Present moment and ongoing trends
By Aníbal
1) EU-NATO/Russia
Let us look at a number of recent moves and developments regarding military intervention in Ukraine and Russia. A significant group of EU states are positioning themselves favorably in terms of supporting Ukraine and its military actions on Russian territory, using the following militarist rhetoric:
“There is a red line that NATO countries providing aid to Ukraine have so far respected: the weapons they provide must not be used to attack Russian territory. But there are growing voices among the allies in favor of giving the Kiev government a green light to prevent Moscow from achieving its goals on the battlefield. Russia is skirting all the rules in this war and wants Ukraine’s allies to be intimidated by its threats of escalation.
First, it was the United Kingdom that gave the green light for the use of weapons sent to Kiev to attack Russia on its territory. In The Economist, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, a Norwegian who will soon complete a decade at the helm of the Atlantic alliance, said it was “legal” to attack Ukraine if military targets were involved. He hinted that the veto on the use of Western weapons could be lifted.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell called for a “balance” between the need to strike targets on Russian soil and the risk of escalation. At a press conference in Berlin, French President Emmanuel Macron also called for an end to the restrictions.
Since Sofia, twenty-four NATO members have pledged not to accept further restrictions on the use of Western weapons against legitimate targets on Russian territory, they said in a communique. The British were very active in defending this reversal. To do otherwise, in their view, would be to give Russia the upper hand at a time when it is winning the war.”
…
“Washington’s refusal
Those who are not giving in at the moment are the Americans, who consider it very risky for Ukraine to use weapons provided by NATO countries, not NATO itself, to attack targets on Russian territory. The US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, said at a press conference on Wednesday that Washington’s position had not changed. That is, Ukraine must be helped, but without violating this red line. ‘We need to focus on getting more help and getting it quickly. Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defenses and get more artillery,’ said Ambassador Smith.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are increasingly in favor of giving Kiev a free hand. An informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers will be held in Prague on Thursday and Friday to discuss the issue.
…Meanwhile, the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán, the European leader closest to Putin, is holding up the granting of some 6.5 billion euros to Ukraine.
… The ongoing offensive by Russian troops in the Kharkov region, on the border with Russia, shows how this limitation puts Ukraine at a clear disadvantage. The Russians are straddling the two countries in this offensive, while the Ukrainians would be unable to reach the Russians if they crossed the border. Moscow is taking advantage of this to attack from this area, knowing that Ukraine cannot rely on the Atacms missiles provided by the US.
Poland and the Baltic states are not intimidated.
The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, declared that the allies ‘must know what they are playing at,’ while hinting that he would respond to attacks with weapons provided by the allies. And in his line, he tried to scare with fear: ‘They must remember that these are usually small, very densely populated countries,’ he said during a visit to Uzbekistan, according to Interfax.
But it is the small countries like the Baltic states that show the least fear. Poland and the Baltic states would be willing to send troops to Ukraine if there are clear signs of weakness in the Ukrainian troops and they are unable to stop the Russian advance, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported. For the time being, the government of Donald Tusk will reinforce its border with Belarus, a vassal state of Russia.
‘If the Russians achieve a strategic breakthrough in eastern Ukraine, because the West is helping without much enthusiasm, the situation could deteriorate drastically. In this case, the Baltic states and Poland will not wait for Russian troops to reach their borders,’ Baltic politicians said, according to the German weekly. ‘They have warned that they will send troops to Ukraine, and this means that NATO will take part in the war.’ This is what is feared in Washington and Berlin. But also in Moscow. It’s a nightmare scenario for Putin, who knows that a war against NATO would be untenable.” [a]
Canada and Finland support Ukraine’s use of weapons on Russian territory. [b]
Germany: “German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said he would not allow Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory with Western weapons provided by NATO, has backtracked, comments that Germany will not ban Ukrainian attacks with NATO weapons on Russian military targets, Chancellor says Ukraine has the right to defend itself, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron showed their continued support for Ukraine during a Franco-German defense and security council on Tuesday.” [c]
Other governments are more cautious: “Belgium is preventing Ukraine from using F-16s to attack Russian territory.” [d]
The Russian government threatens responses, including tactical nuclear options, and conducts specific maneuvers and posturing with its Belarusian ally, which follows in nuclear weapons and rhetoric. Putin raises his voice and says, “Be aware of who you are playing with.”[e]
Belarus pulls out of conventional arms limitation treaty.[f]
Russia warns that it is losing patience with the use of Western weapons on its territory, responds and issues warnings:
Moscow shoots down eight U.S.-made ATACMS missiles and eight drones launched over Crimea. Russian strategic bombers carry out strikes in several regions of Ukraine. (…) During his visit to Uzbekistan, Vladimir Putin was blunt: ‘These representatives of NATO countries, especially in Europe, especially in small countries, should be aware of what they are playing with. They should remember that these are usually states with small but densely populated territories.”
