This article was originally published in early November 2025, in issue #2 of International Marxism, international political journal of International Socialist Alternative. Click here to subscribe or to buy a copy of the full issue.
Every day, we witness the horrors inflicted by the murderous onslaught brought upon the people of Gaza, the ongoing meatgrinder in Ukraine, and the countless conflicts in Africa, which, while less publicized in the Western media, are certainly no less bloody and brutal.
These horrors are not remnants of the past, or “outliers,” but rather a consequence of a system that puts profits before lives. In the 2020s, capitalism still means war.
The world perspectives document adopted by International Socialist Alternative (ISA) at its World Congress in November last year underlined that increased inter-imperialist conflict was a central feature of the new capitalist epoch: “This is an age of imperialism, nationalism and militarism… an epoch of war, and the preparation of war.”
In the previous era (of neoliberal globalization), the U.S. and China were the main engines of world economic growth. Now, it is the global power struggle between these imperialist superpowers that is the axis around which world relations turn. Globalization and “free trade” are replaced by decoupling, protectionism, increased competition for resources, trade wars, and wars. As the 19th-century military strategist Claus von Clausewitz put it, “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”
According to the Institute of Economics and Peace, there are 59 “active conflicts” around the world today. This is the highest number since World War II. Last year, 17 countries registered more than 1,000 deaths each in armed conflicts. Conflicts are also becoming more international in scope, with 78 countries engaged in conflicts beyond their borders.
The fear of wars has also grown. A May YouGov survey conducted in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.S. shows that 41%-55% believe that another world war is likely in the next 5-10 years. In the event of a new world war, 68%-76% expect that it would involve the use of nuclear weapons.
The short confrontation this year between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers, raised this fear further. Putin has hinted several times at the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, saying that he “hopes” it will not be necessary.
These are just some of the endless reasons that workers and the oppressed need a new international anti-war movement. This must be a movement that firmly opposes all warmongering pro-imperialist governments and parties.
Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and solve the conflict in the Middle East. But far from a peacemaker, he is warmonger in chief, commanding the biggest military power on the planet. He is the sponsor-in-chief of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and took the lead when it came to the unprecedented bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran. It is sickening to witness the mass murderer Netanyahu thank Trump for the bombs used to kill children in Gaza by proposing him for the Nobel Peace Prize!
Trump has sought – in vain, so far – to wind down engagement in Ukraine to concentrate on the main conflict which concerns U.S. imperialism: that with China. The Western Pacific, and especially Taiwan, is a decisive theater of this power struggle. While currently not a theater of open armed conflict, it is at the very center of the preparations for war, which drive the accelerating arms race that dominates on both sides of the Pacific.
This is also seen in China’s bubbling conflict with several countries in the region over the control of the South China Sea, which would be a key strategic “choke point” in any future U.S./China war. China’s military exercises around Taiwan are also steadily escalating, with the flaunting of important new military hardware that is specifically designed for an invasion of the island.
Ever since capitalism has been in existence, movements against war have been an important factor in the radicalization of new generations. War makes it evident that we live in a sick system where resources that could ensure a better life and a safe environment are instead used to kill and destroy. Like the movement against the Vietnam War defined the generation of the 1960s and 1970s in many countries, the mass movement against the genocidal war in Gaza, which has endured for almost two years, has provoked a historic political awakening.
The Need for a Movement Against ALL Wars
This ongoing genocide has had a unique impact on consciousness for many reasons. In spite of the attempt by the murderous regime of Netanyahu, with the support of U.S. and European imperialism, to portray this as a just war of “defense” in response to the hideous attack by Hamas on October 7, the truth is obvious to millions: the Israeli state is the aggressor, in an extreme escalation of its decades-long regime of occupation, siege, repression, killings and land theft.
