his time: "Your violent and chaotic society still, even when it wants peace, even when it is in a state of apparent repose, bears war within itself, just as a sleeping cloud bears a storm".
All the more reason to fight capitalism to the point of destroying it and build a socialist society making cooperation between peoples the spearhead of a policy of peace.