‘This constant escalation can have serious consequences, and if these serious consequences are felt in Europe, how will the United States react?’ said Putin, alluding to the nuclear parity between the two superpowers. (…) In recent hours, two ferries were damaged in a missile attack by the Ukrainian army on infrastructure facilities in the eastern Crimean city of Kerch, where the bridge connecting the peninsula to the Russian mainland is located. ‘During the repulse of an enemy attack on transport infrastructure facilities in the city of Kerch, two ferries – a highway ferry and a railway ferry – have suffered damage from downed missile debris: the glass of the superstructures has been damaged,’ Crimean Regional Transport Minister Nikolai Lukashenko has posted on his Telegram channel (…) The Kerch bridge was attacked twice, in October 2022 and July 2023. Ukraine blames these attacks on the transportation of military logistics, while Moscow considers them terrorist attacks.” [g]
Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General) reiterates that allies must allow Ukraine to attack military targets in Russia.[h]
Kremlin condemns Stoltenberg’s support for NATO weapons strikes on Russian territory.[i]
Ukrainian military launches operations inside Russia using guided drones: “Ukrainian drone hits Russian military radar 1,800 kilometers away”. [j]
Alert in the West after Ukraine’s second hit on Russia’s missile defense radar.[k]
“Refineries and military targets, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian soil.
Kiev has managed to hit back at Moscow despite allied restrictions on the use of Western weapons on enemy territory.” [l]
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, denies incitement.[m]
But with the entry of China as a pro-negotiation axis, he is more sympathetic to the EU and its threats, leaving it up to “Ukraine” to decide, but turning to contain the Russian advance.[n] China has just stepped in with an initiative for peace negotiations in Ukraine:
Lavrov: China’s efforts could be prelude to peace conference on Ukraine.
In addition, the Foreign Minister noted that there is a theoretical possibility of accelerating the political settlement of the conflict in Ukraine if the West stops sending weapons to Kiev. Answering a question in an interview with Sputnik on whether there is a possibility of accelerating the process of political settlement of the situation around Ukraine, the minister said that ‘theoretically, yes’.
‘For this to happen, it is necessary for the West to stop pumping weapons into Ukraine and for Kiev to stop its belligerent actions. The sooner this happens, the sooner the political settlement will begin,’ Lavrov said. [o]
2) Inter-imperialist power relations in Ukraine and on a global scale
There is a movement in development, taking into account in particular four important elements, such as:
- The European elections, which increase the militarist tone and the corresponding proposals.
- Aalso the conditions of the development of the war in Ukraine, with the Russian advances and the shortcomings of the Ukrainian side, which not only does not advance, but makes setbacks on several fronts, putting more pressure on the future soldiers who today try to avoid the pressures of civilian life … more and more militarized.
- The election campaign in the U.S., as an expression of the divisions in the U.S. bourgeoisie on what to do. The bourgeois leaders in the EU know that a victory of the Republicans, with or without Donald Trump at the head, will mean an important step in the concentration of the “geostrategic” (fashionable jargon of the bourgeois media) interests of the USA, that is, the imperialist capitalist interests, in the zone of tension between their blocs in the Indo-Pacific region, with China as the main competitor and opponent. That is why the EU leadership, supported by NATO, is determined to maintain a war of attrition in Ukraine.
But it has been proven that they have failed to assess Russia’s weakness and that of its bloc relations with China and its allies, as well as that of its trade war measures, with various sanctions and obvious contradictions between the EU states, which see how US capital shamelessly takes advantage of its disconnection with Russia in energy matters, an EU that maintains contradictory strategies towards China, which for its part continues its offensive in trade, and with special relations in certain areas (Serbia, Hungary…).[p] - The recent initiative of China to convene peace negotiations is very relevant, and in view of this, the tone of each party directly involved has risen to a threatening volume, sounding each other out, as is customary in any inter-imperialist war.