It is also obvious how this killing is made possible by the weapons and the billions of dollars poured into the Israeli war machine by successive U.S. administrations and Western governments. The total destruction of over 90% of residential buildings in Gaza, the constant displacement of over two million Palestinians, enforced starvation, and now thousands killed in death-traps disguised as “humanitarian” food distribution sites, have all been live-streamed on social media.
At the same time, there are many wars that don’t get the same coverage. In the recent civil war in Ethiopia from 2020-2, it is estimated that around 600,000 people were killed. In the ongoing Sudanese civil war, the current phase of which started in 2023, the estimate is that 300,000 have been killed and 2.7 million displaced. In the “Second Congo War” of 1998-2002, also known as “Africa’s World War”, as at least nine African nations were involved, an estimated 5.4 million deaths were caused by disease, malnutrition, and war crimes.
These wars are also rooted in imperialism, the legacy of colonialism, and the ongoing scramble for mineral resources. In July, Trump celebrated a fake “peace deal” between Congo and Rwanda, which didn’t even involve one of the main fighting groups, the Rwanda-backed militia M23. In reality, it was more of a deal to increase U.S. access to Congo’s huge mineral wealth, where Chinese companies had been dominating.
All wars are accompanied by mountains of war propaganda to hide the warmongers’ real motives and justify the enormous “sacrifices” demanded of the masses, who are war’s real victims. In justifying the invasion of Ukraine, Putin went back to the fourteenth century to explain why Ukraine should belong to Russia and attacked Lenin for defending Ukraine’s right to self-determination. His regime paints the war as one of “self-defense” against an expanding NATO, which is encroaching on Russia’s borders.
On the other hand, propaganda in the West paints the war in Ukraine as a “just war” against an “aggressive Russia” and in defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and of Europe in general. This has unleashed a wave of warmongering.
Mark Rutte, NATO’s Secretary General, said in a speech in December last year that “No, we are not at war. But we are certainly not at peace either.” All Swedish households have received a brochure with the title “In Case of Crisis or War” to stoke fear in the population. The German government has dedicated a mobile phone app to the same purpose!
While the masses of working-class and poor Ukrainian people resisting the Russian invasion are, of course, motivated by the desire to defend their homes and rights, the real meaning of the war can only be found in its importance as a theater of confrontation between imperialist powers. The Ukrainian armed forces are used as proxies for U.S. and Western imperialism. At the same time, Russia is backed by China and its allies, including Iran and North Korea. In this imperialist proxy war, both the Ukrainian and Russian people pay the price, with hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Imperialist and national conflicts are also increasingly interlinked internationally. Russia has been able to withstand heavy sanctions with the help of China and has been supported on the ground by North Korean troops. The private army of Russian mercenaries, Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group), has been involved in wars in Ukraine, Syria, and the Sahel region of Africa. Netanyahu is conducting a “seven-front war” to expand Israeli power in the region, taking advantage of the weakening of Iran.
U.S. imperialism has its tentacles everywhere, backing Ukraine and directly involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and recently in Iran. U.S. use of the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” bombs, the most powerful non-nuclear bombs ever made, against Iran was not only intended to shorten what could have exploded into a regional war, but also to send a message to Russia and China.
All these facts point to a common conclusion: the need for a movement against ALL wars, which attacks the root causes of the constant conflicts embedded in the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation. Reactionary figures like Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi, Xi Jinping, and others are all expressions of the same system in crisis.
As it stands, despite the real preparations for war in the Pacific, a direct war between the main imperialist powers is not imminent. Both U.S. and Chinese imperialism are in a deep crisis and would have to think twice before engaging in a war for which they are not yet prepared. Both run the risk of overreach. The U.S. had to make a humiliating retreat after two decades of a bloody quagmire in Afghanistan. Russia, bogged down in Ukraine, couldn’t do anything as its ally Iran was humiliated by Israel, and neither could China.
But the situation remains extremely dangerous. In response to the crisis, the only policies or methods that these regimes know are based on worsening the exploitation and oppression of the working class at home and abroad. This era has already shown that the scramble for power, markets, and resources will not be contained to trade wars alone and will be conducted “by other means,” as Clausewitz put it. And the capitalists are preparing for it today.