The Chinese government wants to focus on the Indo-Pacific front and pursue as vigorously as possible its current and future military and “strategic capabilities” development movement on an international scale, not just an internal Chinese or Sino-Russian one.
The rise of this bloc is clear and must continue. That is why China wants to remove the pressure of NATO and the EU, which have bogged down the Russian army and state by forcing them to finance the military effort and put pressure on their proletarian population for the war economy, which means investing large resources in a conjunctural effort that undermines the overall strategic objective.
The Chinese leadership knows the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere, in depth, and they know that the U.S. government continues to develop its posturing moves in the area that most directly affects them, procuring general and regional allies while procuring others to step up to the plate and make war funding efforts in other parts of the world, starting with Ukraine. They know that what is at stake in the Middle East is the diminishing role and influence of Hamas and the axis of resistance forces around the bloc’s ally led by China and Russia, the Iranian government.
Let us turn to a realistic bourgeois description of the situation in the U.S. by a leading Republican:
“US military won’t survive war with China and Russia, warns Armed Services Committee Senator Roger Wicker, arguing that China, Russia and Iran are investing more money and are more coordinated to avoid a ‘US-dominated 21st century’.
Republican Senator Roger Wicker has cast doubt on the capabilities of the US military in an article for the New York Times. Wicker, of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, has claimed that the U.S. military is at risk of being ill-equipped and ill-armed in the face of some of the most dangerous global threats since World War II. ‘We are struggling to build and maintain ships, our fighter fleet is dangerously small, and our military infrastructure is aging. Meanwhile, America’s adversaries are building up their militaries and becoming more aggressive,’ the senator said.
According to Wicker, China is undertaking a historic modernization of its armed forces to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities, while Russia is mobilizing its society to prepare for a long-term conflict in Europe. In the Middle East, Iran is expanding its network of influence to gain special weight in the region.
The senator stresses that these three nations (China, Russia and Iran) are increasingly cooperating in an ‘unprecedented’ operation to avoid a ‘US-led 21st century’. ‘This theoretical future may come sooner than most Americans think. According to a growing body of expert opinion, we could find ourselves in a state of extreme vulnerability within a few years,’ the article’s author warns.
In China, the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, ‘has orchestrated a historic military modernization aimed at exploiting the weaknesses of the U.S. military. He has surpassed the U.S. Navy in fleet size, built one of the world’s largest missile arsenals, and made great strides in space,’ Wicker writes.
U.S. military leaders are already having to make ‘impossible choices.’ The Navy ‘has struggled to adequately fund new ships, ongoing maintenance, and munitions procurement, but has failed to effectively address all three issues,’ adds the senator, who argues that ‘over the past four decades, the U.S. arsenal has helped secure the peace, but political neglect has left it atrophied while other nations’ war machines have gone into overdrive. Most Americans are unaware that the specter of great-power conflict has resurfaced.’
In his view, the U.S. may find itself in a situation of “extreme vulnerability” in a few years, “according to a growing consensus of experts,” just as China’s military “reaches its peak.
The Defense GDP the US Needs
Two of the three major nuclear modernization programs are underfunded and facing delays. The Pentagon is short $180 billion for basic maintenance, from barracks to training camps, which only demonstrates America’s weakness in the face of its adversaries, the senator said.
In his opinion, the situation can be changed. But to do so, the U.S. must increase defense spending from 2.9 to 5 percent of GDP. ‘Rebuilding American power will be expensive. But fighting a war (and worse, losing it) is much more expensive,’ Wicker stresses.” [q]
3) Elements of historical memory and global contextualization
In the First World War, Germany was doomed to defeat when its capabilities were exhausted, in a situation of notorious geographical and imperialist limitation. The USA was able to intervene in this war in its favor, dethroning the United Kingdom as the first world power.
All this, together with the rise of the USSR, created a framework of favorable conditions for the Second World War. Imperialist capitalism manifested itself as determined by its dominant tendencies and factions.