Oppose Militarism
The preparation for war is both material, in the form of a new arms race, but also ideological.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditure hit $2.7 trillion in 2024. This in itself proves how rotten this system is. These resources would be enough to eradicate poverty and hunger throughout the world and begin a green transition to reverse climate change and the destruction of the environment. Instead, more guns and bombs will spread hunger and famine, and create countless “carbon bombs” which accelerate the climate catastrophe.
The U.S. is by far the biggest overall spender, pouring out $997 billion in 2024 – 66% of total NATO spending and 37% of world military spending. Russia increased its spending by 38% in 2024 and Israel by 65%.
China has also had three decades of steady growth in military budgets. It is now the world’s second biggest spender and accounts for 50% of all military spending in Asia and Oceania.
Japan increased its spending by 21% in 2024, the largest increase since 1952, and Germany has become the fourth biggest military spender, after the U.S., China, and Russia.
While ceremonies are held to remember the victims of the atomic bomb that killed 140,000 people in one stroke 80 years ago in Hiroshima, spending on nuclear weapons is also on the rise. In 2023, global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 13% and in 2024 by another 11%, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
These massive investments will continue to rise this year. Europe, shown to be helplessly dependent on the U.S. during the Ukraine war, is now rapidly expanding its military budget. In March this year, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, presented a plan to increase military expenditure in Europe by €800 billion over the next four years.
Governments will try to pay for this in part by increasing debt, but also by cutting social spending. NATO leader Mark Rutte made it clear in his speech in December that increasing military spending means “spending less on other priorities,” like pensions, health, and social security. This is a recipe for huge class struggles in the coming years, as workers and youth will resist cuts to pay for weapons.
This means that the ruling classes must also conduct an ideological battle to stifle opposition, promoting militarism as part of a nationalist reaction. Part of this is also to push a macho militaristic culture, attacking trans people and women’s rights, reasserting “traditional” gender roles. The CCP regime in China is promoting a campaign to make men more “manly,” including banning “effeminate” men on TV, while Trump has banned trans people in the army.
This is part of the reactionary turn of capitalism around the world. Besides promoting militarism and nationalism, it also has the objective of dividing the opposition against its policies. They have seen the waves of radicalizing youth that have gone onto the streets in their millions in the last period: against austerity, gender violence, climate change, racism, corruption, dictatorship, and more recently against the genocide in Gaza. An important aspect of all those movements is a growing internationalism and understanding that the issues are connected, and the problem is systemic. These conclusions are like poison for the elites. “Divide and rule” is a life and death issue for them. This explains how quickly “woke capitalism” was abandoned by many governments, corporate leaders, and media figures.
Oppose All Imperialism
In 1916, the Russian revolutionary Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, in the middle of a burning world war, to analyze the logic behind this madness. His words are still more than relevant to understand what is happening today:
“Capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of the financial strangulation of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world by a handful of ‘advanced’ countries. And this ‘booty’ is shared between two or three powerful world marauders armed to the teeth… who involve the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty.”
Imperialist conflict has had different configurations during the history of capitalism. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Stalinism and the USSR, the U.S. emerged as the sole superpower, posing as the world’s police force. This was evident in the Gulf War of 1991, when even Russia supported the U.S. attack against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. However, “Pax Americana” didn’t last for long, even if the long-term decline of U.S. dominance seemed to be halted for a period in the heyday of globalization. But the rise of China, threatening U.S. dominance, and the onset of the crisis of 2008 put an end to that.
Though Trump has departed from this playbook, the U.S. has traditionally posed as the leader of the “free world,” promoting “democracy.” But history is filled with the U.S. invading countries, promoting coups, and supporting dictatorships, as was seen in Trump’s big tour of Middle Eastern dictatorships, passing through Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.