Germany had to get out of this state of suffocation and limitation, and the Third Reich was the way found by big capital and behind it the bulk of the bourgeoisie.[1]) The USA concentrated on the Pacific, where it had Japan on one side, allied with Germany and Italy, China on the other, allied with the USSR but with friction between them, and the remnants of French imperialism in Indochina. The mobilization was extended to India, which had become autonomous from the British metropolis according to the dictates of the new nationalist bourgeoisie, and also to Australia. But the advance first of the Nazi-Fascist axis and then of the USSR forced the dominant bourgeoisie in the U.S. to act on the European terrain, which meant a great economic effort and pressure on the working class and its own allies.
Today, the USA is showing signs of deterioration, but it is the relative deterioration of a giant of imperialist capitalism. This puts its dominant capital in front of necessary tasks in the short, medium and long term, concentrating on the confrontation with China, which now has Russia with it… and numerous bourgeois sectors in numerous parts of the planet. The EU runs the risk of remaining isolated and close to Russia, which demands more militarism and more ties with NATO, even though it knows where the movements of US capital can lead. China needs time to further strengthen and improve its alliances and capabilities, and for this reason it has plenty of time for the war in Ukraine, while at the same time it will not try to extend the war in the Middle East. Russia is holding its own, but it also needs to strengthen its capabilities for the future, for more details see the following note.[2]
A third world war is not possible now, but it is very clear that steps are being taken in that direction. The current escalation is dangerous and its actors know it, but they are not suicidal, they maintain coherence in a context of contradictions, tensions and changes that are both possible and necessary. Neither the USA nor China will start a world war now, nor will Russia attack the EU with nuclear weapons.
Of course, this does not mean that it is just a puppet show. No, it is a de facto manifestation of where the rivalries between the constituted blocs of imperialist capitalism lie, which shows that “men make history, but they do so under given conditions” (Marx).
In order to achieve the satisfaction of their military needs, all the capitalist forces have to put more and more pressure on the working class, intensifying their pressure also in the field of nationalist promotion and bloc ideology.
Source
Aníbal, Relaciones de fuerza en el capitalismo imperialista. Momento actual y tendencias en marcha, 30-5-2024. F.C.: translation and grammar with DeepL.com.
[1] The Germans had too many open fronts, and the strangulation of their allies, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which provided them with supplies, created shortages of food and goods throughout Germany. The anxiety of the trenches and the uncertainty of the war were transferred to the civilian population, which had to wait for hours to receive bread and other basic necessities that had been easily available years before. Moreover, after three years of war, the citizens were impoverished and exhausted, which led to several protests and a generalized discontent among the population and the most left-wing political groups. On July 19, 1917, the Reichstag passed a peace resolution of understanding between the peoples, but it did not prevent the war from continuing. Erich Ludendorff, the famous general who had been victorious in 1914, continued to defend victory at all costs to avoid defeat or an agreed peace that would be unfavorable to Germany. Between November 1917 and March 1918, he pursued a strategy to finally crush the Allies by avoiding enmity with the United States. And he almost succeeded, but the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania caused the Americans to enter the war as allies of Great Britain and France.
The American troops were few and poorly trained, so at first they posed no threat to the German army. But President Wilson and his staff devised a plan to deploy some 300,000 troops a month to France, which marked a turning point in the fight against a German army that had too many human losses to replace. In addition, one of the main reasons the Germans lost the war was their dependence on arms, artillery, ammunition and cannons from other European countries that sold them.
…. They lost the war through exhaustion, through a problem of armament and food supply, which caused the collapse of the German political and social system. (El Debate)
[2] Wikipedia:
– Project for the New American Century
– American Century
US Naval Power
– Wikipedia: List of current ships of the United States Navy
The U.S. Navy has unveiled the keys to an expansion plan for the coming decades that includes a fleet of more than 350 ships and submarines, some 150 large unmanned vehicles, and some 3,000 aircraft. All by the 2040s. Too late, given the rapid growth of the Chinese navy?
The reason that will allow China to deploy 5 aircraft carriers and 10 nuclear missile submarines by 2030.
The U.S. 2022 Sailing Plan presented by Chief of Naval Operations Mike Gilday envisions a fleet of 12 Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, 12 aircraft carriers, 66 attack submarines including Virginia-class boats, 96 guided missile destroyers, 56 Constellation-class frigates, 31 amphibious assault ships, 18 light amphibious warships, and 82 logistics and combat support ships.
Currently, the U.S. Navy has been surpassed in number of ships by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, which is investing billions of dollars to assert its dominance in the Indo-Pacific region, which has been controlled by the United States for seventy years. A U.S. Defense Department report estimates that the Asian giant has 355 corvette-sized warships, compared with 205 for the United States.
James Fanell, former director of intelligence for the U.S. Sixth Fleet, pointed out in a 2018 report to the U.S. Congress that China is developing a navy twice the size of the U.S. and could replace it as the world’s leading maritime power.
… For analyst James Holmes, the Department of the Navy prefers a smaller but well-maintained force to a larger but poorly maintained one. Hendrix asserts that the US Navy needs a larger fleet of about 450 ships, adding that the unveiled plan goes in the right direction by recognizing the growing threat from Chinese and Russian naval forces.
Mark Cancian, an advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), assured Shephard that “in the short term, the Navy is retiring ships faster than it is building them, so the fleet is actually getting smaller. According to Cancian, the U.S. Navy’s plan “signals that its highest priority is modernization rather than fleet size, suggesting that expansion will be a lower priority.”
Gilday, who presented the report, identified three challenges facing the U.S. Navy. First, the erosion of deterrence due to rapidly developing Chinese military capabilities. Second: an increasingly aggressive China and Russia that are undermining “order-based international rules. Third, the accelerating pace of technological change.
The main nodes of maritime navigation
The official document also points out what are the planet’s hottest spots with the most threatened maritime regions and choke points, where the Strait of Oresund (Sound), which separates Denmark and Sweden; the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which allow passage to the Black Sea; the Strait of Hormuz; the Strait of Korea and the Strait of La Pérouse at the southern and northern ends of Japan appear.
The report’s authors argue that in order to modernize and increase the capacity of “our fleet,” “the Navy will require sustained budget growth of 3 to 5 percent above real inflation. In addition, we will prioritize modernization over force structure sustainment.”
Containing China is the U.S. Navy’s big goal. (La Razon, 29-7-2022)
Global nuclear arsenal, see Statista.com.
USA. Strategic Agility. Major Michael W. Benitez, USaF, in America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future: The Strategic Framework for the New Air Force, asserts that “the Air Force’s ability to continue to adapt and respond faster than our potential adversaries is the most than our potential adversaries is the greatest challenge we face over the next 30 years.” (Department of the Air Force, America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future, July 2014).
China.
Chinese military spending soars 60% in ten years without spending more than 1.7% of GDP, half the effort of the U.S. Washington increased its defense spending by 2.3% in the last fiscal year, while Beijing increased it by 6% in the same period. (Info Defensa)
(CNN) — China has launched the biggest restructuring of its military in nearly a decade, focusing on technology-driven strategic forces equipped for modern warfare as Beijing vies with Washington for military primacy in a region fraught with geopolitical tensions.
In a surprise move last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping abolished the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a military branch he created in 2015 to integrate the People’s Liberation Army’s space, cyber, electronic and psychological warfare capabilities as part of a sweeping overhaul of the armed forces.
In its place, Xi inaugurated the Information Support Force, which he described as “a brand new strategic arm of the PLA and an important pillar of the coordinated development and implementation of the networked information system.”
The new force would play an important role in helping the Chinese military “fight and win in modern warfare,” he said at a ceremony last Friday.
That same day, at a press briefing, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman appeared to suggest that the SSF would be divided into three units – the Information Support Force, the Aerospace Force, and the Cyberspace Force – that would report directly to the Central Military Commission, the body at the top of the military chain of command chaired by Xi.
Under the new structure, the PLA now consists of four services – the Army, Navy, Air Force and Rocket Force – and four arms: the three breakaway units of the SSF and the Joint Logistics Support Force, according to ministry spokesman Wu Qian. (CNN, 27-4-2024)
[a] El Independiente, 29-5-2024.
[b] El Periodico, 30-5-2024.
[g] Larazon.es, 30-5-2024.
[h] Europapress, 27-5-2024.
[m] El Periodico, 30-5-2024.
[o] Latam News, 30-5-2024.
[p] Le Grand Continent, 7-5-2024.
[q] Larazon.es, 30-5-2024.
Left wing communism 
Recent Comments