Equally false is the pretence of Xi Jinping to be leading a counterweight to U.S. imperialism as leader of the “Global South’’. Due to the history of U.S. dominance and imperialist intervention, it is understandable that many in Africa, Latin America, and Asia could have illusions in China or Russia as somehow progressive alternatives. But this would mean falling into a fatal trap, as shown by Moscow and Beijing’s alliances with many other dictatorships around the world.
China’s aggressive “investments” in many countries are in no way progressive. The Chinese imperialists act just like all exploitative employers and plunderers of resources in search of profits. China has emerged as the world’s largest creditor, following one of the main aspects of imperialism as analysed by Lenin: the export of capital.
Some on the left have fallen for the imperialist narrative of China and Russia in recent conflicts. During the mass movement in Hong Kong in 2019, many old and newer Stalinists defended China as a “socialist” regime being attacked by demonstrators mobilized by the CIA. On the war in Ukraine, not many openly defend Russia’s invasion, though some say that it was a “justified response to NATO aggression.” More common is for some from the Stalinist tradition to put the “main blame” on the U.S. or even argue that the best outcome is for a Russian victory, to avoid a “unipolar” U.S.-dominated world. They argue falsely that China and Russia belong to an “anti-imperialist camp.”
On the other hand, many can be found on the reformist left that defend or capitulate to the U.S. and NATO, especially on the question of Ukraine, and on the “need for” increased military spending. AOC and Bernie Sanders in the U.S., while opposing Israel’s crimes in Gaza, have supported arming Ukraine. Even some that claim a revolutionary Marxist tradition, like the misnamed “Fourth International,” have capitulated to this pressure, supporting the sending of arms by NATO to Kyiv.
Many follow the logic of “campism,” that in a conflict, you must choose sides. This is the logic followed also by the International Workers League (LIT – a “Morenoite” current of Trotskyism) in relation to the Middle East. They argue that they are “in the Iranian military camp against the Zionist state” and that Iran should “go toward a total war against Israel.”
What all of these mistaken positions have in common is that they don’t start from the capacity of the working class to take an independent position. Ultimately, they hold a very pessimistic position, where workers and youth are limited to picking imperialist sides.
No Military Solution
This is also linked to a vision that the main solution to these conflicts is a military one, and that what counts is to have the best and most weapons on the right side. Marxists are not pacifists. We defend the right of oppressed people to defend themselves, including with weapons.
Historically, this included the defense of the Bolshevik government, which was put in place by the working class in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the young Russian workers’ state against the reactionary “White armies” and invading imperialist powers that attempted to crush the first victorious socialist revolution. But the victory of the Russian revolution against these (far better equipped) armies was only possible on the basis of a social revolution that gave land to the peasants, freedom to oppressed nations, rights to workers, women, and LGBTQ people, and put the economy at the service of the working people. This is the path that can lead the struggles of oppressed people to victory.
It is an illusion to think that the Ukrainian people will gain freedom with the help of NATO, becoming at best a vassal state for Western imperialism. Even more utopian is the idea that the Palestinian people (or Iran) will, by military means alone, defeat the U.S.-backed Israeli regime.
The first Palestinian Intifada of 1988-1993 was one of mass resistance, organized from below, and proved much more efficient than the PLO’s bombings and hijackings, or Hamas rockets and suicide bombings later, not to mention the reactionary attack on civilians on October 7.
To avoid disastrous pitfalls, the anti-war movement needs to oppose all imperialist powers. In turn, that is only possible if it is based on an independent workers’ movement armed with a program capable of overcoming and replacing this rotten system, which is only possible on an international scale.
A Consistent Anti-war, Anti-Imperialist Position Must Be Socialist
Opposing imperialism and war consistently means opposing capitalism.
Over the years, this has also been graphically reflected in historic betrayals by workers’ leaders who abandoned any pretense of opposing capitalism and contented themselves with a perspective of reforming its worst excesses (an approach Marxists call “reformism”).
The “Second” Socialist International, which started as a Marxist and revolutionary international organization with the aim of toppling capitalism, went through a process of reformist degeneration. A layer of party leaders, elected representatives, and trade union bureaucrats gained privileges and distanced themselves both from the movement’s base and from a program for socialist transformation.
This degeneration was most decisively expressed on the question of war. The international passed resolutions against war and militarism at its Stuttgart Congress in 1907 and in Basel in 1912. The resolutions emphasized the need for socialist parties to coordinate efforts to resist war and called for a general strike if war broke out. Tragically, when the war broke out in 1914, all the main “social democratic” parties took the side of their own governments.
This shameful episode set the tone for the subsequent history of reformist parties, most of which have now been transformed into bourgeois parties, supporting and even waging wars while in government. When George W Bush launched the war against Iraq in 2003, based on fake reports about Saddam Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction, his main ally was Tony Blair and his “New Labour.”
A better example was given by the youth organization of the Swedish social democrats 120 years ago. In 1905, the Norwegian parliament declared independence from the Swedish monarchy. The newly formed social democratic youth league held its first congress just a few days later and adopted a manifesto called “Peace with Norway – down with weapons,” arguing for protests and strikes against the threat of war from reactionary forces and the King.
One hundred thousand copies of the manifesto were printed, and 250 mass demos and rallies were organized. Workers’ solidarity – including by Norwegian workers with Swedish factory workers locked out by bosses – was also an important feature. This impressive campaign stayed the hand of the Swedish elite, which feared a repetition of the Russian revolution of 1905 that was underway at the time. The author of the manifesto, Zeth Höglund, spent six months in jail, but war was stopped. This is the tradition that we must build upon!
The fact is that workers’ struggle and social revolutions have proven to be the best way to stop wars. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the German Revolution of 1918 put an end to World War I. The strength of the Vietnam movement in the U.S., which, together with the revolutionary resistance of the Vietnamese people, stopped the war, also came from the ongoing radicalization of the civil rights and Black freedom movement, the struggle for women’s and queer people’s rights, student movements, and workers’ strikes.
Mass demos are essential to mobilize and raise consciousness, but are in themselves not enough. Faced with the planned invasion of Iraq by Bush and co in 2003, what is sometimes described as the biggest ever day of protests was organized on February 15, with tens of millions taking to the streets around the world. However, the war went ahead anyway. In the same way, we have seen huge marches against the war in Gaza, but that hasn’t been enough.
The working class has the power to step up the struggle by using its power more directly. We have seen glimpses of what is possible with dock workers in Sweden, Belgium, France, Greece, and Italy refusing to load weapons meant for Israel. Those kinds of actions, including strikes by workers engaged in the manufacture and distribution of weapons, or even the transportation of troops, would have the capacity to bring the war machine to a halt. Of course, if left alone, those workers would soon be victimized. So they must be backed up with solidarity, with strikes by workers in other sectors, up to and including general strikes directed against militarism and governments.
Those solidarity movements will be made much stronger if combined with demands for improvements to the conditions of all workers. At the time of writing, 3,200 Boeing workers at a plant that manufactures fighter jets in the U.S. are on strike. The anti-war movement should defend their rights too.
Military budgets must be slashed and the money diverted toward public programs to build housing, invest in free public schools, healthcare, and public transport, and a green transition. The military industry must be nationalized under workers’ control and management, so it can be retooled to make products that are socially useful, not arms. With this approach, every job is secure and millions more can be created. In the end, governments in pursuit of their fundamental imperialist interests, when set on war, will not easily back down. An anti-war movement must be ready to go all the way and topple belligerent governments, but also to get rid of the system that survives and renews itself through war.
A new international anti-war movement must therefore fight for a socialist future, free of wars, oppression, and exploitation! As Trotsky, with his ironclad conviction in the capacity for the working class to build a new future, put it: “Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence and enjoy it to the full.”
Photo: Ukrain4Pal Wikimedia Commons
